more than I have yet done; if not, I doubt no other means will be of service, but a rack or a halter." It heightens our indignation against the inhuman King James, to notice the irrefragable spirit of Raleigh, contending against the infirmities of age and disease, and the more disheartening treatment of his ruthless persecutors. This appears from the language of another letter to the King:-"Howbeit if I have put him to any discourse to his liking of his last voyage, or former actions, he will talk immediately with as great heartiness, courage, and signs of cheerfulness, as the soundest and strongest man alive.”

We shall next inquire, whether the natural instinct of consanguinity, or the feelings implanted in generous natures, of sympathy for the griefs of womankind, had any place in James's lauded humanity? At the moment when Overbury was expiring, in another chamber of the Tower was a young and beautiful princess in a state of maniacal distraction, who was a short time afterwards laid in her premature grave. This was Arabella Stuart, a near relative of the King, but who became the victim of his groundless suspicions, on account of her marriage, which his jealous mind prompted him might, in some way or other, be prejudicial to his title to his throne. In a letter to the two Chief Justices, Arabella Stuart had implored to be brought before them by habeas corpus, "and if your lordships," she urged, "may

not or will not grant unto me, the ordinary relief of a distressed subject, then, I beseech you, become humble intercessors to His Majesty, that I may receive such benefit of justice, as both His Majesty by his oath has promised, and the laws of this realm afford to all others, those of his blood not excepted, and, though, unfortunate woman! I can obtain neither, yet, I implore your lordships retain me in your good opinion, and judge charitably till I be proved to have committed any offence, either against God, or His Majesty, deserving so long restraint, or separation from my lawful husband." James's blasphemous and unfeeling reply to all intercessions on behalf of Arabella Stuart, was, "She has tasted of the forbidden fruit, and must pay the penalty of her disobedience."

The heartsickness of deferred hope, the prospect of interminable imprisonment and separation from her beloved husband, and the keen sense of her wrongs, overpowered the mind and reason of Arabella Stuart, perhaps shortened her existence. Of the latter circumstance it is impossible not to entertain suspicions; for the absence of inquiry demanded by law concerning the death of any state prisoner, and a midnight funeral, unaccompanied with ceremonies usual on the interment of any of royal blood, have afforded a ground of presumption, that the death of James's kinswoman and victim was a counterpart of that of Sir Thomas Overbury.

Whether Arabella Stuart died of violence, or

from her health being impaired by the same causes which distracted her mind, Posterity must regard King James as her murderer, equally as much as if he had, with his own hands, held a poisoned chalice to her lips. Her cruel fate alone, without calling in aid the other examples of

James's inhumanity that have been adduced, renders it not only not improbable, as far as any presumption from character is concerned, that he poisoned Overbury, but shows that such an infamous act would have been perfectly congenial to his inhuman disposition.

APPENDIX.

ON THE FLATTERY OF ENGLISH SOVEREIGNS.

THE questions of the guilt or innocence of King James or of the Earl of Somerset, are of small importance in comparison with the lessons of moral and political wisdom which may be learnt from the proceedings that have been the subject of the preceding chapters. But in order to render these transactions of past times useful to the present generation, it is necessary to treat of them in connection with the history of the judicature and constitution of the country, of the manners of private and public life, and of national morals.

It is the object of the present Appendix to collect a few historical illustrations of the practice of flattering sovereigns, of which some remarkable instances have been exhibited in the course of the trials in the Great Oyer of Poisoning. For one of the most signal failures of justice recorded in the annals of English judicature, and which is attributable solely to an abuse of a prerogative of the crown, is, that whilst Helwysse, Franklin, Weston, and Mrs. Turner should have been hanged, the Countess of Somerset, who instigated, hired, and paid them, should have been pardoned*. And yet it has been seen that Sir F. Bacon, with a full knowledge of all the king intended to do, scizes every opportunity of extolling James for the Princely zeal for justice which he represents him to have manifested: and several writers of that day indulge their fondness for alliteration and flattery, by singing the praises of James the Just↑.

It is painful to reflect on the moral miasma of the court of King James, which could tarnish and degrade illustrious characters who were fitted by nature to be the lights and ornaments of mankind. We learn from hence that the noble spirits of a nation can never flourish in their natural grandeur, except they act from higher

* Sergeant Montague, who was not in the secret of the king's pre-determination to pardon Somerset, quoted to the peers the antithetical maxim, "Plus peccat auctor quam actor."

+ Carte writes, "Nothing can show a more inflexible regard to justice than all the king's proceedings in the affair of Sir T. Overbury."

incentives than any sovereign can offer, and for more enlarged ends than are bounded by any sovereign's vanity or inclinations.

The habitual use of gross flattery, of which we have instances in the preceding pages, was a principal cause which blinded our sovereigns to the nature and consequences of the vicious or arbitrary courses they adopted, and which precipitated several of them from their thrones. The history of English literature, like that of ancient Rome, exhibits the melancholy lesson, that no conduct of a despotic sovereign can be so derogatory or wicked, as to preclude the incense of the enchanting and sublime, but venal and adulatory

muses.

I. THE FIRST CLASS OF EXAMPLES OF FLATTERY TO SOVEREIGNS WHICH WILL BE ADVERTED TO, REGARDS INSTANCES IN WHICH THEY ARE COMPARED TO DIVINE PERSONS, OR THEIR ACTIONS ARE ASSIMILATED TO WHAT IS RELATED OF THE DEITY OR HOLY CHARACTERS IN THE SCRIPTURES.

The well-known reproof of Canute to his courtiers, who ascribed to him a power over the waves of the sea, is the first instance of flattery addressed to a royal personage in this country, that is recorded in our common histories; but the divine attributes of sovereignty in England, which, in theory, are represented to belong to it in the present day, are of greater antiquity, and may be traced through the dynasties of the barbarian conquerors of Europe to the court of Imperial Rome. The law of England attributes to the king absolute perfection, immortality, and ubiquity. The king of England is, in theory, incapable not only of doing wrong, but of thinking wrong; and in him there is no folly or weakness. When the real king dies, his politic body escapes from his natural body, and by a sort of legal metempsychosis, enters into the natural body of his successor. It is said by lawyers that the politic body of the sovereign includes in it the natural body, and the natural body has in it the politic body. "Corpus incorporatum in corpore naturali, et corpus naturale in corpore corporato." Lord Chief Justice Dyer has thought it necessary for the proper understanding of the mystical nature of the sovereign of England, to explain, that to engender issue is the office of the king's natural and not of his politic body*.

* See this subject investigated with the learning and sagacity which