either in city or country. And I must have two footmen. My desire is, that you defray all the charges for me. And for myself, besides my yearly allowance, I would have twenty gowns of apparel, six of them excellent good ones, eight of them for the country, and six other of them very excellent good ones. Also I would have to put in my purse 20007, and 2007, and so, you to pay my debts. Also I would have 6000l. to buy me jewels, and 4000l. to buy me a pearl chain. Now, seeing I have been, and am, so reasonable unto you, I pray you do find my children apparel, and their schooling, and all my servants, men and women, their wages. Also, I will have all my houses furnished, and my lodging chambers to be suited with all such furniture as is fit; as beds, stools, chairs, suitable cushions, carpets, silver warmingpans, cupboards of plate, fair hangings, and such like. So for my drawing-chamber in all houses, I will have them delicately furnished, both with hangings, couch, canopy, glass, carpet, chairs, cushions, and all things thereunto belonging. Also, my desire is, that you would pay your debts, build up Ashby House, and purchase lands, and lend no money, as you love God, to my lord-chamberlain, who would have all, perhaps your life, from you.. ... So, now that I have declared to you what I would have, and what it is that I would not have, I pray you, when you be an earl, to allow me 2000l. more than I now desire, and double attendance." * * Harleian MSS., No. 7003, fol. 105. THE TRAGEDY OF LAWFORD HALL. Just sixty years have elapsed since the death of Sir Theodosius Boughton at Lawford Hall, and yet the deepest interest still attaches to the melancholy story. The guilt of the unhappy man, who suffered for the supposed murder, remains to this day veiled in mystery, and the subject is more frequently canvassed than almost any other conviction upon record. Donellan may or may not have been innocent, but, most certainly, the feeling that must arise in every impartial mind, from a patient perusal of the trial is, that the conviction was not justified by the evidence adduced. The judge, who presided, had evidently imbibed a bias against the accused, and Lady Boughton, the mother of Sir Theodosious being strongly prejudiced in the same direction, seems to have allowed her testimony to be seriously affected by her prejudices. In those times, the prisoner's counsel was not permitted to address the jury, and thus the strong points of defence were not urged with proper force or skill. Had the learned advocate, Mr. Newnham, who so ably cross-examined the witnesses, been allowed to complete his task by a commentary on the evidence, he would, doubtless, have impressed on the jury these three important facts :-first, that there was not sufficient proof that Sir Theodosius died by poison at all; secondly, that, if he did die by poison, there was no proof that it was laurel water; and, thirdly, that if he did die by poison, and that poison laurel water, there was not sufficient evidence to show that Captain Donellan administered it, either directly or indirectly. In addition to the doubts created by this view of the case, we have the last words of the prisoner before his execution:-"As I am now going," exclaimed the dying man, "to appear before God, to whom all deceit is known, I solemnly declare that I am innocent of the crime for which I suffer. I have drawn up a vindication of myself,* which I hope the world will believe, for it is of more consequence to me to speak truth than falsehood, and I have no doubt that time will reveal the many mysteries that have arisen at the trial." At the John Donellan was the son of Lieutenant-Colonel Donellan, and was born about the year 1737. early age of twelve he entered the royal regiment of artillery, with part of which corps he went to the East Indies in 1754. On his arrival there he changed into the 39th foot, but on that regiment being ordered home, he, with many others of its officers, had his Majesty's leave to remain in the service of the East-India Company, without prejudice to their rank in the army. He there obtained a company, and is said to have distinguished himself as a soldier, and to have been particularly instrumental in the taking of Mazulapatam. However, being appointed one of the four agents for prize money, he condescended to receive presents from some black merchants, to whom part of their effects had been ordered to be restored. For this he was tried by a court * From papers left behind him for the purpose, a very elaborate and well-written defence was composed and published almost immediately after his death: it produced a great sensation at the time. martial and cashiered, and with this sentence Captain Donellan's military character expired. Disgraced, however, as he was, he made one effort to retrieve his reputation, and, on Colonel Forde's return from Golconda to Bengal, offered his services as a volunteer. This offer was not accepted, and the Captain embarked for England. On Captain Donellan's retirement from active service, he became a man of fashion in London, and his address recommended him to the office of Master of the Ceremonies at the Pantheon, an employment which he filled with credit and profit. His first acquaintance with the Boughton family arose at Bath, in the following manner: Lady Boughton and her daughter, arriving on a visit to that city, found every bed in every Inn preoccupied; and it was signified by the landlord of the hotel at which they stopped, that they had no alternative but to sleep on the chairs of their sitting-room. This fact coming to the knowledge of Donellan, who had for some days occupied a chamber in the house, be requested the landlord to introduce him to the ladies, and he made them an offer of his bed in so polite a manner, that it was accepted. In return, the ladies invited the gallant Captain to breakfast with them in the morning, which the enterprising Donellan improved into such an acquaintance, that soon after, in 1777, he married Miss Boughton, a sister of Sir Theodosius, the brother and sister being the only surviving children of Sir Edward Boughton, Bart., of Lawford Hall, in the county of Warwick. At the time of his sister's marriage, Sir Theodosius Boughton was just entering into his seventeenth year, and was a student at Eton, where Mr. and Mrs. Donellan paid him their nuptial visit, and, soon after, took up their residence at Bath. Although Captain Donellan possessed little or no fortune of his own, and the match was, at first, disapproved of by the friends of the lady, a reconciliation was effected by Donellan's agreeing, not only to settle the whole of his wife's actual fortune upon herself, but also everything which she might afterwards become entitled to, either by inheritance or legacy. Such was the apparently happy commencement of an alliance which ended so disastrously. The arrival of Captain and Mrs. Donellan at Lawford Hall occurred in June, 1778, about a year after their marriage; and it appears they continued resident and domesticated there from that time until the sudden death of Sir Theodosius, in 1780. At Lawford Hall, the influence of the Captain was very great. He was in the maturity of active life-that is, in his seven or eight and thirtieth year, while Lady Boughton was aged, and the Baronet scarcely twenty; his ascendancy will therefore not appear surprising. Other circumstances tended to give him this weight; Lady Boughton was not a very intellectual woman, and her ill-fated son appears to have been occupied entirely by his pleasures. The first visit Donellan paid to the youth was at Eton; he had then just completed his sixteenth year, and was under the care of a medical gentleman, for a complaint. From Eton he was removed to Northampton, and placed under the private tuition of a Mr. Jones; and it is proved that he was also medically attended there. It further appears, that he indulged in the dangerous habit of prescribing for himself, and that he was continually taking physic; and, lastly, he was again in ill health at the time of his death. Such, with the addition of the unhappy Mrs. Donellan, was the family circle at Lawford Hall; and if to the foregoing particulars it be added, that the latter was heir-at-law to the larger part of her brother's fortune, if he died without legitimate issue, and that the ostensible |