The King's Attorney speaks.-May it please your Grace, my Lord here has had a most gracious hearing; and has behaved himself modestly and wittily.

Lord High Steward.-If you have any more to say (my Lord) you shall be heard at length: we will not streighten you with time.

Somerset.-For Sir Robert Cotton, I wish he were here, to clear many things that now be obscure.

Mr. Attorney.—If he were here, he could not be sworn, for reason of state, being held for a delinquent.

Somerset.-Whereas the shifting of officers is urged against me, as to make the more easy way for Sir Jervase Helvash's entrance; it is well known the reason of Wade's displacing was in respect of his carelessness, in suffering the Lady Arbella to have a key, by which she might conveigh herself out of prison. More I cannot call to mind, but desire favour.

King's Attorney speaks.-It has (my Lord) formerly, &c., &c., &c.

CHAPTER III.

MANUSCRIPTS CONTAINING MATTERS RELEVANT TO THE CHARGE OF POISONING SIR THOMAS OVERBURY.

THE subject of the present chapter is an inquiry into some matters relevant to the charge against the Earl of Somerset, which are not to be collected from the reports of his trial, and which are found chiefly in the unpublished manuscripts deposited in the State Paper Office.

It will have occurred to the reader, on perusing the reports of the trial of the Earl of Somerset, that it would have been very important to have known whether any medical men of eminence and high character visited Sir T. Overbury, and to have ascertained what were their opinions concerning the state of his health. If the Earl of Somerset prohibited such persons from visiting Sir T. Overbury, or if, on the other hand, he was instrumental in facilitating their attendance upon him, these would surely be circumstances relevant to the question of the Earl's guilt or innocence. Moreover, the opinions of distinguished physicians regarding Sir T. Overbury's state of health at different periods would have thrown

considerable light on the question of his having been poisoned at all, or of his having died from other causes, whether violent or natural.

From the Earl's trial we collect, (but it is only by implication, the evidence having been adduced with a different object), that Sir T. Overbury was seen in prison by one of the King's physicians, and likewise by Sir R. Killigrew, a medical man, and by the apothecary Lobell. The King's physician, who was sent to the Tower for the purpose of visiting Overbury by the express direction of his Majesty, does not appear to have been examined at all. Neither Sir R. Killigrew nor Lobell is asked whether Sir T. Overbury exhibited any symptoms of being poisoned.

The following documents, now published for the first time, show that the celebrated physician Mayerne prescribed for Sir T. Overbury during his imprisonment. Mayerne had been physician to King Henry IV. of France, and had been invited over to England by King James, in order to be his own physician. Several of Mayerne's medical remains are extant, which contain very circumstantial and elaborate statements of the cases of the patients whom he visited. It was his custom to note down a variety of minute circumstances regarding his patients, which are sometimes ludicrous on account of their particularity. His memoranda comprise very minute details concerning King James's physical peculiarities; as, for instance, that the King

M

had a diarrhoea in the spring and autumn, the return of which was always preceded by his looking with suspicion on every body; and that he concealed hurts with which he often met in hunting, for fear of being pressed to take physic.

Another of the King's physicians, Dr. Craig, appears, from the following papers, to have been admitted to visit Sir T. Overbury, by the express orders of the Earl of Somerset, and also of the Earl of Northampton.

Lobell, the apothecary, was a Frenchman, and was placed in immediate attendance on Sir T. Overbury by his countryman Mayerne. He saw the dead body. The clyster alleged to have contained corrosive sublimate, which was the only imputed cause of Sir T. Overbury's death at all proximate to that event in point of time, and which was stated (or rather related to have been stated) by Weston to have actually killed Sir T. Overbury, was by the like evidence said to have been administered by Lobell or one of his assistants.

It will appear from the following documents, that, if credit be given to Lobell, Sir T. Overbury died of a consumption. Mayerne's prescriptions, which Lobell delivered to Sir E. Coke, probably confirmed that opinion, or they would have been produced at the trial. This part of Lobell's examination was suppressed, though his testimony upon other points was adduced against the Earl of Somerset on his trial.

It has been noticed that the printed report omits a fact contained in the manuscript report, that the Earl of Somerset wished Lobell to write to Dr. Mayerne concerning physic to be administered to Sir T. Overbury. The documents about to be set forth will further show a very curious piece of evidence, tending to create a suspicion that Lobell, in fact, poisoned Sir T. Overbury. If this were the case, the connection between Lobell and Mayerne, and between Mayerne and the King, would tend to throw some new light on these mysterious trans

actions.

Wilson, who, from being the intimate friend of Lord Essex, the Countess of Somerset's injured husband, is entitled to peculiar attention in regard to the transactions under consideration, relates that the discovery of Overbury's murder arose "from the apothecary's boy that gave Sir T. Overbury the clyster falling sick at Flushing, having revealed the whole matter, which Sir R. Winwood, by his correspondents, had a full relation of."

Sir A. Weldon confirms Wilson, and is still more particular in his narrative of the discovery of the plot; for he mentions that the name of the apothecary's boy was Reeve, and that he was afterwards an apothecary in London, and “died very lately." And he relates that Thoumbal, the foreign agent, would not commit the story he had heard to writing, but only informed Secretary Wynwood that he had a secret of importance to communicate it a licence for