8.

In the year 1846, the late Professor Amos published a volume entitled 'The Great Oyer of Poisoning,' which will probably continue, in virtue of a few merits to hold its place in legal and historical libraries, and in virtue of many defects to enjoy a reputation much more respectable than it deserves. Its merits consist in this, and I think in this only:-it contains several documents not to be found in print elsewhere, or not in a form so convenient to the reader. Though by no means well edited, for they have been imperfectly read, inaccurately transcribed, carelessly printed, not seen (I should think) in proof by the author,1 and set out in no order, without index or table of contents,-I have found these of great use. They are here gathered together into a portable volume, and after you have once corrected them from the originals you can use them instead. Among them is a reprint in better type of the report in the State Trials;' a copy of the manuscript report now at the Rolls House; and of several examinations, notes, and letters (chiefly Coke's), which have not been printed before. Its defects are a general want of arrangement, which makes it a tedious labour to discover what the writer is aiming at; an utter incapacity to perceive the conclusions which naturally follow from the premises; a blind partiality, disguised under an air of judicial gravity; and an extraordinary deficiency in that sense of probability, through which ordinary men understand that a supposition must be erroneous when the conclusion it leads to is what Euclid would have called absurd. These defects will help to maintain the reputation of the book above its proper level, because they will deter people from reading it through with attention. They will dip in here and there; and in turning over the leaves will meet with desultory remarks on subjects of all kinds, always expressed with sobriety and solemnity, and often very true; with moral censures pronounced against acts undoubtedly censurable, if committed; with 1 E. g. 'Sir Christopher Bland' (for 'Blount') p. 64. 'Mr. Pawlins' (for 'Rawlins') p. 69. 'Sir Robert Hanton' (for 'Naunton ') p. 477. Thoumball' (for Trumbull) p. 163. Examinant' (for Examinate) passim. 'Parasetis' p. 249. 'Ne pereat respublicâ' p. 368. 'Ignorates elenchi' p. 379. Tu scis, Domini, quod feci' p. 381. Venates' p. 487. · περι πανιος την ελευθεριαν p. 501. But the hour of your Justice and the wickedness of the man is such as long continuance of his life cannot consist together.' (for 'but the wickedness of the man is such as the honor of your Justice and long continuance of his life cannot consist together') p. 391. Contrary to the expectation who thought he would have stand mute' p. 395. Never deem his Popery, though he were divers times changed' (for deny and charged) p. 396. 'Good many rejoice' (for men) p. 397. 'Who should wrote it' p. 398. Fiat plena et celeris justitia for all good. Men earnestly expect it.' (for 'all good men earnestly expect it') p. 400. 'So upon the water he was there but as a lackey' (for 'upon the matter') p. 414. To return a substantial and indifferent writ' (for Jury') p. 390. The little fishes as flies' p. 376. My fellows &c I have received (for my fellows and I have received ') p. 124.

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much information (or what looks like it), historical, biographical, legal, and literary, brought in for the purpose of illustration; with discussions of evidence, apparently careful and diligent, really laborious and minute; and they may easily go away with an impression that the book is solid and trustworthy, though unreadable. What the writer's contributions to the history of the Great Oyer are really worth can only be understood by following his arguments from the premises to the conclusion; which is not easily done, because they seldom come within sight of each other, and would require a man to spend more time over the book than the fruit would repay. I have myself however felt it my duty to spend a great deal of time over it, and the margins of my copy would furnish materials, if necessary, for the only complete answer which the case admits—namely a volume of notes commenting upon the several arguments as they occur, with reference to page and line. To meet the general argument (if argument it can be called) by a general answer, is impossible; because it is all abroad. It is like a straggling army, which you may march through in any direction, but cannot defeat, because it has no head. Meanwhile if there be any one who has a fancy to go into it, he will find it convenient to be warned beforehand what it is that the book has been written to prove: a thing hardly to be discovered from the book itself without reading it through more than once; and this I can supply in a short compass. It has been written to prove that the real procurer of the murder of Overbury was King James himself; that the instrument he employed for the purpose was Sir Theodore Mayerne, the Court physician (who was also Overbury's): -that the Countess of Somerset was also engaged at the same time in an ineffectual attempt to poison him :-that the King, hearing of this some two years after, determined to make her and her agents his own scape-goats:-that accordingly he employed Coke and Bacon to get up a case against them, and manage the prosecution so as by fair means or foul to ensure a conviction :-that he or they then employed a clergyman to betray the victims into false confessions of their own guilt, and published to the world false reports of those confessions; as well as an official account of the trial in which the truth was misrepresented in every way,-by the omission of circumstances which were favourable to the prisoners, by the invention of circumstances which made against them, and by a general licence of garbling"-that the King's motive for poisoning Overbury was a fear lest Overbury might in discontent reveal certain secret and unnamable vices to which Professor Amos supposed that the King and Somerset and Overbury and Overbury's confidential servant were alike addicted that his motive for pardoning Somerset, after he

had by such means sufficiently established his guilt, was fear lest Somerset should in revenge or in self-defence disclose the fact that he was himself the murderer of Overbury :-and finally that James was just the sort of man to do such things.

