Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441

The first of a series of volumes, designed to contain the literary, political, and social reminiscences of Mr Jerdan during the last fifty years, has just seen the light. It will be found to be one of the most amusing books of the day, and also not without a moral of its own kind. We presume it is of no use to debate how far it is allowable to bring before the public matters pertaining to private life, and about which living individuals may feel a delicacy. The time for such questions seems past. Assuming so much, we at least feel pretty sure that the lives and characters of living men could scarcely be in gentler or more genial hands than those of William Jerdan.

Mr Jerdan is chiefly known as having been for a third of a century the editor of the London Literary Gazette, a work which used to report on literature with a sympathy for authors strikingly in contrast with the tone of some of its contemporaries, in whom it would almost appear as if the saying of a kind word, or even the doing of simple justice towards a book, were felt as a piece of inexcusable weakness. He is now, at seventy, relieved from his cares, with little tangible result from his long and active career; but for this the readers of his autobiography will be at no loss to account. Jerdan has evidently been a kind-hearted, mirth-making, tomorrow-defying mortal all his days, as if he had patriotically set himself from the beginning to prove that Scotland could produce something different from those hosts of staid, sober, calculating men for which it has become so much distinguished. We speak here, indeed, according to the English apprehension of the Scotch character, for in Scotland, strange to say—that is, to Englishmen it will appear strange—the people believe themselves to be remarkable for want of foresight—'aye wise ahint the hand,' is their own self-portraiture—and for a certain ardour of genius which leads them into all sorts of scrapes. The issue is, after all, a hard one, and viewing the long services of Mr Jerdan to the literary republic, we would hope that a cheerful life-evening is still in store for him.

Our autobiographer tells, with all due modesty, of his early days at Kelso—the respectable friends by whom he was surrounded—his acquiring the reputation of a clever youth, and running nigh being a good deal spoilt in consequence. At nineteen, he went to London, to enter the counting-house of a mercantile uncle, and during two years spent there, formed an acquaintance with a group of young men, several of whom have since become distinguished. Among these were Messrs Pirie and Lawrie, since Lord Mayors of London—David, William, and Frederick Pollock, of whom the last is now Chief Baron of Exchequer—and Mr Wilde, who has since been Lord Chancellor. Interrupted in his career by a severe illness, he returned to Scotland to recruit, and soon after was placed with an Edinburgh writer to the Signet, to study the mysteries of law. The Scottish capital was then a much more frolicsome place than now, and Jerdan entered heartily into all its humours, spent merry evenings with Tom Sheridan and Joseph Gillan, attended mason-lodges, joined the Volunteers, and, seeing a fountain one day, wished to be it, for then he should have nothing to do but play. The natural result followed in a second severe illness, out of which his kind master, Corrie Elliott, endeavoured to recover him by a commission to ride through a range of mountain parishes in the south, in order to search for genealogical particulars illustrative of a case between Lady Forbes, born Miss Hunter of Polmood, and two gentlemen named Hunter, who claimed her estate.

'I travelled,' says our autobiographer, 'from manse to manse, and received unbounded hospitalities from the ministers, whilst I examined their kirk-registers, and extracted from them every entry where the name of Hunter or Welsh was to be found. Never was task more gratifying. The bonhomie of the priests, and the simplicity of their parishioners, were a new world to me, whilst they, the clergy, men of piety and learning, considered themselves as out of the world altogether. The population was thin and scattered, the mode of living primitive in the extreme, and the visit of a stranger, so insignificant as myself, quite enough to make a great sensation in these secluded parts. I found the ministers ingenuous, free from all puritanism, and generally well informed.... The examination of the parish books was also a labour of love and source of endless amusement. They mostly went as far back as a century and a half, and were, in the elder times, filled with such entries as bespoke a very strange condition of society. The inquisitorial practices and punitive power of the ministry could not be exceeded in countries enslaved by the priesthood of the Church of Rome. Forced confessions, the denial of religious rites even on the bed of death, excommunication, shameful exposures, and a rigid and minute interference in every domestic or private concern, indicated a state of things which must have been intolerable. High and low were obliged to submit to this offensive discipline and domination.... My duty was thus pleasantly and satisfactorily performed. My note-book was full. My skill in deciphering obsolete manuscript was cultivated and improved; and my health was restored as if by miracle. Of other incidents and results I shall only state, that on one occasion, to rival Bruce in Abyssinia, I dined off mutton whilst the sheep nibbled the grass upon the lawn, our fare being the amputated tails of the animals, which made a very dainty dish—that on reaching Edinburgh, my hackney, having from a dark gallop over a ground where a murder had been committed not long before, and being put into a cold stable, lost every hair on its hide like a scalded pig, subjected me to half his price in lieu of damage—and that the famous and ancient Polmood remained in the possession of Lord Forbes, as inherited from the charter of King Robert, who gave the lands for ever, "as high up as heaven, and as low down as hell," to the individual named in the grant, which was witnessed "by Meg, my wife, and Marjory, my nourice."'

Despairing of doing any good in Edinburgh, Mr Jerdan, while still only twenty-three, resorted once more to London, though without any definite object in view. While pursuing his usual light-hearted career, he got into debt and difficulties, and experienced the consequent annoyances with the sense of being an injured man, 'whereas it was I who had wronged myself.' 'It was now,' he adds, 'that I got my first lesson of that fatal truth—that debt is the greatest curse which can beset the course of a human being. It cools his friends and heats his enemies; it throws obstacles in the way of his every advance towards independence; it degrades him in his own estimation, and exposes him to humiliation from others, however beneath him in station and character; it marks him for injustice and spoil; it weakens his moral perceptions and benumbs his intellectual faculties; it is a burden not to be borne consistently with fair hopes of fortune, or that peace of mind which passeth all understanding, both in a worldly and eternal sense. But I shall have much to say on the subject in the future pages of this biography, though I cannot omit the opportunity afforded by my earliest taste of the bitter fruit which poisons every pulse of existence, earnestly to exhort my youthful readers to deny themselves every expense which they cannot harmlessly afford, and revel on bread and water and a lowly couch, in humility and patience, rather than incur the obligation of a single sixpence beyond their actual means.'

