Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441

'I travelled,' says our autobiographer, 'from manse to manse, and received unbounded hospitalities from the ministers, whilst I examined their kirk-registers, and extracted from them every entry where the name of Hunter or Welsh was to be found. Never was task more gratifying. The bonhomie of the priests, and the simplicity of their parishioners, were a new world to me, whilst they, the clergy, men of piety and learning, considered themselves as out of the world altogether. The population was thin and scattered, the mode of living primitive in the extreme, and the visit of a stranger, so insignificant as myself, quite enough to make a great sensation in these secluded parts. I found the ministers ingenuous, free from all puritanism, and generally well informed.... The examination of the parish books was also a labour of love and source of endless amusement. They mostly went as far back as a century and a half, and were, in the elder times, filled with such entries as bespoke a very strange condition of society. The inquisitorial practices and punitive power of the ministry could not be exceeded in countries enslaved by the priesthood of the Church of Rome. Forced confessions, the denial of religious rites even on the bed of death, excommunication, shameful exposures, and a rigid and minute interference in every domestic or private concern, indicated a state of things which must have been intolerable. High and low were obliged to submit to this offensive discipline and domination.... My duty was thus pleasantly and satisfactorily performed. My note-book was full. My skill in deciphering obsolete manuscript was cultivated and improved; and my health was restored as if by miracle. Of other incidents and results I shall only state, that on one occasion, to rival Bruce in Abyssinia, I dined off mutton whilst the sheep nibbled the grass upon the lawn, our fare being the amputated tails of the animals, which made a very dainty dish—that on reaching Edinburgh, my hackney, having from a dark gallop over a ground where a murder had been committed not long before, and being put into a cold stable, lost every hair on its hide like a scalded pig, subjected me to half his price in lieu of damage—and that the famous and ancient Polmood remained in the possession of Lord Forbes, as inherited from the charter of King Robert, who gave the lands for ever, "as high up as heaven, and as low down as hell," to the individual named in the grant, which was witnessed "by Meg, my wife, and Marjory, my nourice."'

Despairing of doing any good in Edinburgh, Mr Jerdan, while still only twenty-three, resorted once more to London, though without any definite object in view. While pursuing his usual light-hearted career, he got into debt and difficulties, and experienced the consequent annoyances with the sense of being an injured man, 'whereas it was I who had wronged myself.' 'It was now,' he adds, 'that I got my first lesson of that fatal truth—that debt is the greatest curse which can beset the course of a human being. It cools his friends and heats his enemies; it throws obstacles in the way of his every advance towards independence; it degrades him in his own estimation, and exposes him to humiliation from others, however beneath him in station and character; it marks him for injustice and spoil; it weakens his moral perceptions and benumbs his intellectual faculties; it is a burden not to be borne consistently with fair hopes of fortune, or that peace of mind which passeth all understanding, both in a worldly and eternal sense. But I shall have much to say on the subject in the future pages of this biography, though I cannot omit the opportunity afforded by my earliest taste of the bitter fruit which poisons every pulse of existence, earnestly to exhort my youthful readers to deny themselves every expense which they cannot harmlessly afford, and revel on bread and water and a lowly couch, in humility and patience, rather than incur the obligation of a single sixpence beyond their actual means.'

At length, about 1806, he gravitated into what was perhaps his natural position—the press; taking a concern in a daily paper called the Aurora, which was got up by the hotel-keepers of London. This speculation did not answer. It was destined to verify a late saying: 'If you want anything spoilt or ruined, you cannot do better than confide it to a committee.' 'Our rulers,' says Jerdan, 'though intelligent and sensible men, were neither literary nor conversant with journalism. Under any circumstances, their interference would have been injurious, but it was rendered still more fatal by their differences in political opinion, and two or three of the number setting up to write "leaders" themselves. The clashing and want of ensemble was speedily obvious and detrimental; our readers became perfect weathercocks, and could not reconcile themselves to themselves from day to day. They wished, of course, to be led, as all well-informed citizens are, by their newspaper; and they would not blow hot and cold in the manner prescribed for all the coffee-room politicians in London. In the interior, the hubbub and confusion of the republic of letters was meanwhile exceedingly amusing to the looker-on; we were of all parties and shades of opinion: the proprietor of the King's Head was an ultra Tory, and swore by George III. as the best of sovereigns—the Crown Hotel was very loyal, but more moderate—the Bell Inn would give a strong pull for the Church—whilst the Cross-Keys was infected with Romish predilections. The Cockpit was warlike; the Olive-Tree, pacific; the Royal Oak, patriotic; the Rummer, democratic; the Hole-in-the-Wall, seditious. Many a dolorous pull at the porter-pot and sapientious declination of his head had the perplexed and bemused editor, before he could effect any tolerable compromise of contradictions for the morning's issue: at the best, the sheet appeared full of signs and wonders!' In short, the paper failed.