Now if it be asked what desperate difficulty in the ascertained phenomena can have driven a respectable and very prosaic professor to take refuge in so complicated and so extravagant a hypothesis as this, the answer must be that it was only the old difficulty of explaining why James showed so much uneasiness while Somerset's threat to "tax him" with something was hanging over him. Yet surely this is a phenomenon which can be understood and accounted for without assuming for that purpose (upon no evidence whatever except the supposed difficulty of accounting for it in any other way) 1st. That James and Somerset were guilty of certain secret unmentionable vices.

2nd. That Somerset and Overbury were guilty of similar secret unmentionable vices.

3rd. That James knowing that Overbury knew him to be guilty of the said vices, and fearing that he might reveal them, desired to have him killed.

4th. That for that purpose he employed Sir Theodore Mayerne, the principal Court physician (and a man never suspected before of any crime worse than an unskilful prescription), to poison him. 5th. That having accomplished this object, and so skilfully that not a shadow of suspicion had fallen upon him, and hearing accidentally two years after that an unsuccessful attempt to poison Overbury had been made exactly at the same time by other parties, he determined to free himself from all fear of being suspected, by the audacious experiment of bringing those other parties to trial and having them found guilty of the crime which he had himself committed.

6th. That whereas a second instrument was necessary for the accomplishment of this second murder-or rather series of murders-he selected for that service the most unsubservient, intractable, selfwilled, contradictious and indiscreet man in his dominions-Sir Edward Coke-a man whose pride was in his reputation for probity and independence, and who was as staunch as a bloodhound in hunting out evidence:-that he selected this man for his instrument, and set him upon the scent, with full liberty and encouragement to follow it out in his own way.

7th. (which is as wonderful as any of the rest) that he found in this man a willing instrument and accomplice; and by his help (for if it was true that Overbury had been poisoned by the pro

curement of the King, it was impossible that Coke so commissioned should fail to find it out) got as many of the parties hanged as suited his purpose, and all evidence tending to throw suspicion on himself suppressed, destroyed, or evaded.

8th. That all this was done, yet that nothing ever transpired afterwards to betray any part of it.

Surely the man who finds it easier to believe all this than to believe that a King, being threatened by a former bosom-favourite with the public imputation of some odious crime, would feel uneasy about it, is a man who finds it easier to swallow eight camels than to attempt one gnat.

How far Bacon was an accomplice in all this, Professor Amos does not distinctly say; though a long chapter is devoted to him, in which his conduct is minutely criticised and found of course to be a continuous series of basenesses. I have carefully considered all the

charges, but not found any that seem worth answering. And as the whole of the evidence is before the reader, I leave him to make his comments for himself.

THIS great cause being thus settled,-fortunately settled, I should say; for the carriage of it bred no trouble to the living, and the criticisms of Posterity cannot disturb the dead,—the next care was to settle the differences between the Courts of law; which having only been adjourned for a few weeks were presently to come up again. The indictment of Præmunire against the Chancery had failed in February, because the Grand Jury returned an ignoramus: but Coke had encouraged the plaintiff's to try again, promising them a better Jury another time. The argument of the Judges upon the Commendam case had been adjourned in the beginning of May till the second Saturday of the next term, which would be the 8th of June; so there was little time to spare. But the learned counsel had not been asleep in the interval, and everything was ready.

To strengthen himself for the encounter, Bacon again reminded Villiers of his suit to be made a Privy Councillor; which was still under consideration. The result will be seen in the two next letters ; which come from his own collection.

A LETTER TO SIR G. VILLIERS TOUCHING HIS SWEARING COUNCILLOR. 30 MAY 1616.1

Sir,

The time is as I should think now or never for his Majesty to finish his good meaning towards me, if it please him to consider what is past and what is to come.

If I would tender my profit and oblige men unto me by my place and practice, I could have more profit than I can desire, and could oblige all the world and offend none; which is a brave

1 Gibson Papers, vol. viii. f. 33. Copy. Docketed in Bacon's hand as in the heading.