At length, about 1806, he gravitated into what was perhaps his natural position—the press; taking a concern in a daily paper called the Aurora, which was got up by the hotel-keepers of London. This speculation did not answer. It was destined to verify a late saying: 'If you want anything spoilt or ruined, you cannot do better than confide it to a committee.' 'Our rulers,' says Jerdan, 'though intelligent and sensible men, were neither literary nor conversant with journalism. Under any circumstances, their interference would have been injurious, but it was rendered still more fatal by their differences in political opinion, and two or three of the number setting up to write "leaders" themselves. The clashing and want of ensemble was speedily obvious and detrimental; our readers became perfect weathercocks, and could not reconcile themselves to themselves from day to day. They wished, of course, to be led, as all well-informed citizens are, by their newspaper; and they would not blow hot and cold in the manner prescribed for all the coffee-room politicians in London. In the interior, the hubbub and confusion of the republic of letters was meanwhile exceedingly amusing to the looker-on; we were of all parties and shades of opinion: the proprietor of the King's Head was an ultra Tory, and swore by George III. as the best of sovereigns—the Crown Hotel was very loyal, but more moderate—the Bell Inn would give a strong pull for the Church—whilst the Cross-Keys was infected with Romish predilections. The Cockpit was warlike; the Olive-Tree, pacific; the Royal Oak, patriotic; the Rummer, democratic; the Hole-in-the-Wall, seditious. Many a dolorous pull at the porter-pot and sapientious declination of his head had the perplexed and bemused editor, before he could effect any tolerable compromise of contradictions for the morning's issue: at the best, the sheet appeared full of signs and wonders!' In short, the paper failed.

Mr Jerdan passed through various situations on various papers, as the elegant language of Cockneydom hath it, and thus he has been enabled to give some curious sketches of the personnel of the press in those days. In the Morning Post, he took a strong part against the Mary-Anne-Clarke investigation, and caused a marvellous sinking of the circulation in consequence. He, nevertheless, consented to go and see that celebrated lady, and confesses to have been softened by her blandishments. One of the most remarkable occurrences of that period was his witnessing the assassination of the prime minister, Perceval, in May 1812. He had saluted the premier, as he was passing into the lobby of the House of Commons, and had held back the spring-door to allow him precedence in entering, when instantly there was a noise within. 'I saw a small curling wreath of smoke rise above his head, as if the breath of a cigar; I saw him reel back against the ledge on the inside of the door; I heard him exclaim: "O God!" or "O my God!" and nothing more or longer (as reported by several witnesses), for even that exclamation was faint; and then, making an impulsive rush, as it were, to reach the entrance to the House on the opposite side for safety, I saw him totter forward, not half way, and drop dead between the four pillars which stood there in the centre of the space, with a slight trace of blood issuing from his lips.

'All this took place ere, with moderate speed, you could count five! Great confusion, and almost as immediately great alarm, ensued. Loud cries were uttered, and rapidly conflicting orders and remarks on every hand made a perfect Babel of the scene; for there were above a score of people in the lobby, and on the instant no one seemed to know what had been done or by whom. The corpse of Mr Perceval was lifted up by Mr William Smith, the member for Norwich, assisted by Lord Francis Osborne, a Mr Phillips, and several others, and borne into the office of the Speaker's secretary, by the small passage on the left hand, beyond and near the fireplace. Pallid and deadly, close by the murderer, it must have been; for in a moment after, Mr Eastaff, one of the clerks of the Vote Office at the last door on that side, pointed him out, and called: "That is the murderer!" Bellingham moved slowly to a bench on the hither side of the fireplace, near at hand, and sat down. I had in the first instance run forward to render assistance to Mr Perceval, but only witnessed the lifting of his body, followed the direction of Mr Eastaff's hand, and seized the assassin by the collar, but without violence on one side, or resistance on the other. Comparatively speaking, a crowd now came up, and among the earliest Mr Vincent Dowling, Mr John Norris, Sir Charles Long, Sir Charles Burrell, Mr Henry Burgess, and, in a minute or two, General Gascoigne from a committee-room up stairs, and Mr Hume, Mr Whitbread, Mr Pole, and twelve or fifteen members from the House. Meanwhile, Bellingham's neckcloth had been stripped off, his vest unbuttoned, and his chest laid bare. The discharged pistol was found beside him, and its companion was taken, loaded and primed, from his pocket. An opera-glass, papers, and other articles, were also pulled forth, principally by Mr Dowling, who was on his left, whilst I stood on his right hand; and except for his frightful agitation, he was as passive as a child. Little was said to him. General Gascoigne on coming up, and getting a glance through the surrounding spectators, observed that he knew him at Liverpool, and asked if his name was Bellingham, to which he returned no answer; but the papers rendered further question on this point unnecessary. Mr Lynn, a surgeon in Great George Street, adjacent, had been hastily sent for, and found life quite extinct, the ball having entered in a slanting direction from the hand of the tall assassin, and passed into his victim's heart. Some one came out of the room with this intelligence, and said to Bellingham: "Mr Perceval is dead! Villain! how could you destroy so good a man, and make a family of twelve children orphans?" To which he almost mournfully replied: "I am sorry for it." Other observations and questions were addressed to him by bystanders; in answer to which he spoke incoherently, mentioning the wrongs he had suffered from government, and justifying his revenge on grounds similar to those he used, at length, in his defence at the Old Bailey.

'I have alluded to Bellingham's "frightful agitation" as he sat on the bench, and all this dreadful work was going on; and I return to it, to describe it as far as words can convey an idea of the shocking spectacle. I could only imagine something like it in the overwrought painting of a powerful romance-writer, but never before could conceive the physical suffering of a strong muscular man, under the tortures of a distracted mind. Whilst his language was cool, the agonies which shook his frame were actually terrible. His countenance wore the hue of the grave, blue and cadaverous; huge drops of sweat ran down from his forehead, like rain on the window-pane in a heavy storm, and, coursing his pallid cheeks, fell upon his person, where their moisture was distinctly visible; and from the bottom of his chest to his gorge, rose and receded, with almost every breath, a spasmodic action, as if a body, as large or larger than a billiard-ball, were choking him. The miserable wretch repeatedly struck his chest with the palm of his hand to abate this sensation, but it refused to be repressed.'