Mr Jerdan passed through various situations on various papers, as the elegant language of Cockneydom hath it, and thus he has been enabled to give some curious sketches of the personnel of the press in those days. In the Morning Post, he took a strong part against the Mary-Anne-Clarke investigation, and caused a marvellous sinking of the circulation in consequence. He, nevertheless, consented to go and see that celebrated lady, and confesses to have been softened by her blandishments. One of the most remarkable occurrences of that period was his witnessing the assassination of the prime minister, Perceval, in May 1812. He had saluted the premier, as he was passing into the lobby of the House of Commons, and had held back the spring-door to allow him precedence in entering, when instantly there was a noise within. 'I saw a small curling wreath of smoke rise above his head, as if the breath of a cigar; I saw him reel back against the ledge on the inside of the door; I heard him exclaim: "O God!" or "O my God!" and nothing more or longer (as reported by several witnesses), for even that exclamation was faint; and then, making an impulsive rush, as it were, to reach the entrance to the House on the opposite side for safety, I saw him totter forward, not half way, and drop dead between the four pillars which stood there in the centre of the space, with a slight trace of blood issuing from his lips.

'All this took place ere, with moderate speed, you could count five! Great confusion, and almost as immediately great alarm, ensued. Loud cries were uttered, and rapidly conflicting orders and remarks on every hand made a perfect Babel of the scene; for there were above a score of people in the lobby, and on the instant no one seemed to know what had been done or by whom. The corpse of Mr Perceval was lifted up by Mr William Smith, the member for Norwich, assisted by Lord Francis Osborne, a Mr Phillips, and several others, and borne into the office of the Speaker's secretary, by the small passage on the left hand, beyond and near the fireplace. Pallid and deadly, close by the murderer, it must have been; for in a moment after, Mr Eastaff, one of the clerks of the Vote Office at the last door on that side, pointed him out, and called: "That is the murderer!" Bellingham moved slowly to a bench on the hither side of the fireplace, near at hand, and sat down. I had in the first instance run forward to render assistance to Mr Perceval, but only witnessed the lifting of his body, followed the direction of Mr Eastaff's hand, and seized the assassin by the collar, but without violence on one side, or resistance on the other. Comparatively speaking, a crowd now came up, and among the earliest Mr Vincent Dowling, Mr John Norris, Sir Charles Long, Sir Charles Burrell, Mr Henry Burgess, and, in a minute or two, General Gascoigne from a committee-room up stairs, and Mr Hume, Mr Whitbread, Mr Pole, and twelve or fifteen members from the House. Meanwhile, Bellingham's neckcloth had been stripped off, his vest unbuttoned, and his chest laid bare. The discharged pistol was found beside him, and its companion was taken, loaded and primed, from his pocket. An opera-glass, papers, and other articles, were also pulled forth, principally by Mr Dowling, who was on his left, whilst I stood on his right hand; and except for his frightful agitation, he was as passive as a child. Little was said to him. General Gascoigne on coming up, and getting a glance through the surrounding spectators, observed that he knew him at Liverpool, and asked if his name was Bellingham, to which he returned no answer; but the papers rendered further question on this point unnecessary. Mr Lynn, a surgeon in Great George Street, adjacent, had been hastily sent for, and found life quite extinct, the ball having entered in a slanting direction from the hand of the tall assassin, and passed into his victim's heart. Some one came out of the room with this intelligence, and said to Bellingham: "Mr Perceval is dead! Villain! how could you destroy so good a man, and make a family of twelve children orphans?" To which he almost mournfully replied: "I am sorry for it." Other observations and questions were addressed to him by bystanders; in answer to which he spoke incoherently, mentioning the wrongs he had suffered from government, and justifying his revenge on grounds similar to those he used, at length, in his defence at the Old Bailey.

