He expired on the 6th of November, 1612. The disease of which he died was a putrid fever which, acting upon a constitution already weakened, and aggravated by injudicious medical treatment, cut him off in a short time. His death was bewailed by the whole nation, and most of the poets of the day hastened to strew their voluntary offerings on his tomb. The charge which has been insinuated, that Henry was poisoned by the wicked Rochester, though very generally believed at the time, seems, upon the whole, as improbable as the still darker one of his father having been privy to the crime.

John, Lord Harrington.

BORN A. D. 1591.-DIED A. D. 1613.

THIS amiable youth was the eldest son of that Lord Harrington, to whose care King James committed the education of his daughter Elizabeth. He is styled by Gataker, in his Discourse Apolegetical,' “a mirror of nobility," and Dr Birch has made honourable mention of him in his life of Prince Henry. While yet a boy, he was distinguished for the extent, variety, and accuracy of his learning. He was an accomplished classical scholar, and spoke French and Italian with fluency. During a tour which he made on the continent, accompanied by Mr Tovey, ‘a grave and learned man,' he is said to have excited the deadly enmity of the Jesuits, by his ardent attachment to the reformed doctrines, and his bold and eager avowal of them in public; and it was supposed that his premature death was occasioned by poison which had been administered to him by some of these ecclesiastics during his residence abroad. His tutor, Mr Tovey, is said to have been poisoned at the same time, and to have died in consequence soon after his return to England, although Lord Harrington's more youthful and vigorous constitution resisted the effects of the deadly draught longer. It is extremely probable that the whole of this statement may be referred to the violent religious prejudices and antipathies of the times. While in Italy and the Venetian States, "those schools of impurity, whence few return such as they went out, he spent not his time," says the author of the 'Nugæ Antiquæ,'" in courting of ladies and contemplating the beauty of women; but he preferred his books before their beauty, and, for his society, chose men of parts and learning for arts and arms. Besides, he was very temperate in his diet, frequent in fasting, and hated idleness and much sleep." On succeeding to the family title and estates, he honourably discharged all the debts which his father had contracted by his magnificent style of housekeeping. But the splendour of his religion outshone all his moral and natural accomplishments. He was eminently and deeply pious, spending the greater part of the day in religious meditation and exercises, and devoting the tenth part of his income to charitable purposes. He died in 1613, in the 22d year of his age. His estate descended to his two sisters, Lucy, countess of Bedford, and Anne, wife of Sir Robert Chichester.

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Sir Thomas Overbury.

BORN CIRC. A. D. 1581.-DIED A. D. 1613.

SIR THOMAS OVERBURY, the son of Nicholas Overbury of Bourtonon-the-hill, in Gloucestershire, was born at Compton-Scorfen, about the year 1581. He distinguished himself while a student at Oxford, by his successful pursuit of the logic and philosophy of the day. On leaving the university, he entered the Middle Temple, and devoted himself for a time to the study of the municipal law, previous to his going abroad. He spent several years on the continent, where he accomplished an extensive tour. On his return home, he attracted the notice of James' minion, Rochester, who made him his secretary, and in 1608, procured for him the honour of knighthood. Overbury was a man of very considerable natural powers, and had greatly improved his talents by observation and travel; he proved an able counsellor, and was soon regarded by his patron as an oracle of wisdom.' His rash and presumptuous temper, however, soon blighted the hopes of a political career begun under such favourable auspices. He had early incurred the displeasure of James for an insult offered to the queen, but Rochester's influence sufficed to screen him from more unpleasant consequences at the moment, and his influence continued to be courted by all who had favours to solicit from that dispenser of court-patronage, up to the very day of his arrest and committal to the tower.

The occasion of his fall was a criminal intrigue betwixt Rochester and the Lady Frances Howard, the eldest daughter of the lord-chamberlain, Suffolk. "No sooner," says Hume, "had James mounted the throne of England, than he remembered his friendship for the unfortunate families of Howard and Devereux, who had suffered for their attachment to the cause of Mary and to his own. Having restored young Essex to his blood and dignity, and conferred the titles of Suffolk and Northampton on two brothers of the house of Norfolk, he sought the farther pleasure of uniting these families by the marriage of the earl of Essex with Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the earl of Suffolk. She was only thirteen, he fourteen years of age; and it was thought proper, till both should attain the age of puberty, that he should go abroad and pass some time in his travels. He returned into England after four years' absence, and was pleased to find his countess in the full lustre of beauty, and possessed of the love and admiration of the whole court. But, when the earl approached, and claimed the privileges of a husband, he met with nothing but symptoms of aversion and disgust, and a flat refusal of any farther familiarities. He applied to her parents, who constrained her to attend him into the country, and to partake of his bed: but nothing could overcome her rigid sullenness and obstinacy, and she still rose from his side without having shared the nuptial pleasures. Disgusted with reiterated denials, he at last gave up the pursuit, and separating himself from her, thenceforth abandoned her conduct to her own will and discretion.

