Mrs. Turner, who had received it from the Countess of Somerset, they may be accepted as a tolerably accurate though fragmentary account of the plot.

Franklyn said, the Lord Treasurer [Suffolk] being named, that he was as far in as himself.

'He said that the Lady of Somerset was the most imprudent woman that lived.

'He confessed that he said at the bar to some near to him that there were greater persons in this matter than were yet known, and so, in truth then, said he, there are, and that, although the Chief Justice has found and sifted out as much as any man could, yet that he is much awry, and has not come to the ground of the business, for more were to be poisoned and murdered than are yet known; and he marvelled that they have not been poisoned and murdered all this while.1 He said further, that the man was not known that gave him [Overbury] the clyster, and that was it that did the deed. He said "I could have put the Chief Justice in the right way the first day I came to him.”

And being asked whether he should not have had an hundred pounds to be employed to the Palsgrave and the Lady Elizabeth, answered, "An hundred! nay, five hundred. I will not say however much."

'He said that the Earl of Somerset and the countess had the most aspiring minds that ever were heard or read of.2

1 See the last note but one as to the words in italics.

2 The inference from this and other passages in the examinations is, that Somerset and his countess aimed at the Crown. The scheme, however, seems very wild and impracticable, even with the assistance of Northampton's abilities, directed by an ambition thoroughly unscrupulous and, as his letters to the Lieutenant of the Tower respecting Overbury show, even inhuman.

'He said that the Earl of Somerset had a great book of . . . . and . . . . to rise, which book Franklyn had once; and said that the earl neither loved the prince1 nor the Lady Elizabeth. "I could say more, but I will

not."

"Do not you . . the king used an outlandish physician and an outlandish apothecary about him [Prince Charles] and about the late prince, deceased? Therein," said he, "lyeth a long tale."

'Being told that the queen had been extraordinarily sick and pained, and her young children taken he, "Soft, I am not come to it yet."

away, said

"He said, "I think next the Gunpowder Treason there was never such a plot as this is. I could discover knights, great men, and others. I am almost ashamed to speak what I know."

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'It was said to him that it was not possible that so young a lady as Somerset should contrive such a plot without some help. No, no," said he, "who can think otherwise? for the lady had no money, but the money was had from the old lady, out one day 2001. and another day 5007., for she wanted no money."

'He said that there is one living about the town that is fit to be called and questioned about the plot against the Earl of Essex.

"He said, "I can make one discovery that should deserve

life. my

2

1 It would appear from what follows that 'the Prince' here means Prince Charles.

2 MS. State Paper Office, 1615, Nov. 28, No. 326, in Sir E. Coke's handwriting. Amos, pp. 227-229.

ESSAY VIII.

SIR THOMAS OVERBURY.

We now come to the case of Sir Thomas Overbury, whose death was the third of the six deaths that took place 'with suspicion of poison' in the space of two years.

Sir Thomas Overbury, one of King James's legion of knights, was the eldest son of Nicholas Overbury, of Bourton on the Hill, in Gloucestershire. In Michaelmas Term, 1595, he became a gentleman commoner of Queen's College, Oxford, 'in the year of his age fourteen,' says Anthony à Wood.1 From Oxford he went to the Middle Temple, of which society his father was a bencher. 2 He does not appear, however, to have devoted more time. to the mysteries of pleading or conveyancing than was necessary for the attempt to make an Inns of Court man' and a meer common lawyer'3 ridiculous in a caricature, as Wycherley picked up just as much law as was necessary to make a petifogging attorney amusing in a comedy.

1 Wood's Ath. Oxon, art. Thomas Overbury. There is a long article on Sir Thomas Overbury in the Biographia Britannica. There is also one in Chalmer's Biographical Dictionary.

2 Sir Simonds D'Ewes's Autobiography, vol. i. p. 68: London, 1845. Though D'Ewes is incorrect in calling Sir Thomas Overbury's father Thomas, he was not likely to be incorrect in calling him one of the ancient benchers of the Middle Temple,' since D'Ewes was himself a member of the Middle Temple.

3 These are the titles of two of Overbury's 'characters,' most of which would be much more correctly designated 'caricatures' than 'characters.'

Fortune, however, threw in the way of Overbury what appeared at first sight a far shorter, easier, and more tempting road to distinction than the steep and thorny path of the law. But that tempting road to what might seem wealth and honour was a path that led Overbury to an untimely death; and, what was worse, to the loss of honour as well as life. And the fate of Overbury shows how much more dangerous a place was the court of James I. than the court of Charles II. Wycherley owed his introduction to the court of Charles II. to the favour of the Duchess of Cleveland. Overbury owed his introduction to the court of James I. to the favour of Robert Carr. Low as was the morality of the court of Charles II., it was not darkened by those clouds of crime that hang in black masses over the court of James I., and more or less envelop the figures of all the principal courtiers that of Overbury among the rest. There were women, too, in the court of Charles II.-Sarah Jennings, for example, afterwards Duchess of Marlborough--whose characters were irreproachable.

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According to Aubrey, old Sir Robert Harley of Brampton Brian Castle, who knew him, would say, 'twas a great question who was the proudest, Sir Walter Raleigh or Sir Thomas Overbury, but the difference that was, was judged on Sir Thomas's side.'1 Sir Walter Raleigh had some reason to be proud. To say nothing of Raleigh's other great accomplishments, as soldier, sailor, statesman, historian, philosopher, the few short poems which he has left are perhaps unequalled both in thought and expression. Of Overbury's writings, on

1 Aubrey's Lives, vol. ii. p. 509: London, 1813.

the other hand, the literary merit is not great; and Overbury had no pretensions to any of the qualities of a daring soldier and sailor which have made Raleigh's name so famous.

Mr. Hallam' says The Microcosmography of Bishop Earle is not an original work in its plan or mode of execution; it is a close imitation of the "Characters" of Sir Thomas Overbury. They both belong to the favourite style of apophthegm, in which every sentence is a point or a witticism. Earle has more natural humour than Overbury, and hits his mark more neatly; the other is more satirical, but often abusive and vulgar.' This is true, and cost Overbury his life. The 'Fair and Happy Milkmaid,' often quoted,' continues Mr. Hallam, is the best of his characters. The wit is often trivial and flat; the sentiments have nothing in them general or worthy of much resemblance.'

These last words I do not clearly understand. If they mean that the opinions have in them nothing of profound penetration and universal truth, such as appear in the writings of Bacon and in some of those of Raleigh, I agree with them. As far as I can judge-and writing with a due sense of what critics are apt to forget, that criticism is easy and art is difficult-Overbury's 'characters' are written in a strained, forced, very artificial style or manner, as if the writer were putting himself into convulsions to try to say smart things; and many of his smart things, as his characters of an Old Man,' of 'a Puritan,' of a Rhymer,' could only come from a man whose heart was as depraved as his taste in writing. His

6

1 Literature of Europe, vol. iii. p. 664.