'I have alluded to Bellingham's "frightful agitation" as he sat on the bench, and all this dreadful work was going on; and I return to it, to describe it as far as words can convey an idea of the shocking spectacle. I could only imagine something like it in the overwrought painting of a powerful romance-writer, but never before could conceive the physical suffering of a strong muscular man, under the tortures of a distracted mind. Whilst his language was cool, the agonies which shook his frame were actually terrible. His countenance wore the hue of the grave, blue and cadaverous; huge drops of sweat ran down from his forehead, like rain on the window-pane in a heavy storm, and, coursing his pallid cheeks, fell upon his person, where their moisture was distinctly visible; and from the bottom of his chest to his gorge, rose and receded, with almost every breath, a spasmodic action, as if a body, as large or larger than a billiard-ball, were choking him. The miserable wretch repeatedly struck his chest with the palm of his hand to abate this sensation, but it refused to be repressed.'

Our author makes a curious remark on the case—namely, that the first examinations are calculated to give the future historian a more faithful idea of the transaction than the record of the trial. Even in the short interval of four days, witnesses had become confused in their recollections, mistaking things which they had only heard of for things they had beheld. The unhappy culprit perished on the scaffold only a week after his crime.

Jerdan, who assumed the editorship of the Sun in 1813, was a flaming Tory of the style of that day, and accordingly enjoyed the triumph of Europe over Bonaparte. In Paris, immediately after the Allies had entered it, he feasted his eyes with the singular spectacles presented, and the personal appearance of the heroes he had been employed for some years in celebrating. Here is a scene at Beauvillier's restaurant in the Rue de Richelieu, where 700 people dined every day. 'It was on the first or second day, that a fair Saxon-looking gentleman came and seated himself at my table. I think he chose the seat advertently, from having observed or gathered that I was fresh from London. We speedily entered into conversation, and he pointed out to me some of the famous individuals who were doing justice to the Parisian cookery at the various tables around—probably about twenty in all. As he mentioned their names, I could not repress my enthusiasm—a spirit burning over England when I left it only a few days before—and my new acquaintance seemed to be much gratified by my ebullitions. "Well," said he to a question from me, "that is Davidoff, the colonel of the Black Cossacks." I shall not repeat my exclamations of surprise and pleasure at the sight of this terrific leader, who had hovered over the enemy everywhere, cut off so many resources, and performed such incredible marches and actions as to render him and his Cossacks the dread of their foes. "Is this," inquired my companion, "the opinion of England?" I assured him it was, and let out the secret of my editorial consequence, in proof that I was a competent witness. On this, a change of scene ensued. My incognito walked across to Davidoff, who forthwith filled, and sent me a glass of his wine—the glass he was using—and drank my health. I followed the example, and sent mine in return, and the compliment was completed. But it did not stop with this single instance. My new fair-complexioned friend went to another table, and spoke with a bronzed and hardy-looking warrior, from whom he came with another similar bumper to me, and the request that I would drink wine with General Czernicheff. I was again in flames; but it is unnecessary to repeat the manner in which I, on that to me memorable day, took wine with half a dozen of the most distinguished generals in the allied service.

'Whilst this toasting-bout was going on, a seedy-looking old gentleman came in, and I noticed that some younger officers rose and offered him a place, which he rejected, till a vacancy occurred, and then he quietly sat down, swallowed his two dozen of green oysters as a whet, and proceeded to dine with an appetite. By this time, my vis-à-vis had resumed his seat, and, after what had passed, I felt myself at liberty to ask him the favour of informing me who he himself was! I was soon answered. He was a Mr Parish, of Hamburg, whose prodigious commissariat engagements with the grand army had been fulfilled in a manner to prosper the war; and I was now at no loss to account for his intimacy with its heroes. It so happened that I knew, and was on friendly terms with some of his near relations; and so the two hours I have described took the value of two years. But the climax had to come. Who was the rather seedy-looking personage whom the aids-de-camp appeared so ready to accommodate? Oh, that was Blucher! If I was outrageous before, I was mad now. I explained to Mr Parish the feeling of England with regard to this hero; and that, amid the whole host of great and illustrious names, his had become the most glorious of all, and was really the one which filled most unanimously and loudly the trump of fame. He told me that an assurance of this would be most gratifying to the marshal, who thought much of the approbation of England, and asked my leave to communicate to him what I had said. I could have no objection; but after a short colloquy, Blucher did not send his glass to me—he came himself; and I hobnobbed with the immortal soldier. I addressed him in French, to which he would not listen; and I then told him in English of the glorious estimation in which he was held in my country, which Mr Parish translated into German; and if ever high gratification was evinced by man, it was by Blucher on this occasion. I had the honour of breakfasting with him at his hotel next morning, when the welcome matter was discussed more circumstantially; and he evinced the greatest delight.'

Here we must part with Mr Jerdan, but only, we hope, to meet him again ere long in a second volume.