"Such coldness and aversion in Lady Essex arose not without an attachment to another object. The favourite had opened his addresses,

and had been too successful in making impression on the tender heart of the young countess. She imagined, that so long as she refused the embraces of Essex, she never could be deemed his wife, and that a separation and divorce might still open the way for a new marriage with her beloved Rochester. Though their passion was so violent, and their opportunities of intercourse so frequent, that they had already indulged themselves in all the gratifications of love, they still lamented their unhappy fate, while the union between them was not entire and indissoluble. And the lover as well as his mistress, was impatient, till their mutual ardour should be crowned by marriage.

"So momentous an affair could not be concluded without consulting Overbury, with whom Rochester was accustomed to share all his secrets. While that faithful friend had considered his patron's attachment to the countess of Essex merely as an affair of gallantry, he had favoured its progress; and it was partly owing to the ingenious and passionate letters which he dictated, that Rochester had met with such success in his addresses. Like an experienced courtier, he thought that a conquest of this nature would throw a lustre on the young favourite, and would tend still farther to endear him to James, who was charmed to hear of the amours of his court, and listened with attention to every tale of gallantry. But great was Overbury's alarm, when Rochester mentioned his design of marrying the countess; and he used every method to dissuade his friend from so foolish an attempt. He represented how invidious, how difficult an enterprize it would be to procure her a divorce from her husband: How dangerous, how shameful, to take into his own bed a profligate woman, who, being married to a young nobleman of the first rank, had not scrupled to prostitute her character, and to bestow favours on the object of a capricious and momentary passion. And, in the zeal of friendship, he went so far as to threaten Rochester, that he would separate himself for ever from him, if he could so far forget his honour and his interest as to prosecute the intended marriage.

"Rochester had the weakness to reveal this conversation to the countess of Essex; and when her rage and fury broke out against Overbury, he had also the weakness to enter into her vindictive projects, and to swear vengeance against his friend, for the utmost instance which he could receive of his faithful friendship. Some contrivance was necessary for the execution of their purpose. Rochester addressed himself to the king, and after complaining that his own indulgence to Overbury had begotten in him a degree of arrogance which was extremely disagreeable, he procured a commission for his embassy to Russia; which he represented as a retreat for his friend, both profitable and honourable. When consulted by Overbury, he earnestly dissuaded him from accepting this offer, and took on himself the office of satisfying the king if he should be anywise displeased with the refusal. To the king again, he aggravated the insolence of Overbury's conduct, and obtained a warrant for committing him to the Tower, which James intended as a slight punishment for his disobedience. The lieutenant of the Tower was a creature of Rochester's, and had lately been put into the office for this very purpose: he confined Overbury so strictly, that the unhappy prisoner was debarred the sight of even his nearest relations; and no communication of any kind was allowed with him during near six months which he lived in prison." So closely were these orders ob

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served, that Winwood informs us, Sir Robert Killigrew was committed to the Fleet, from the council table, for having some little speech with Sir Thomas Overbury, who called to him as he passed by his window, as he came from visiting Sir Walter Raleigh."

Soon after the committal of Overbury to the Tower, proceedings were commenced by the guilty lovers for procuring a divorce between the earl of Essex and his countess, on the pretence of physical incapacity on the part of the husband. The earl himself eagerly embraced the only expedient which seemed to offer itself for getting rid of a bad woman, by whom he knew himself to be hated, and whom he had long ceased to love. The king also lent himself to the disgraceful transaction, and exerted himself in the progress of the suit with the warmth and partiality of an advocate. A special court of delegates was appointed for the trial, and every means used which bribery or intimidation could effect to obtain the wished-for divorce. Yet, after the most strenuous exertions of all parties, it was only by a majority of seven to five that the marriage of the earl and countess of Essex was pronounced null. Overbury lived not to be made acquainted with the judgment. On the preceding day he expired in prison, with evident symptoms of having had poison administered to him.

