The first of these, in all likelihood to prevent suspicion, was addressed to Mrs. Jane Ellen, at Hargrave's Coffee House:

"Sir,

March the 5th.

“I am glad you have not quite forgot that there is such a person as I in being; but I am willing to shut my eyes, and not see anything that looks like unkindness in you, and rather content myself with what excuses you are pleased to make, than be inquisitive into what I must not know. I should very readily comply with your proposition of changing the season, if it were in my power to do it; but, you know, that lies altogether in your own breast. I am sure the winter bas been too unpleasant for me to desire the continuance of it: and I wish you were to endure the sharpness of it, but for one hour, as I have done for many long nights and days, and then, I believe, it would move that rocky heart of yours, that can be so thoughtless of me as you are; but if it were designed for that end, to make the summer the more delightful, I wish it may have the effect so far, as to continue it to be so too, that the weather may never overcast again; the which, if I could be assured of, it would recompense me for all that I ever suffered, and make me as easy a creature as I was the first moment I received

breath; when you come to H—— pray

let

your

steed guide you, and do not do as you did the last time; and be sure order your affairs to be here as soon as you can, which cannot be sooner, than you will be heartily welcome to your

Very sincere friend." "For Mrs. Jane Ellen, at Mr. Hargrave's, near Temple-Bar, London."

Then another letter from the deceased to the prisoner, dated the 9th of March, was read, and is as follows:

"Sir,

"I wrote to you by Sunday's post, which I hope you have received; however, as a confirmation, I will assure you, I know of no inconvenience that can attend your cohabiting with me, unless the Grand Jury should thereupon find a bill against us; but I will not fly for it; for come life, come death, I am resolved never to desert you; therefore, according to your appointment, I will expect you, and then I shall only tell you that I

am

"Yours, &c."

It was in consequence of these letters that the prisoner's brother advised him not to stay again at

Mrs. Stout's, but to take the lodgings at Mr. Barefoot's which he himself had hired, and could not from circumstances occupy at present. Mr. Cowper acceded to this advice, and when he went to Mrs. Stout's it was only to pay over some money he had received for her, and to excuse himself for not coming to lodge there as he had promised. Foreseeing that such a declaration was likely to give rise to a scene on the young lady's part he had been unwilling to speak in the presence of the servant, and this had made him silent when the order was given for warming his bed. The explanation therefore took place when the two were alone, and it seems highly probable that the insane passion of the unhappy girl led her, on finding herself thus deserted, to the commission of suicide. As to the door not being heard to slam a second time, it is clear that with such a purpose in view she would close it as gently as possible, not to alarm her mother.

Upon the hearing of these contradictory facts and statements, the jury withdrawing for about half an hour, returned with their verdict, that neither Mr. Cowper, nor any one of the other three prisoners, were Guilty; and thereupon they were all discharged.

Mrs. Stout, the mother of the deceased, being still unappeased, procured an appeal of murder

to be lodged against the verdict, at the suit of Henry Stout, the heir-at-law, a child ten years of age. Toller, the Under-Sheriff of Herts, having made no return to this writ, accounted to the Court of King's Bench for his neglect, by stating, that he had given the writ to the appellant, who stated that he had burnt it. For this, the under-sheriff was fined one hundred marks. Mrs. Stout then petitioned the Lord Keeper for a new writ of appeal, but the time, a year and a day, having elapsed for suing out a writ, her petition was, of course, rejected.

Mr. Spencer Cowper was not prevented by the trial from attaining rank and repute, both in his profession and in Parliament. On his brother's elevation to the woolsack, he succeeded him in the representation of Beeralston, and sat afterwards for Truro; adhered with inflexibility to the Whig party, was a frequent and successful speaker, and one of the managers in the impeachments of Sacheverell in 1710, and of the rebel lords in 1716. On the accession of George the First, he was appointed Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales; in 1717, Chief Justice of Chester; and in 1727, a Judge of the Common Pleas, retaining also by the especial favour of the Crown, his former office until his death in December, 1728.

His second son, John, as above stated, became the father of William Cowper, the poet.

In a note to the State Trials, Mr. Spencer Cowper and Miss Stout are stated to have been the Mosco and Zara of Mrs. Manley's New Atalantis.

THE GREAT LAW SUIT BETWEEN THE TALBOTS AND THE BERKELEYS.

THE longest law-suit ever heard of in England, was that between the heirs of Sir Thomas Talbot, Viscount Lisle, on the one part, and the heirs of Lord Berkeley on the other, respecting certain possessions not far from Wotton-under-Edge, in the county of Gloucester. It commenced at the end of the reign of Edward IV. and was depending till the reign of James I., when a compromise took place; 120 years litigation. The original disputants were Thomas Lord L'Isle and William Lord Berkeley, and, in their age, the decision of the sword being more regarded than the authority of law, the two noblemen, with their respective followers, met, in deadly encounter, at Wottonunder-Edge, in 1469, when Lord L'Isle received a mortal wound from an arrow shot through his mouth.

VOL. II.