Our author makes a curious remark on the case—namely, that the first examinations are calculated to give the future historian a more faithful idea of the transaction than the record of the trial. Even in the short interval of four days, witnesses had become confused in their recollections, mistaking things which they had only heard of for things they had beheld. The unhappy culprit perished on the scaffold only a week after his crime.

Jerdan, who assumed the editorship of the Sun in 1813, was a flaming Tory of the style of that day, and accordingly enjoyed the triumph of Europe over Bonaparte. In Paris, immediately after the Allies had entered it, he feasted his eyes with the singular spectacles presented, and the personal appearance of the heroes he had been employed for some years in celebrating. Here is a scene at Beauvillier's restaurant in the Rue de Richelieu, where 700 people dined every day. 'It was on the first or second day, that a fair Saxon-looking gentleman came and seated himself at my table. I think he chose the seat advertently, from having observed or gathered that I was fresh from London. We speedily entered into conversation, and he pointed out to me some of the famous individuals who were doing justice to the Parisian cookery at the various tables around—probably about twenty in all. As he mentioned their names, I could not repress my enthusiasm—a spirit burning over England when I left it only a few days before—and my new acquaintance seemed to be much gratified by my ebullitions. "Well," said he to a question from me, "that is Davidoff, the colonel of the Black Cossacks." I shall not repeat my exclamations of surprise and pleasure at the sight of this terrific leader, who had hovered over the enemy everywhere, cut off so many resources, and performed such incredible marches and actions as to render him and his Cossacks the dread of their foes. "Is this," inquired my companion, "the opinion of England?" I assured him it was, and let out the secret of my editorial consequence, in proof that I was a competent witness. On this, a change of scene ensued. My incognito walked across to Davidoff, who forthwith filled, and sent me a glass of his wine—the glass he was using—and drank my health. I followed the example, and sent mine in return, and the compliment was completed. But it did not stop with this single instance. My new fair-complexioned friend went to another table, and spoke with a bronzed and hardy-looking warrior, from whom he came with another similar bumper to me, and the request that I would drink wine with General Czernicheff. I was again in flames; but it is unnecessary to repeat the manner in which I, on that to me memorable day, took wine with half a dozen of the most distinguished generals in the allied service.

'Whilst this toasting-bout was going on, a seedy-looking old gentleman came in, and I noticed that some younger officers rose and offered him a place, which he rejected, till a vacancy occurred, and then he quietly sat down, swallowed his two dozen of green oysters as a whet, and proceeded to dine with an appetite. By this time, my vis-à-vis had resumed his seat, and, after what had passed, I felt myself at liberty to ask him the favour of informing me who he himself was! I was soon answered. He was a Mr Parish, of Hamburg, whose prodigious commissariat engagements with the grand army had been fulfilled in a manner to prosper the war; and I was now at no loss to account for his intimacy with its heroes. It so happened that I knew, and was on friendly terms with some of his near relations; and so the two hours I have described took the value of two years. But the climax had to come. Who was the rather seedy-looking personage whom the aids-de-camp appeared so ready to accommodate? Oh, that was Blucher! If I was outrageous before, I was mad now. I explained to Mr Parish the feeling of England with regard to this hero; and that, amid the whole host of great and illustrious names, his had become the most glorious of all, and was really the one which filled most unanimously and loudly the trump of fame. He told me that an assurance of this would be most gratifying to the marshal, who thought much of the approbation of England, and asked my leave to communicate to him what I had said. I could have no objection; but after a short colloquy, Blucher did not send his glass to me—he came himself; and I hobnobbed with the immortal soldier. I addressed him in French, to which he would not listen; and I then told him in English of the glorious estimation in which he was held in my country, which Mr Parish translated into German; and if ever high gratification was evinced by man, it was by Blucher on this occasion. I had the honour of breakfasting with him at his hotel next morning, when the welcome matter was discussed more circumstantially; and he evinced the greatest delight.'

Here we must part with Mr Jerdan, but only, we hope, to meet him again ere long in a second volume.

CRIMINAL TRIALS

THE SOMERSET AND OVERBURY TRAGEDY

The history of the unworthy favourites whom James I. of England raised to a power so extravagant, has always been surrounded with a tragic mystery. One of them, Buckingham, was stabbed by an assassin; the other, Somerset, was condemned to death for murder. The extravagant dignities and emoluments heaped on these unworthy men, are utterly beyond the belief of those who live under the constitutional government of the present day. Nor was it enough that they obtained the highest titles in the peerage, and large grants out of the public money; they were rewarded in a manner still more dangerous to the public welfare, by being invested with the great, responsible offices of state, which were thus held by young men totally inexperienced, instead of responsible and capable ministers. Of course, they distributed all the inferior offices among their relations and connections; and a witty annalist of the day describes the children of the reigning favourite's kindred as swarming about the palaces, and skipping up and down the back-stairs like so many fairies. They had been raised in early youth from a humble condition to this dazzling elevation, and it was only too much in accordance with the frailty of human nature that they should lose head—feel as if they were under no responsibility to their fellow-men—and, as Shakspeare says, 'play such fantastic tricks before high Heaven, as make the angels weep.' Such rapid and ill-founded prosperity never lasts; and generally he who has ascended like a blazing rocket, tumbles to the earth like its charred and blackened socket.

Carr, afterwards made Earl of Somerset, was a raw Scotch youth, without education or training, when he was first brought under the notice of the king by chancing to have his leg broken in the royal presence in an attempt to mount a fiery horse. When once taken into favour, the king did not care whom he offended, or what injustice he did, to enrich the fortunate youth. When he was besought to spare the heritage of the illustrious and unfortunate Raleigh, he said peevishly: 'I mun have it for Carr—I mun have it for Carr!' The favourite desired to have for his wife the Lady Frances Howard, who had been married to the Earl of Essex. The holiest bonds must be broken to please him, and the marriage was shamefully dissolved. This did no great injury, indeed, to Essex. The union had been one entirely of interest, contracted when both were mere children. He was the same Essex who afterwards figured in the civil war—a grave, conscientious, earnest man, who could have had little sympathy with a woman so giddy and unprincipled. She suited better with the profligate Somerset; but had it not been that the king's favourite demanded it to be dissolved, the original union would have been held sacred.