Two years after the whole labyrinth of guilt' connected with the death of the unhappy prisoner was unravelled. An apothecary's apprentice, who had been employed in making up certain poisons for Elwes, the governor of the Tower, had stated this fact in public, and Elwes himself had made some very incautious avowals to the earl of Shrewsbury. Secretary Winwood conveyed the intelligence to the king, who ordered Sir Edward Coke to make the most rigorous and unbiassed scrutiny into the whole affair. The lord-chief-justice executed his task with more than ordinary zeal. But, while the accomplices in Overbury's murder, Weston, Turner, Franklin, and Elwes, received the punishment due to their crime, the principals themselves, Somerset and his countess, were pardoned, and restored to liberty.

Sir Thomas Overbury was the author of several works both in prose and verse, which were very popular in those days. His Characters, or Witty Descriptions of the properties of Sundry Persons,' are written in a quaint but lively style, and show him to have been an acute observer of character and manners, with a quick perception of the ludicrous.

Egerton, Lord Ellesmere.

BORN A. D. 1540.-DIED A. D. 1617.

THIS eminent statesman and lawyer was the son of Sir Richard Egerton of Ridley in Cheshire. He was born about the year 1540. He went to Oxford in 1556, and after three years' study there, removed to Lincoln's inn, where he applied himself with great diligence to the study of the law. It is traditionally related of this young counsellor that the first favourable impression which he made at the bar arose out of the following circumstances:-He happened to be in court when a cause was trying, in which it appeared, that three graziers had placed a joint-deposit of a sum of money in the custody of a woman who lived

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in Smithfield, upon condition that she was to account for it again to them upon their return to demand it together; but that one of the graziers soon after returned, and by persuading her that he had been commissioned by his two partners to receive the whole deposit, prevailed upon her to deliver up the whole sum which had been deposited in her hands, with which he immediately absconded. The other two partners instituted an action against the woman to recover their money, and judgment was likely to go against her, when Mr Egerton stepped forward, and solicited permission to speak on the point as amicus curiæ.' Having obtained the permission of the judges, he recapitulated the conditions upon which the defendant had taken charge of the money, and these being allowed to be such as above stated, "then," said the young counsellor, "the defendant is ready to comply with the agreement. The plaintiffs only can be charged with any violation of it. Two of them have brought a suit against this woman for repayment of a sum of money, which, it appears by the agreement, she was only to pay to these two and to the remaining partner jointly, on their all coming together to demand it. Where, then, is the third partner? Why does he not appear? Why do not the plaintiffs bring their partner along with them? When they have done this, and so fulfilled their part of the compact, the defendant is ready to fulfil hers. But till then, I apprehend, she is entitled by law to remain the custodier of the deposit." This reasoning appeared so ingenious to the court that it turned the cause, and a verdict was found for the defendant.

On the 28th of June, 1581, Egerton was appointed solicitor-general, and in 1594 he was advanced to the dignity of attorney-general. These successive appointments were conferred upon him in consequence of his great legal proficiency. He was knighted soon after. Upon the death of Sir John Pickering, in May, 1596, the great seal of England was placed in his hands by Elizabeth, who is said to have conferred this high trust upon Egerton against the wishes of her prime minister.

Ellesmere was ever a zealous servant of the crown, yet he contrived to stand well with the public at the same time. Indeed few public characters have preserved a reputation so free from blemish. His conduct towards Essex was in the highest degree honourable and friendly; and had that unfortunate nobleman consented to be guided by the advices of the lord-keeper, after his rupture with Elizabeth, there is little reason to doubt that he would have escaped his untimely fate.

On James's approach to London, to receive the crown of England, the lord-keeper waited upon him at Broxbourn, in Hertfordshire, and was confirmed for the present in his office. He was at the same time gratified "for his good and faithful services," with the title of Baron Ellesmere. On the day before James's coronation he was appointed lord-chancellor of England, which high office he filled for more than twelve years with equal dignity, learning, and impartiality. "Surely," says Lloyd, "all Christendom afforded not a person which carried more gravity in his countenance and behaviour than Sir Thomas Egerton, insomuch that many have gone to the chancery on purpose only to see his venerable garb-happy they who had no other business-and were highly pleased at so acceptable a spectacle. Yet was his outward case nothing in comparison of his inward abilities, quick wit, solid judgment, ready utterance." Lord Ellesmere was chosen chancellor