Essex's life, in order to enable the Countess to marry Somerset. Mr. Chamberlain writes-" There was a speech of a divorce to be prosecuted this term betwixt the Earl of Essex and his lady, and to that end he was content to confess (whether true or feigned) insufficiency in himself; but there happened an accident that much altered the case; for she, having sought out a certain wise woman, had much conference with her; and she, after the nature of such creatures, drawing much money from her, at last cozened her of a jewell of great value, for which being apprehended and clapt up, she accused the lady of divers strange questions and projects; and in conclusion, that she dealt with her for the making away of her lord, as aiming at another mark; upon which scandal and slander the Lord Chamberlain (Somerset) and his friends think it not fit to proceed with the divorce." Now this was written more than four months before the poisoning of Overbury, seven months before the marriage of the Earl of Somerset, and no less than three entire years before all these machinations were exposed to the world. Mr. Nichols remarks-" that the scandal was silenced at this time by the Countess and her guilty paramour; yet it seems wonderful that even the powerful influence of the favourite should have been sufficient to suppress the public rumours;" but "close to the regal chair," during these three years, sate the twin Furies, fear and shame; and if this was in truth the " damned spot of blood" that we have been seeking, no doubt all the power of the Crown and its minions was exerted to conceal it. Language must want a meaning, and the passions and conduct of men can no longer be the authentic interpreters of their thoughts, if some terrible secret, some unrevealed crime, was not shaking the bosom of the guilty King, and frightening his mind "from its propriety" by the prospect of detection. Some intolerable wrong had been done: what it was, perhaps, will now never be disclosed; but we think that it lies within the circle of the suppositions which we have made. The times were indeed calamitous and sad : impurity and dishonour, and all sensual lusts and desires and vanities were holding their guilty revel in their luxurious chambers, soon to be the abode of darkness, and the prison of suffering and woe. Quid memorem infandas cædes?" The degradation of the times polluted even its literature, so that it is difficult for the most impartial mind, in this reign, to separate truth and falsehood, as they are thrown together in the virulent and base party pamphlets of the time, which are now the necessary, but unworthy, materials of our history. Would any man of sense, of feeling, or of honour, believe what Sir S. D'Ewes relates of Sir F. Bacon?

66

"Pudet hæc opprobria nobis

Et dici potuisse, et non potuisse refelli."

We will now favour Mr. Jesse with the names of one or two contemporary treatises on the subject, which we possess, and of which, probably, he never heard:-1. "The bloody downfall of Adultery, Murder, and Ambition, presented in a black scene of God's just judgments, in revenge of innocent blood lately shed in this kingdom; to which are added, Mistress Turner's last teares for the murder of Sir T. Overbury, who was poysoned in the Tower." This small book is in verse, with a portrait of Mrs. Turner, and bears no date. 2. " Niccol's Richard, Sir T. Overburies Vision with the gloasts of Weston, Mrs. Turner, the late Lieftenant of the

On these degraded and wretched times; compare Wilson's Life of James, p. 146; Parr's Life of Usher, p. 397; Sanderson's History of James, p. 412. To give an idea of the middle ranks, generally esteemed most correct, the account of the "citizens' wives" in the comedies of the age is quite sufficient.-See Wharton's Life of Laud, p. 183.

Tower, and Franklin." 1616. This is also a poem of great rarity; the author of it was the same person who continued the Mirror for Magistrates in 1610. A. Wood has not mentioned this among his works. There is a poem on the death of Overburie, in Pieces of Ancient Poetry, 4to. p. 21, Bristol. "There was an old lad," &c. Also an Elegy on Sir T. Overbury's prison in the Tower, in W. Brown's MSS. Poems, 4to. p. 111, ed. Brydges. We shall only add that, Mr. Jesse being himself a poet, might in duty have thrown a few of the flowers upon Overbury's grave, * which had blossomed under the purer sunshine of his early life; it would not have been descending below the dignity of history, for év roinuaoi, says Plutarch, προςφιλοσοφήτεον.