CRIMINAL TRIALS

THE SOMERSET AND OVERBURY TRAGEDY

The history of the unworthy favourites whom James I. of England raised to a power so extravagant, has always been surrounded with a tragic mystery. One of them, Buckingham, was stabbed by an assassin; the other, Somerset, was condemned to death for murder. The extravagant dignities and emoluments heaped on these unworthy men, are utterly beyond the belief of those who live under the constitutional government of the present day. Nor was it enough that they obtained the highest titles in the peerage, and large grants out of the public money; they were rewarded in a manner still more dangerous to the public welfare, by being invested with the great, responsible offices of state, which were thus held by young men totally inexperienced, instead of responsible and capable ministers. Of course, they distributed all the inferior offices among their relations and connections; and a witty annalist of the day describes the children of the reigning favourite's kindred as swarming about the palaces, and skipping up and down the back-stairs like so many fairies. They had been raised in early youth from a humble condition to this dazzling elevation, and it was only too much in accordance with the frailty of human nature that they should lose head—feel as if they were under no responsibility to their fellow-men—and, as Shakspeare says, 'play such fantastic tricks before high Heaven, as make the angels weep.' Such rapid and ill-founded prosperity never lasts; and generally he who has ascended like a blazing rocket, tumbles to the earth like its charred and blackened socket.

Carr, afterwards made Earl of Somerset, was a raw Scotch youth, without education or training, when he was first brought under the notice of the king by chancing to have his leg broken in the royal presence in an attempt to mount a fiery horse. When once taken into favour, the king did not care whom he offended, or what injustice he did, to enrich the fortunate youth. When he was besought to spare the heritage of the illustrious and unfortunate Raleigh, he said peevishly: 'I mun have it for Carr—I mun have it for Carr!' The favourite desired to have for his wife the Lady Frances Howard, who had been married to the Earl of Essex. The holiest bonds must be broken to please him, and the marriage was shamefully dissolved. This did no great injury, indeed, to Essex. The union had been one entirely of interest, contracted when both were mere children. He was the same Essex who afterwards figured in the civil war—a grave, conscientious, earnest man, who could have had little sympathy with a woman so giddy and unprincipled. She suited better with the profligate Somerset; but had it not been that the king's favourite demanded it to be dissolved, the original union would have been held sacred.

Great court pageants and festivities hailed the marriage of Carr with the divorced Lady Essex, and the proudest of England's nobility vied with each other in doing honour to the two vile persons thus unpropitiously united. The chief-justice, Coke, and the illustrious Bacon, bowed in the general crowd before their ascendancy. It has been maintained that Ben Jonson, in his rough independence, refused to write a masque for the occasion of these wicked nuptials; but this has been denied; and it is said, that the reason why his works contain no avowed reference to the occasion, is because they were not published until Somerset's fall. The event took place in 1613: three years afterwards, the same crowd of courtiers and great officers were assembled in Westminster Hall, to behold the earl and countess on their trial for murder.

Sir Thomas Overbury, a man of great talent, who lived, like many other people of that period, by applying his capacity to state intrigues, had been committed to the Tower at the instigation of Somerset. He died there suddenly; and a suspicion arose that he had been poisoned by Somerset and his countess. A curious account of the transactions which immediately followed, has been preserved in a work called A Detection of the State and Court of England during the last Four Reigns. It is the more curious, as the author, Roger Coke, was a grandson of Sir Edward, the great chief-justice, who was a principal actor in the scene. The king was at Royston, accompanied by Somerset, when it appears that Sir Ralph Winwood informed his majesty of the suspicions that were abroad against the favourite. The king immediately determined to inform Coke; but it is feared that the determination arose not from a desire to execute strict justice, but because another favourite, George Villiers, who afterwards became Duke of Buckingham, had already superseded Somerset in the king's esteem.

A message was immediately despatched to Sir Edward Coke, who lived in the Temple. He was in bed when it arrived, and his son, even for one who came in the king's name, would not disturb him; 'For I know,' he said, 'my father's disposition to be such, that if he be disturbed in his sleep, he will not be fit for any business; but if you will do as we do, you shall be welcome; and about two hours hence my father will rise, and you may then do as you please.' This was at one o'clock of the morning. Precisely at three, a little bell rang, announcing that the most laborious and profound lawyer whom England has ever produced, had begun the toilsome business of the day. It was his practice to go to bed at nine in the evening, and wake at three, and, in every other detail of his life, he pursued this with clock-work uniformity. When he saw the papers laid before him by the messenger, he immediately granted a warrant against Somerset, on a charge of murder.

