up and many lives were lost. Such little escapades may be pardonable
enough in 'noble and unfortunate' earls: but readers will perhaps
agree that if they chose to try a similar experiment, they could not
complain if they found themselves shortly after in company with Mr.
Mitchell at Spike Island or Mr. Oxford in Bedlam. However, those
were days in which such Sabbath amusements on the part of one of the
most important and powerful personages of the realm could not be
passed over so lightly, especially when accompanied by severe loss of
life; and as there existed in England certain statutes concerning
rebellion and high treason, which must needs have been framed for
some purpose or other, the authorities of England may be excused for
fancying that they bore some reference to such acts as that which the
noble and unfortunate earl had just committed, as wantonly,
selfishly, and needlessly, it seems to me, as ever did man on earth.

I may seem to jest too much upon so solemn a matter as the life of a
human being: but if I am not to touch the popular talk about Essex
in this tone, I can only touch it in a far sterner one; and if
ridicule is forbidden, express disgust instead.

I have entered into this matter of Essex somewhat at length, because
on it is founded one of the mean slanders from which Raleigh never
completely recovered. The very mob who, after Raleigh's death, made
him a Protestant martyr--as, indeed, he was--looked upon Essex in the
same light, hated Raleigh as the cause of his death, and accused him
of glutting his eyes with Essex's misery, puffing tobacco out of a
window, and what not--all mere inventions, so Raleigh declared upon
the scaffold. He was there in his office as captain of the guard,
and could do no less than be there. Essex, it is said, asked for
Raleigh just before he died: but Raleigh had withdrawn, the mob