Great court pageants and festivities hailed the marriage of Carr with the divorced Lady Essex, and the proudest of England's nobility vied with each other in doing honour to the two vile persons thus unpropitiously united. The chief-justice, Coke, and the illustrious Bacon, bowed in the general crowd before their ascendancy. It has been maintained that Ben Jonson, in his rough independence, refused to write a masque for the occasion of these wicked nuptials; but this has been denied; and it is said, that the reason why his works contain no avowed reference to the occasion, is because they were not published until Somerset's fall. The event took place in 1613: three years afterwards, the same crowd of courtiers and great officers were assembled in Westminster Hall, to behold the earl and countess on their trial for murder.

Sir Thomas Overbury, a man of great talent, who lived, like many other people of that period, by applying his capacity to state intrigues, had been committed to the Tower at the instigation of Somerset. He died there suddenly; and a suspicion arose that he had been poisoned by Somerset and his countess. A curious account of the transactions which immediately followed, has been preserved in a work called A Detection of the State and Court of England during the last Four Reigns. It is the more curious, as the author, Roger Coke, was a grandson of Sir Edward, the great chief-justice, who was a principal actor in the scene. The king was at Royston, accompanied by Somerset, when it appears that Sir Ralph Winwood informed his majesty of the suspicions that were abroad against the favourite. The king immediately determined to inform Coke; but it is feared that the determination arose not from a desire to execute strict justice, but because another favourite, George Villiers, who afterwards became Duke of Buckingham, had already superseded Somerset in the king's esteem.

A message was immediately despatched to Sir Edward Coke, who lived in the Temple. He was in bed when it arrived, and his son, even for one who came in the king's name, would not disturb him; 'For I know,' he said, 'my father's disposition to be such, that if he be disturbed in his sleep, he will not be fit for any business; but if you will do as we do, you shall be welcome; and about two hours hence my father will rise, and you may then do as you please.' This was at one o'clock of the morning. Precisely at three, a little bell rang, announcing that the most laborious and profound lawyer whom England has ever produced, had begun the toilsome business of the day. It was his practice to go to bed at nine in the evening, and wake at three, and, in every other detail of his life, he pursued this with clock-work uniformity. When he saw the papers laid before him by the messenger, he immediately granted a warrant against Somerset, on a charge of murder.

The favourite, little knowing what a pitfall had been dug in his seemingly prosperous path, was still at Royston, enjoying the most intimate familiarity with the king, when the messenger returned. Deception was so much of an avowed principle with King James, and was so earnestly supported by him, as one of the functions and arts of kingcraft, that in his hands it almost lost its treacherous character, and assumed the appearance of sincerity. He held that a king who acted openly and transparently, neglected his duty, as the vicegerent of the Deity; and that, for the sake of good government and the happiness of his people, he was bound always to conceal his intentions under false appearances, or, when necessary, under false statements. Somerset was sitting beside the king, whose hand rested familiarly on his shoulder, when the warrant was served on him. The haughty favourite frowned, and turned to his master with an exclamation against the insolence of daring to arrest a peer of the realm in the presence of his sovereign. But the king gave him poor encouragement, pretending to be very much alarmed by the power of the chief-justice, and saying: 'Nay, man, if Coke were to send for me, I must go.' Somerset was obliged to accompany the messenger. The king, still keeping up his hypocrisy, wailed over his departure—pathetically praying that their separation might not be a long one. It was said by the bystanders, that when Somerset was out of hearing, he was heard to say: 'The deil go wi' thee—I shall never see thy face more.'

The earl and countess were formally indicted before their peers on a charge of murder. It is now that the mystery of the story begins. It has never appeared clearly what motive they could have had for murdering Sir Thomas Overbury, and the evidence against them is very indistinct and incoherent; yet the countess confessed, and her husband was found guilty. It was attempted to be shewn, that Overbury had opposed the divorce of the Earl and Countess of Essex, and so had done his best to prevent the union of the favourite with the lady; but whatever opposition he had offered had been overcome; and it is difficult to suppose the revengeful passions so gratuitously pertinacious as to produce a deep assassination-plot from such a cause. So far as one can judge from the extremely disjointed notices of the evidence in the State Trials and elsewhere, it was very inconclusive. Sir Thomas certainly died of some violent internal attack. Other persons had been forming plans to poison him, and apparently were successful. The connection of these persons with the earl and countess was, however, faint. They were in communication with Overbury, and it is true some mysterious expressions were used by them—such as the lady saying to some one, that her lord had written to her how 'he wondered things were not yet despatched,' and such-like expressions. Then there was a story about the conveyance from the countess of 'a white powder,' intended as a medicine for Sir Thomas, and subsequently of some tarts. As to the latter, there was a letter from the countess to the lieutenant of the Tower, saying: 'I was bid to bid you say, that these tarts came not from me;' and again, 'I was bid to tell you, that you must take heed of the tarts, because there be letters in them, and therefore neither give your wife nor children of them, but of the wine you may, for there are no letters in it.' Through Somerset's influence, Sir W. Wade had been superseded as lieutenant of the Tower, and Sir Jervis Elwes appointed. It was said, that this was done for the purpose of having better opportunity for committing the murder. Elwes in his examination, however, hinted at the more commonplace crime of bribery as the cause of his elevation. 'He saith Sir T. Monson told him that Wade was to be removed, and if he succeeded Sir W. Wade, he must bleed—that is, give L.2000.' To bleed is supposed, when so employed, to be a cant term of modern origin. It is singular how many of these terms, supposed to be quite ephemeral, are met with in old documents. 'Bilking a coachman' occurs in a trial of the reign of Charles II.—that of Coal for the murder of Dr Clench. In an important part of the trial of Somerset there occurs another cant word: it is in the speech of Sir Randal Crew, one of the king's sergeants, against the accused. He represents the ghost of Overbury apostrophising his murderers in this manner: 'And are you thus fallen from me, or rather are you thus heavily fallen upon me to overthrow—to oppress him thus cruelly, thus treacherously, by whose vigilance, counsel, and labour, you have attained your honourable place, your estimation in the world for a worthy and well-deserving gent.?' After using this now well-known slang expression, the learned sergeant continues to say: 'Have I not waked, that you might sleep; cared, that you might enjoy? Have not I been the cabinet of your secrets, which I did ever keep faithfully, without the loss of any one to your prejudice; but by the officious, trusty, careful, and friendly use of them, have gained unto you a sweet and great interest of honour, love, reputation, wealth, and whatsoever might yield contentment and satisfaction to your desires? Have I done all this, to suffer this thus by you, for whom I have so lived as if my sand came in your hour-glass?'

