criminal correspondence was commenced between the countess and the earl; and Essex, upon his return from his travels, found his wife beautiful and lovely indeed, but her affections entirely placed upon another. But this was not all: not contented with denying him all the rights of a husband, she resolved to procure a divorce, and then to marry the favourite to whom she had granted her heart. It was upon this occasion that Overbury was consulted by his friend, and that this honest counsellor declared himself utterly averse to the match. He described the countess as an infamous and abandoned woman, and went so far as to threaten the earl that he would separate himself from him for ever, if he could so far forget his honour and his interest as to prosecute the intended marriage. The consequence of this advice was fatal to the giver. The countess, being made acquainted with his expostulations, urged A. D. her lover to ruin him. In consequence of this 1613. command, the king was persuaded by the favourite to order Overbury on an embassy into Russia; sir Thomas was persuaded by the same adviser to refuse going; the delinquent was shut up in the Tower, and there he was poisoned, by the direction of the countess, in a tart.

In the mean time, the divorce, which had been with some difficulty procured, took place, and the marriage of the favourite was solemnised with all imaginable splendour. But the suspicion of Overbury's being poisoned every day grew stronger, and reached the favourite, amidst all the glare and splendour of seeming happiness and success. The graces of his youth gradually disappeared; the gaiety of his manners was converted into sullen silence; and the king, whose affections had been engaged by these superficial accomplishments, began to cool to a man who no longer contri

buted to his amusement.

But the adoption of another

favourite, and the discovery of Somerset's guilt, soon removed all remains of affection which the king might still harbour for him.

An apothecary's apprentice, who had been employed in making up the poison, having retired to Flushing, divulged the secret there; and the affair being thus laid before the king, he commanded sir Edward Coke, lord chief justice, to sift the affair to the bottom, with rigorous impartiality. This injunction was executed A. D. with great industry and severity; and the whole 1615. complication of guilt was carefully unravelled. The lieutenant of the Tower, and some of the inferior criminals were condemned and executed; Somerset and his countess were soon after found guilty, but reprieved and pardoned after some years of strict confinement. The king's duplicity and injustice on this occasion are urged as very great stains upon his character. Somerset was in his presence at the time the officer of justice came to apprehend him; and boldly reprehended that minister's presumption for daring to arrest a peer of the realm before the king. But James, being informed of the cause, said with a smile, "Nay, nay, you must go; for, if Coke should send for myself, I must comply." He then embraced him at parting, begged he would return immediately, and assured him he could not live without his company; yet he had no sooner turned his back, than he exclaimed, "Go, and the devil go with thee! I shall never see thy face again.' He was also heard to wish, some time after, that God's curse might fall upon him and his family, if he should pardon those whom the law should condemn. However, he afterwards restored them both to liberty, and granted them a pension, with which they retired, and

languished out the remainder of their lives in guilt, infamy, and mutual recrimination.

But the king had not been so improvident as to part with one favourite before he had provided himself with another. This was George Villiers, a younger brother of a good family, who had returned from his travels at the age of twenty-two, and whom the enemies of Somerset had taken occasion to throw in the king's way, certain that his beauty and fashionable manners would do the rest. Accordingly he had been placed in a comedy full in the king's view, and immediately caught the monarch's affections. The history of the time, which appears not without some degree of malignity against this monarch, does not however insinuate any thing flagitious in these connections, but imputes his attachment rather to a weakness of understanding than to any perversion of appetite. Villiers was immediately taken into the king's service, and the office of cupbearer was bestowed upon him. It was in vain that Somerset had used all his interest to depress him; his stern jealousy only served the more to interest the king in the young man's behalf.

After Somerset's fall, the favour of James was wholly turned upon young Villiers; in the course of a few years he created him viscount Villiers, earl, marquis, and duke of Buckingham, knight of the Garter, master of the horse, chief justice in eyre, warden of the cinque ports, master of the king's-bench office, steward of Westminster, constable of Windsor, and lord highadmiral of England. His mother obtained the title of countess of Buckingham; his brother was created viscount Purbeck; and a numerous train of needy relations were all pushed up into credit and authority. It may, indeed, be reckoned among the most capricious

circumstances of this monarch's reign, that he, who was bred a scholar, should choose for his favourites the most illiterate persons about his court; that he, whose personal courage was greatly suspected, should lavish his honours upon those whose only accomplishments were a skill in the warlike exercises of the times. When unworthy favourites were thus advanced, it is not to be wondered at if the public concerns of the kingdom were neglected, and men of real merit left to contempt and misery. Yet such was the case at present, with regard to the cautionary towns in Holland, and the brave sir Walter Raleigh at home.

In the preceding reign, Elizabeth, when she gave assistance to the Dutch, at that time shaking off the Spanish yoke, was not so disinterested, upon her lending them large sums of money, as not to require a proper deposit for being repaid. The Dutch, therefore, put into her hands the three important fortresses of Flushing, Brille, and Ramekens, which were to be restored upon payment of the money due, which amounted in the whole to eight hundred thousand pounds. But James, in his present exigency, having to supply a needy favourite and a craving court, agreed to evacuate these fortresses, upon the payment of a third part of the money which was strictly due. The cautionary A. D. towns were evacuated, which had held the states 1616. in total subjection, and which an ambitious or enterprising prince would have regarded as his most valuable. possessions.

The universal murmur which this impolitic measure produced was soon after heightened by an act of severity which still continues as the blackest stain upon this monarch's memory. The brave and learned Raleigh had been confined in the Tower almost from the beginning of James's accession, for a conspiracy which had

never been proved against him; and in that abode of wretchedness he wrote several valuable performances, which are still in the highest esteem. His long sufferings, and his ingenious writings, had now turned the tide of popular opinion in his favour; and they who once detested the enemy of Essex, could not help pitying the long captivity of this philosophical soldier. He himself still struggled for freedom; and perhaps it was with this desire that he spread the report of his having discovered a gold-mine in Guiana, which was sufficient not only to enrich the adventurers that should seize it, but to afford immense treasures to the nation. The king, either believing his assertions, or willing to subject him to farther disgrace, granted him a commission to try his fortune in quest of these golden schemes; but still reserved his former sentence as a check upon his future behaviour.

Raleigh was not long in making preparations for this adventure, which, from the sanguine manner in which he carried it on, many believed he thought to be as promising as he described it. He bent his course to Guiana; and remaining himself at the mouth of the river Oroonoko with five of the largest ships, he sent the rest up the stream, under the command of his son and of captain Keymis, a person entirely devoted to his interests. But instead of a country abounding in gold, as the adventurers were taught to expect, they found the Spaniards warned of their approach, and prepared in arms to receive them. Young Raleigh, to encourage his men, called out that, "This was the true mine," meaning the town of St. Thomas, which he was approaching; "and that none but fools looked for any other:" but just as he was speaking, he received a shot, of which he immediately expired. This was followed by another disappointment: for, when the English took possession of the town, they found nothing in it of any value.