The favourite, little knowing what a pitfall had been dug in his seemingly prosperous path, was still at Royston, enjoying the most intimate familiarity with the king, when the messenger returned. Deception was so much of an avowed principle with King James, and was so earnestly supported by him, as one of the functions and arts of kingcraft, that in his hands it almost lost its treacherous character, and assumed the appearance of sincerity. He held that a king who acted openly and transparently, neglected his duty, as the vicegerent of the Deity; and that, for the sake of good government and the happiness of his people, he was bound always to conceal his intentions under false appearances, or, when necessary, under false statements. Somerset was sitting beside the king, whose hand rested familiarly on his shoulder, when the warrant was served on him. The haughty favourite frowned, and turned to his master with an exclamation against the insolence of daring to arrest a peer of the realm in the presence of his sovereign. But the king gave him poor encouragement, pretending to be very much alarmed by the power of the chief-justice, and saying: 'Nay, man, if Coke were to send for me, I must go.' Somerset was obliged to accompany the messenger. The king, still keeping up his hypocrisy, wailed over his departure—pathetically praying that their separation might not be a long one. It was said by the bystanders, that when Somerset was out of hearing, he was heard to say: 'The deil go wi' thee—I shall never see thy face more.'

The earl and countess were formally indicted before their peers on a charge of murder. It is now that the mystery of the story begins. It has never appeared clearly what motive they could have had for murdering Sir Thomas Overbury, and the evidence against them is very indistinct and incoherent; yet the countess confessed, and her husband was found guilty. It was attempted to be shewn, that Overbury had opposed the divorce of the Earl and Countess of Essex, and so had done his best to prevent the union of the favourite with the lady; but whatever opposition he had offered had been overcome; and it is difficult to suppose the revengeful passions so gratuitously pertinacious as to produce a deep assassination-plot from such a cause. So far as one can judge from the extremely disjointed notices of the evidence in the State Trials and elsewhere, it was very inconclusive. Sir Thomas certainly died of some violent internal attack. Other persons had been forming plans to poison him, and apparently were successful. The connection of these persons with the earl and countess was, however, faint. They were in communication with Overbury, and it is true some mysterious expressions were used by them—such as the lady saying to some one, that her lord had written to her how 'he wondered things were not yet despatched,' and such-like expressions. Then there was a story about the conveyance from the countess of 'a white powder,' intended as a medicine for Sir Thomas, and subsequently of some tarts. As to the latter, there was a letter from the countess to the lieutenant of the Tower, saying: 'I was bid to bid you say, that these tarts came not from me;' and again, 'I was bid to tell you, that you must take heed of the tarts, because there be letters in them, and therefore neither give your wife nor children of them, but of the wine you may, for there are no letters in it.' Through Somerset's influence, Sir W. Wade had been superseded as lieutenant of the Tower, and Sir Jervis Elwes appointed. It was said, that this was done for the purpose of having better opportunity for committing the murder. Elwes in his examination, however, hinted at the more commonplace crime of bribery as the cause of his elevation. 'He saith Sir T. Monson told him that Wade was to be removed, and if he succeeded Sir W. Wade, he must bleed—that is, give L.2000.' To bleed is supposed, when so employed, to be a cant term of modern origin. It is singular how many of these terms, supposed to be quite ephemeral, are met with in old documents. 'Bilking a coachman' occurs in a trial of the reign of Charles II.—that of Coal for the murder of Dr Clench. In an important part of the trial of Somerset there occurs another cant word: it is in the speech of Sir Randal Crew, one of the king's sergeants, against the accused. He represents the ghost of Overbury apostrophising his murderers in this manner: 'And are you thus fallen from me, or rather are you thus heavily fallen upon me to overthrow—to oppress him thus cruelly, thus treacherously, by whose vigilance, counsel, and labour, you have attained your honourable place, your estimation in the world for a worthy and well-deserving gent.?' After using this now well-known slang expression, the learned sergeant continues to say: 'Have I not waked, that you might sleep; cared, that you might enjoy? Have not I been the cabinet of your secrets, which I did ever keep faithfully, without the loss of any one to your prejudice; but by the officious, trusty, careful, and friendly use of them, have gained unto you a sweet and great interest of honour, love, reputation, wealth, and whatsoever might yield contentment and satisfaction to your desires? Have I done all this, to suffer this thus by you, for whom I have so lived as if my sand came in your hour-glass?'