This, though it does not divulge the secret of these strange proceedings, brings us apparently on their scent. It appears that Overbury had acted as the tutor and prompter of Somerset as a statesman. There is an expression sometimes used in politics at the present day, when an inexperienced person, who has the good-fortune to rise to some high office which he has not sufficient knowledge to administer, seeks instruction and guidance from some veteran less fortunate. He is then said to be put to nurse with him. A young ensign under training by a veteran sergeant is a good instance of this. Somerset, raw, uneducated, and untrained, had for his nurse as a courtier and politician the accomplished but less fortunate Sir Thomas Overbury. In the course of this function, Overbury could not fail to acquire some state secrets. It is supposed to have been on account of his possession of these secrets that Somerset poisoned him. But the affair goes further still, for we find that the king was much alarmed for himself on the occasion—was very anxious that the whole position of matters between Somerset and Overbury should not come out in the trial; and gave ground for the obvious inference, that whatever secrets there might be, his majesty was as deeply interested in their being kept as any one.

It was evident that the countess had been prevailed on to confess, and that the utmost pains had been used to get Somerset himself to follow her example, though, much to the king's vexation, he held out, and rendered a trial necessary. On this trial, however, there was nothing like satisfactory evidence—the peers were prepared to convict, and they did so on a few trifling attestations, which gave them a plausible excuse for their verdict. The illustrious Bacon aided the king in his object. He had on other occasions shewn abject servility to James—using towards him such expressions of indecorous flattery as these: 'Your majesty imitateth Christ, by vouchsafing me to touch the hem of your garment.' He was attorney-general, and had in that capacity to conduct the prosecution. Seeing distinctly the king's inclination, he sent a letter to him, praying, 'First, that your majesty will be careful to choose a steward [meaning a lord high-steward to preside at the trial in the House of Lords] of judgment, that will be able to moderate the evidence, and cut off digressions; for I may interrupt, but I cannot silence; the other, that there may be special care taken for ordering the evidence, not only for the knitting but the list, and, to use your majesty's own words—the confining of it. This to do, if your majesty vouchsafe to direct it yourself, that is the best; but if not, I humbly pray you to require my lord chancellor, that he, together with my lord chief-justice, will confer with myself and my fellows that shall be used for the marshalling and bounding of the evidence, that we may have the help of his opinion, as well as that of my lord chief-justice; whose great travails as I much commend, yet this same pleropluria, or overconfidence, doth always subject things to a great deal of chance.'

The full significance of these cautious expressions about confining and bounding the evidence, was not appreciated until the discovery of some further documents, relating to this dark subject, a few years ago. The expressions were then found to correspond with others, equally cautious, in Bacon's correspondence. Thus he talks of supplying the king with pretexts that 'might satisfy his honour for sparing the earl's life;' and in another place he says: 'It shall be my care so to moderate the matter of charging him, as it might make him not odious beyond the extent of mercy.'

The drift of all this is, in the first place, that as little of the real truth as possible should be divulged in the trial, and that Bacon and others should manage so as to let out enough to get a conviction and no more; hence the evidence is so fragmentary and unsatisfactory, that none but a tribunal prepared to be very easily satisfied could have formed any conclusion from it. In the second place, it was the king's object that Somerset should be assured all along that his life would be spared. The object of this certainly was to prevent him, in his despair, from uttering that secret, whatever it was, about which the king was so terribly alarmed. The reader may now expect some further elucidation of this part of the mystery.

In Sir Anthony Weldon's Court and Character of King James (p. 36), we have the following statement in reference to the trial:—

'And now for the last act, enters Somerset himself on the stage, who being told (as the manner is) by the lieutenant, that he must go next day to his trial, did absolutely refuse it, and said they should carry him in his bed; that the king had assured him he should not come to any trial—neither durst the king bring him to trial. This was in a high strain, and in a language not well understood by Sir George Moore, then lieutenant in Elwes's room—that made Moore quiver and shake. And however he was accounted a wise man, yet he was near at his wits' end.' This conversation had such an effect on the lieutenant, that though it was twelve o'clock at night, he sped instantly to Greenwich, to see the king. Then he 'bownseth at the back-stair, as if mad;' and Loweston, the Scotch groom, aroused from sleep, comes in great surprise to ask 'the reason of that distemper at so late a season.' Moore tells him, he must speak with the king. Loweston replies: 'He is quiet'—which, in the Scottish dialect, is fast asleep. Moore says: 'You must awake him.' We are then told that Moore was called in, and had a secret audience. 'He tells the king those passages, and requires to be directed by the king, for he was gone beyond his own reason to hear such bold and undutiful expressions from a faulty subject against a just sovereign. The king falls into a passion of tears: "On my soul, Moore, I wot not what to do! Thou art a wise man—help me in this great straight, and thou shalt find thou dost it for a thankful master;" with other sad expressions. Moore leaves the king in that passion, but assures him he will prove the utmost of his wit to serve his majesty—and was really rewarded with a suit worth to him L.1500.'