In the Life of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, (vol. i. p. 317,) Mr. Jesse might have added to the interest of his narrative, as well, perhaps, as have more fully pourtrayed the early character of the nobleman, had he informed his readers of the curious discovery, made not long since, that it was to this person to whom, under the initial letters of W. H. the Sonnets of Shakspeare were inscribed, as "the only begetter" of them. The hypothesis, as Mr. Hallam observes, is not strictly proved, but sufficiently so to demand our assent; and it is the only hypothesis that has been made, that can at all relieve these very extraordinary productions of our greatest poet, of some of the mystery which hangs over expressions of passion most equivocally expressed, and of devotedness and idolatry so intensely displayed, as far to surpass all the natural and intelligible feelings of the mind. What can be the meaning of language addressed "to some unknown youth," so rapturous, so intensely passionate, that Mr. Coleridge's impression was "that they could only have come from a man deeply in love, and in love with a woman?" View them in the most favourable light, and yet we must agree with Mr. Hallam, "that it is impossible not to wish that Shakspeare had never written them. There is a weakness and folly in all excessive and misplaced affection, which is not redeemed by the touches of nobler sentiments that abound in this long series of sonnets." All that can be said in their favour, is well expressed by the same writer. "If we seize a clue which innumerable passages give us, and suppose that they allude to a youth of high rank, as well as personal beauty and accomplishment, in whose favour and intimacy, according to the base prejudices of the world, a player and a poet-though he were the author of Macbeth-might be thought honoured; something of the strangeness, as it appears to us, of Shakspeare's humiliation in addressing himas a being before whose feet he crouched, whose frown he feared, whose injuries, and those of the most insulting kind, the seduction of the mistress to whom we have alluded, he felt and bewailed, without resenting-something, we say, of the strangeness of this humiliation-and it is at best but a little-may be lightened, and in a certain sense rendered intelligible." When Mr. Jesse speaks of this nobleman, "as standing a superior being among the buffoons and sycophants of the court of James; among them, but not of them; (p. 317;) we are constrained to add a note, not much

* We take this opportunity of saying, that the last edition of Overbury, 1753, (the tenth,) has omitted some things which are to be found in the edition of 1638, as, 1. Ad Comitissam Rutlandiæ; 2. Paradoxes; 3. Receipts; 4. The Mountebank's Song.

It is strange that "Overbury," was overlooked by Mr. Ellis in his specimens. That very scarce poem, "The Husbande," 1614, (of which only one copy is known,) with commendatory verses by B. Jonson, (not in his works,) was suggested by Over. ury's "Wife."

+ See Hallam's Intr. to Lit. vol. iii. p. 502.

in harmony with the text, from the writer whom we have just quoted, and say, that "proofs of the low moral character of Mr. W. H. are continual."

We could have wished that Mr. Jesse had allowed himself more ample room in his account of "that great secretary of nature, Francis Bacon;' for his Memoirs of the "wisest of mankind," are scarcely more copious that those of " Archée, the court fool." He is also surely wrong in calling him "Lord Bacon," a title he never had; and also at p. 363, there is an error: it was not to Lord Bacon, but to his father Sir Nicholas Bacon, that Queen Elizabeth made the observation on his house, which was at Gorhambury and not Redgrave, Suffolk. It is a curious fact, that a few years ago, the fine monument and statue of white marble, erected over him in St. Michael's Church, St. Alban's, was stolen in the night, carried out of the chancel window, and found the next morning lying broken in the churchyard it is supposed that the sacrilegious robber found its weight too great to be removed without discovery.

:

In his account of the discovery of the burial place of Charles the First (vol. ii. p. 198) Mr. Jesse has transcribed part of the well written narrative drawn up by Sir Henry Halford, to which we here allude, on account of the following passage: "The left eye in the first moment of discovery was open and full, though it vanished almost immediately." As this most interesting and curious circumstance had made an impression on our minds from the time we first read the narrative, we spoke of it a few months ago to the very respectable and intelligent person who shows St. George's Chapel to visitors, who assured us repeatedly and emphatically, that he was present during the whole disinterment, that he saw distinctly and watched carefully everything that occurred, and that the eye of the dead King, over which the shadows of death had passed two centuries ago, was not again open with the semblance and mockery of life. We say this with every wish to avoid giving offence, but thinking it may lead to the discovery of the truth, on which ever side it may be found, on this singularly interesting point.