Moore returned to his prisoner, and told him, 'he had been with the king, found him a most affectionate master unto him, and full of grace in his intentions towards him; but,' he continued, 'to satisfy justice, you must appear, although you return instantly again without any further proceedings—only you shall know your enemies and their malice, though they shall have no power over you.' Somerset seemed satisfied; but Weldon states, that Moore, to render matters quite safe, set two men, placed one on each side of Somerset during his trial, with cloaks hanging on their arms, 'giving them withal a peremptory order, if that Somerset did anyway fly out on the king, they should instantly hoodwink him with that cloak, take him violently from the bar, and carry him away—for which he would secure them from any danger, and they should not want also a bountiful reward. But the earl finding himself overreached, recollected a better temper, and went calmly on his trial, when he held the company until seven at night. But who had seen the king's restless motion all that day, sending to every boat he saw landing at the bridge, cursing all that came without tidings, would have easily judged all was not right, and there had been some grounds for his fears of Somerset's boldness; but at last one bringing him word that he was condemned, and the passages, all was quiet.'

Weldon solemnly states, that he obtained all these facts from Moore's own lips. He was, however, a sarcastic, discontented writer; and being what was called an upstart, he was supposed to have a malice against kings and courts. For such reasons as these, his narrative was distrusted until its fundamental character, at all events, was confirmed by the late discovery of a bundle of letters addressed by the king to Sir George Moore. The bundle was found carefully wrapped up, and appropriately endorsed, in the repositories of Sir George's descendant. The letters will be found printed in the eighteenth volume of the Archæologia, or transactions of the English Antiquarian Society. The following brief extracts from them may suffice for the present occasion—the spelling is modernised:—

'Good Sir George—I am extremely sorry that your unfortunate prisoner turns all the great care I have of him not only against himself, but against me also, as far as he can. I cannot blame you that ye cannot conjecture what this may be, for God knows it is only a trick of his idle brain, hoping thereby to shift his trial; but it is easy to be seen, that he would threaten me with laying an aspersion upon me of being in some sort accessory to his crime.... Give him assurance in my name, that if he will yet, before his trial, confess cheerily unto the commissioners his guiltiness of this fact, I will not only perform what I promised by my last messenger both towards him and his wife, but I will enlarge it, according to the phrase of the civil law, &c. I mean not, that he shall confess if he be innocent, but ye know how evil likely that is; and of yourself ye may dispute with him what should mean his confidence now to endure a trial, when, as he remembers, that this last winter he confessed to the chief-justice that his cause was so evil likely as he knew no jury could acquit him. Assure him, that I protest upon my honour my end in this is for his and his wife's good. Ye will do well, likewise, of yourself, to cast out unto him, that ye fear his wife shall plead weakly for his innocency; and that ye find the commissioners have, ye know not how, some secret assurance that in the end she will confess of him—but this must only be as from yourself.'

That there was some secret of the divulgence of which the king was in the utmost terror, is thus beyond a doubt. What, then, was it? There are no means of deciding. James, it will be seen, hints to Moore, that it was a charge of accession to the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. But, in the same letter, James lets us see that Moore himself did not know the exact secret; and we may fairly conjecture, that the hint was intended to put him on a wrong scent.

The earl and countess were permitted to live, spending a miserable existence with the fear of punishment hanging over them. The accounts given of the condition into which the once beautiful and too fascinating woman fell, are too disgusting to be repeated. There were many other proceedings connected with the charges for poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury, which throw a curious light on the habits of the court, and especially on the criminal attempts to get rid of rivals and enemies by poison and sorcery. They may perhaps form a suitable subject for a separate paper.

A NIGHT IN A GERMAN WOOD

So numerous are the forests here which grow in lofty and romantic sites, that a very extensive and interesting tour might be made, having them alone for its object. Such fascinating excursions should not, however, be embarked in without a guide, or a compass at the least; for these German woods are often very intricate, and run into one another in a most puzzling manner. This I learned to my cost a few months ago; and as a warning to other pedestrian tourists who may be as unpractised in such matters as I myself then was, I would now bespeak the reader's attention to my experiences of A Night in a German Wood.

Early in the autumn of the past year, whilst on a visit to a German friend who resides in one of the hilliest and best-wooded districts in Westphalia, on the confines of the classic Teutoburger Forest—after having been engaged nearly all the day in writing, I was tempted out by the freshness of the evening air and the glories of the setting sun, to take a turn in the park, which, by the by, is one of the handsomest and best laid out I have seen in any part of the continent, and a proof in itself that such things can be done—and well done too—even out of England. My intention was merely to stretch my cramped legs by a stroll to the southern angle of the demesne, and so be back in time for the quiet, early supper of the family. After moving along for a quarter of an hour under the shade of some fine old beech-trees, at the foot of a steep bank which overhangs the level meadow-ground, I came upon the outskirts of the plantations; and then turning sharp to the left, walked up along them till I had reached, as I thought, their extremity. Here, facing round, I began to turn my steps homeward; and by way of varying my route a little, struck into a shady path cut through the wood, which seemed to lead, as well as I could judge from my bearings, almost as directly back to the schloss—as all great country mansions here are called—as the one by which I had gone out. But after pushing rapidly along for some time in my dusky alley, I eventually emerged, much to my surprise, on an immense ploughed field, that, sloping gradually up to the spot where the sun had just set, seemed to terminate only with the visible horizon, which, however, from the very inclined angle at which the ground rose, was not very distant. Confident in the general correctness of my direction, I went on, right ahead, fancying I had only to cross this upland to be at home; but after floundering about for a good half-hour, and, in consequence of a water-course which cut it obliquely, being turned a little out of my straight direction, I found myself by moonlight on the verge of a patch of forest which was quite unknown to me. Such was my infatuation, however, and so firm my conviction of having taken correctly the relative bearings of the moon, which was now in her second quarter, and of the house, that I plunged unhesitatingly among the trees, expecting every moment to see the path through them open out upon some familiar spot in the demesne, or some portion of the surrounding country which I might have already perambulated by daylight. Though in utter darkness, from the close interweaving of the foliage, still, by raising my feet high, like a blind horse, to get over the inequalities of the way, and flourishing my stick perpetually around my head as I proceeded, to avoid coming in contact with any stray tree, or chance branch projecting into the pathway, I got prosperously through this portion of wood. But again I came out on something which was totally strange to me—a narrow valley, stretching, as well as I could judge by the last glimmerings of twilight, to a considerable distance, flanked on each side by gloomy woods, about a quarter of a mile apart, and laid down in rye, which was nearly ready for the sickle, and dripping wet in the night-dew. Matters now began to look serious. I was completely at fault, and had entirely lost all confidence in my own pilotage. The moon had proved a faithless guide, or rather I had misconstrued her position; and my little pocket-compass was not forthcoming, thanks to the importunities of my youngest boy, who prizes it above all his own toys.

There was nothing for it now but to select that direction towards which the valley might seem slightly to descend; but this, in the imperfect twilight, was not very easily ascertained. With considerable hesitation, I decided at length on the right-hand turn, resolving to proceed till I should fall in with some rivulet, which might perhaps lead me eventually to the rapid trouting-stream running close under my friend's windows, or else till I should come upon some path which might carry me into a field-road, and so perhaps to a village, where I should easily procure a guide home. So, with tottering knees and throbbing heart—for I was by this time nearly breathless—I continued to advance by the side of the standing corn, at such a pace as I could manage, uttering from time to time a lusty halloo, in hopes of making myself heard by some belated reaper or returning woodman. But my calls had no other effect than to awake the mocking echoes of the wood, or the mysterious and almost human shout of the screech-owl, and to leave me to a still more intense feeling of solitude, when these had died away. I found myself at length in a deep, hollow field-road, like those which abound in South Devon, and high overhead, on the lofty bank, stood a two-branched, weather-beaten finger-post, and a great rustic crucifix near it, looming large in the moonlight. Scrambling up the bank, with anxious peering eyes, I made out, by the dubious light of the moon, that one of the outstretched wooden arms bore, in rudely-cut letters, the name of the village beside which I was resident; and as its distance was stated, I found that, after all my windings and wanderings, I had still only got half a German mile, or about one league, astray! This was a very pleasant discovery; and accordingly I quickly wheeled about, and set off with renewed vigour at right angles to my previous line of march, having still good hopes of being at home before eleven o'clock at night, time enough to prevent any alarm on account of my absence.

The road soon, however, degenerated into a mere field-track, which, as the moon had disappeared behind clouds, just before her final setting, could only with difficulty be recognised by an occasional deep rut, felt by my stick in the soft ground; even this track at length forked out into two others—one penetrating into a wood on my right; the other opener, and with only scattered trees by its side, to the left. The latter seemed the most promising, and was accordingly selected, and followed for about ten minutes, when it, too, came upon the skirts of another wood in the opposite direction. It seemed, besides, as well as I could judge from some faint glimpses I now got of the surrounding country in a momentary gleam of moonlight, to be leading me wide of my goal: and I accordingly retraced my steps once more to where the road had divided, and taking the recently slighted right-hand path, dived in desperation in between the trees, amidst 'darkness that might be felt.' Walking steadily and quickly forward, during what seemed, in the deep gloom, a considerable time, I eventually emerged into 'the clear obscure,' the moon having at length set, and left the sky, and all such wanderers as myself, to the good offices of the stars. I was now on the opposite verge of the wood to that I had entered by, and found myself by the side of a narrow corn-field, with another wooded hill on its further side, and heard, within hailing distance—more delightful than music to my ear—the grating sound of cart-wheels, which appeared to be going in an oblique, but nearly opposite direction to that in which I had just been moving. It was quite impossible to see anything so far off; but I hailed the presumed carter repeatedly, in my loudest and best German, asking my way.

'Follow on by the foot of the wood, and you'll get there in time,' was the reply, at length faintly heard in the distance, and the cart rumbled heavily away again, leaving me just as wise as before; for which was head and which was foot of the wood I knew no more than the child unborn. Yet I feared to dash through the intervening corn in the direction of the receding and already distant cart, neither knowing what the nature of the intermediate ground might prove, nor whether, supposing it practicable in the dark, such an infringement of rural property might not lead to disagreeable consequences, and in nowise further me in the attainment of the piece of knowledge which I stood so much in need of. So, I took on chance to my left hand, as the most distant from the finger-post I had fallen upon an hour and a half before.

The sound of the cart which long tingled in my ears, and the utter disappointment of my suddenly raised hopes, only rendered my sense of solitude and helplessness more intense. Indeed, I sometimes almost doubted whether the whole thing—cart and carter, or, rather, rumbling wheels and faint, chilling, distant voice—might not have been the delusion of my reeling brain, debilitated by overfatigue and long fasting (for every one knows the early hour at which a German dinner takes place); and on subsequent inquiry, I could not hear of any cart having passed in that quarter at all.

It was singular how long I wandered about, and every now and then in cultivated districts, without hearing a single human voice even in the earlier portion of the evening—nay, any sound whatever, save once or twice the fierce warning bark of a shepherd's dog, when I had inadvertently approached too near a sheepfold—the startling rush of some affrighted bird in the wood, flapping wildly up through the foliage—a distant village clock in some indefinite direction over the hill-top—or, finally, as on one occasion, a few remote shots, which I at first fancied might have been fired off by my friends to direct me homewards, but afterwards ascribed, more correctly, perhaps, to poachers in the woods. The manner in which the peasantry live here—in separate villages, built occasionally a good deal apart, and not in cottages scattered everywhere over the country, as with us—sufficiently accounts for this wide-spread silence.

Just as I was losing faith in the correctness of my present course, the chimes of a clock were distinctly heard, coming apparently over the top of the wooded hill on my left. I immediately turned into the wood once more, and strove to make a march directly through the trees in the direction of the sound, and right up the steep ascent, which was clothed by them to the summit. But this I soon found to be totally impracticable, in the absence of anything like a path or opening; for though I made my way well enough through the old trees, which stood far apart, and were pretty free from branches near the ground, yet towards the upper part of the hill, I got entangled in such a close-growing rising generation as it was almost impossible to penetrate. I was often almost in despair of being able to extricate myself even from my present entanglement, and to retrace my steps to the open ground below; in my exhausted condition, as it was already long past midnight, I was making up my mind to roost with the owls on the fork of a tree; and was even anticipating the possibility of becoming a permanent scarecrow there, when my very bones would be concealed in the thicket from the anxious search of my friends.