Mr. Jesse speaks (vol. ii. p. 216) "of the reputed loveliness of Henrietta, which, notwithstanding the exquisite portraits of Vandyck, and the enthusiasm of the contemporary poets, has been occasionally disputed." We will give him a good authority on this subject, not quoted before :-" Cette Princesse," says Mad. de Motteville, "était fort defigurée par la grandeur de sa maladie, et des ses malheurs, et n'avoit plus guère de marquer de sa beauté passée. Elle avoit les yeux beaux, le teint admirable, et le nez bien fait. Il y avoit dans son visage quelque chose de si agreable qu'elle se faisoit aimer de tout le monde. Mais elle étoit maigre et petite: elle avoit même la taille gatée, et sa bouche, qui naturellement n'étoit pas belle, par la maigreur de son visage, étoit devenue grande. J'ai vu de ses portraits, qui etoient faits du temps de sa beauté, qui montroient qu'elle avoit été fort aimable, et comme sa beauté n'avoit durée que l'espace du matin, et l'avoit quittée avant son midi; elle avoit accoutumé de maintenir, que les femmes ne peuvent plus étre belles passé vingt-deux ans."* The same authority informs us that her misfortunes had so overwhelmed her, and her mind was so penetrated with the sorrows of her situation, that she was always in tears. Her intellect was so shaken, that one day saying to her physician, "she feared she should lose her reason,"-" fear not, Madam," he said, "you have already lost it." "Vous n'avez que faire de le craindre, Madame, vous l'etes déjà.' Does Mr. Jesse know of that curious document, the account of the civil wars and revolution, taken from the recital of Henrietta, and printed

See Mémoires de M. de Motteville, t. i. p. 290,

in Madame Motteville's Memoirs? How much Cardinal Richelieu was implicated in fomenting our troubles, is there shown: see also Heylin's Life of Laud (p. 396). Mad. de Motteville saw Henrietta the day after she heard the news of Charles's death, and the account she gives of the interview is most affecting. She said she had lost "un roi, un mari, un ami," her king, her husband, and her friend, and she wondered how she could still live. From living so long in England, it was observed that she had lost the correctness and purity of her French style and pronunciation. Mr. Jesse has given a very fair and judicious character of Lord Falkland (vol. ii. p. 412;) but as the anecdotes which he has collected, have been well known to the reader of history, he would have added much interest and some novelty to his sketch, if he had entered into the subject of the poetical character and talents of Lord Falkland. A few years since we collected his poems, from many scarce and obscure volumes in which they were dispersed, and printed them in three or four successive numbers of this Magazine.* They are well worthy of his high reputation, and should find their way into the general collection of the English Poets. The late Sir Egerton Brydges expressed his thanks to us for our labours, which he was pleased to esteem, and to think that we had made a grateful offering to the patriot's tomb, when we led the Muses from the battle-fieldὅπλα γὰρ ἐχθρῶν

Καρποὺς Ειρήνης ἀντεδίδαξε τρέφειν.

Had Mr. Jesse thought fit, he might have enriched his life of Suckling with many entertaining pieces of humour and satire, which are not noticed in the ordinary biographies and accounts of the poet. Did Mr. Jesse ever see a scarce pamphlet-" Letter sent from Sir John Suckling from France, deploring his sad Estate and Flight," 1641? The pasquinade on Sir T. Suckling begins

"Goe, dolefull sheete, to every streete

Of London round about-a;

And tell 'um all thy master's fall

That live bravely mought-a."

It is further valuable as proving that Sir J. Suckling was living in Paris June 16, 1641; whereas modern writers, among whom is Mr. Jesse, place his death in May 1641. As regards Suckling's plays, we take the opportunity of observing that Mr. Warburton, the herald, had manuscripts of them more perfect than those published, which were destroyed, among the others, by his servant. One of Owen Feltham's poems, "6 When, dearest, I but think on thee," see Resolves (Lusoria), fol. p. 29, is often given to Suckling, and placed in his works. Sheridan appears to have had a design of re-modelling Suckling's Goblins, and adapting it to the modern stage; but he left his sketch imperfect, and without a name. We must now break off in our vague and pleasing wanderings in the land of song; we must leave

"The gleam, the shadow, and the Peace supreme;

but we trust not before we have left an agreeable impression on the minds of our readers of Mr. Jesse's volumes, which will make no unworthy companion of Mr. D'Israeli's admirable Memorials of Charles the First. The style in which they are written is pleasing and generally correct: there are a few, and but few, negligences, and we fortunately only once meet with such an expression as "the conduct of Henrietta was not felicitous !" (vol. ii. p. 202).

* See Gent. Mag, New Series, Vol. IV. 42, 268, 389; vol. IX. 153, 272.

SHOTTESBROOKE CHURCH, BERKSHIRE.

(With a Plate.)