It was under the influence of excessive fatigue, perhaps, and the relaxation of the will generally consequent thereon, that my resolution now at length seemed on the point of giving way; nay, the very attachment to life itself, on my own individual account, seemed fading, and a disinclination to continue the struggle farther appeared to be gradually creeping over me. I was becoming reconciled to what appeared inevitable, and could look upon my own probable fate almost as calmly as if it had been that of a stranger. I believe something very similar not unusually takes place, under the merciful disposition of Providence, in the death-bed, where debility is the chief feature of the case. After a few moments of repose and dreamy reverie, however, I roused myself from this state of apathy, and, influenced by a sense of duty, as well as by a sympathy for the feelings of those dearer than life itself, sprang to my feet once more, and struggled manfully out of the mesh of branches in which I had been entangled, till, after a few more violent efforts, I found myself getting into a rather opener and more advanced growth of wood, and at length succeeded in working my way out—almost to the very spot in the meadow I had started from!

Whilst still within the wood, I had been favoured with some novel experiences there—novel, at least, to me, as it was my first night in such a position. Thus, almost every branch I grasped in the dark to help me onward seemed crowded with snails, which smashed slimily under my shuddering hand! Glowworms were sparkling in the underwood in such myriads as I never witnessed before, save once in an evening-walk near Salerno. The sense of utter solitude and unbroken silence within these gloomy woods was truly awful. From time to time, as I advanced, a casual opening in the branches exhibited a momentary glimpse of the sky, with all its thousand twinkling fires; and shooting-stars of intense brilliancy were darting across its dark, blue depths in almost as great frequency as in those celebrated days of August and November, when the path of our earth crosses the thickest showers of these celestial fireworks.

On regaining the meadow, I felt quite at a loss whither to turn, or what to attempt next. I had already been floundering about for some half-dozen hours, and been ignorant all the while whether each additional step were not only taking me a step further, not from home alone, but from the very habitations of men. Almost done up at length, and hopeless of extricating myself from my labyrinth till daylight should come to my aid, I was again for a moment inclined quietly to resign myself to what seemed my inevitable fate, and drop down to sleep on a bank of earth under a hedge by which I was standing, and so await the dawn. But the dank grass, the trees dropping with dew, the creeping autumnal fog, and increasing cold, made me pause, and feel that to sleep in my light summer dress under such circumstances was, if not to die, at least to contract, during the night, such disease as would render existence not worth the having—racking rheumatism for life, or fever, or inflammation, in some of their many forms, and endless consequences. So I resolved to keep moving as long as I had power to stir a limb, as this would give me a chance of maintaining the circulation and animal heat throughout the remaining hours of the night, if my strength would but hold out so long. Like a drowning man, I struck out once more for life; again I tried the field-road I had lately too rashly abandoned; floundered once more through its pools and its ruts; clambered again on its high banks, or moved along under the shadow of the wood by its side. At length, after scarcely half an hour's additional walking, my perseverance had its reward, as I found myself at the entrance of a village, and heard, not far off, the busy clatter of some industrious flaxdressers, who were turning night into day, at their work. This proved to be the termination of my mishap; for the instructions I received enabled me to find my way home by three o'clock.

It was my amusement during several subsequent days, to endeavour by daylight to retrace accurately my midnight wanderings. I found I could not have walked less than twenty miles, though never at any time more than three distant from home. I had been incessantly in motion during nearly eight hours; and was at least thrice on right tracks, which, if they had been followed up steadily only a little longer, would have brought me to my quarters. The chiming of the old convent-bells, which I had mistaken for those of our own pretty little church, came really from the very opposite direction to what I fancied—the sound I heard being merely their echo, reflected to my ear from the wooded hill-side.

Thus, the proposition with which I started—namely, that German woods are not to be trifled with, or rashly entered without a guide or compass—is fully sustained by my own luckless experience. Much of the surrounding country was already well known to me, and in my various walks I had skirted along and even intersected some of these very woods; but the way in which they are parcelled out, for the supply of neighbouring, but unconnected villages with firewood, and the puzzling manner in which they are shuffled together when the estates of several proprietors run into one another at a given point, render it singularly difficult to steer through them even by day, and to the uninitiated, quite impracticable by night.

AN A.D.L.L. ADVENTURE IN LIVERPOOL

Liverpool has perhaps fewer relics of an archæological nature than any other town in the United Kingdom; and this at first seems a little singular, when we remember that it is not without its place in the more romantic eras of our history, and that a castle of considerable strength once lent it protection. Its old castle, its towers, and the walls by which it was surrounded, have all been swept away by the busy crowds that now throng its thoroughfares. Even the former names of places have in most instances been altered, as if to obliterate all recollections and associations connected with its early history. Thus a row of houses, which a few years ago bore the not very euphonious name of Castle Ditch, from its having followed a portion of the line of the moat by which the fortress which once stood near it was surrounded, was changed into St George's Crescent, and many others underwent similar transmutations. But if the physical aspect of the place holds out few or no attractions to the antiquary, the moral one of its inhabitants, in so far as his favourite subject is concerned, is equally uninviting; for, taken as a whole, it would be difficult to find a population less influenced by, or interested in, such studies.

The only relic of the olden times which Liverpool has for a long time past retained, was a long, low, picturesque-looking thatched cottage in the small village of Everton (of toffee notoriety), which went by the name of Prince Rupert's Cottage, from its having been the head-quarters of that fiery leader when he besieged the town from the ridge on which the village is situated. But even this was swept away about six years ago by the proprietor, to allow a street which he had mapped out to abut upon the village at the point it occupied. The project did not succeed, and the outline of the contemplated street is all that as yet marks out the spot where this interesting object stood.