to dine with Mrs. Stout at his father Cowper's in Hatton-Garden that day, should take an opportunity to say that he (the prisoner) was gone to Deptford; and that the witness did mention it accordingly; whereupon Mrs. Stout, the deceased, rose up from dinner in confusion, and going into the yard, there swooned away; and they gave her such assistance as was usual in such cases.

He also said, that his brother communicated the last letter to him on Friday before the last assizes, and thinking, as the case stood, it was better his brother should lie at his lodgings at Mr. Barefoot's at the assizes, than at Mrs. Stout's, he did not write to Mr. Barefoot to dispose of the lodgings to another.

Then Mrs. Barefoot testified, the prisoner lay at her house the night the accident happened, and came in a little after eleven by the town clock, and did not go out again that night: the maid of the house also confirmed her mistress's evidence, and affirmed, that the clock struck twelve after the prisoner was in bed.

Mr. Cowper proceeded in his defence, and said, he would explain that part of the evidence that was given by Sarah Walker, Mrs. Stout's maid, where she said, her mistress ordered her to warm the bed, and he never contradicted it: and desired the Court would observe those words in the last letter, viz. "No inconvenience can attend your cohabiting with me;" and afterwards, "I will not fly for it; for come life, come death, I am resolved;" from whence it might be conjectured, what the dispute was between them at the time the maid mentioned; he thought it was not necessary she should be present at this debate, and therefore might not interrupt her mistress in the orders she gave; but as soon as the maid was gone, he offered these objections: he informed her by what accident he was obliged to lodge at Mr. Barefoot's, and that the family were sitting up for him: that his staying at her house under these circumstances, would provoke the censure of town and country, and therefore he could not stay, whatever his inclinations were; but his reasons not prevailing, he was forced to decide the controversy, by going to his lodging; so that the maid might swear true, when she said, he did not contradict her mistress's orders.

He called witnesses, to show it was impossible he could be at the drowning of Mary Stout, because he went away from her house a quarter before eleven, and was at his inn, the Glove and Dolphin, before the clock struck eleven, and it would take up above half an hour to go from Mrs. Stout's to the place where she was drowned, and return to the Glove Inn.And, calling Elizabeth Spurr as a witness, she testified, that he came into the Glove Inn just as the clock struck eleven, and staid there a quarter of an hour before he went to his lodgings: this evidence was confirmed by two other servants of the Glove Inn.

Sir Thomas Lane and Sir William Ashurst said, that they had walked over the ground above mentioned, and it took them up above half an hour, a usual walking pace.

Mrs. Mince was then called as a witness, to disprove what Sarah Walker had deposed, namely, that her mistress did not use to go out at nights.

Mrs. Mince testified, that Sarah Walker told her, her mistress used to entertain company in the summer-house in the night-time, unknown to her mother; that she used to go out at nights, and take the key with her, and make her mother believe she was gone to bed; and that one

time she went out at the garden-window when the garden-door was locked, and bade her not sit up for her, she would come in at her own time; and what time she came, she (the maid) said she did not know, for she was gone to bed.

The prisoner called Sir William Ashurst, Sir Thomas Lane, Mr. Cox, and Mr. Thompson, to his reputation, who all gave him a good character; and Mr. Cox said, he had lived by him in Southwark eight or nine years, and knew him to be a person of integrity and worth, and all the neighbourhood coveted his company; that he took him to have as much honour and honesty as any gentleman whatever, and of all men he knew, he would be the last man that he should suspect of such an act as this he believed nothing in the world could move him to entertain the least thought of any thing so foul.

Here Mr. Marson entered upon his defence, and said,

Their business at Hertford was this: Mr. Ellis Stevens being Clerk of the Papers, and Mr. Rogers, Steward of the King's Bench, were obliged to wait upon the Lord Chief Justice out of town, with the Marshal of the King's Bench; and on the Monday he went with them to the Lord Chief Justice's house in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, from whence they all set out for Hertford; but he (Marson) being an attorney of the Borough Court, and having business there that day, when they came as far as Kingsland, returned back to Southwark, where he attended the Court as usual, and about four set out again for Hertford; and on the way, at Waltham-Cross, he met his acquaintance, Mr. Hanks, a clergyman, who had been to attend the Chief Justice returning to London; but he prevailed on him to go back with him to Hertford, and they galloped every step of the way, because night was coming on, and it was about eight o'clock when they came to Hertford, and he might be in a sweat with riding so hard; but not in such a sweat as the witness testified: that meeting with their friends Mr. Stevens, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Rudkin, and other acquaintance of the Marshal's at the coffee-house, they went from thence to the Glove and Dolphin, where they staid till about eleven; and from thence, he and Mr. Stevens, and Mr. Rogers went to Gurrey's, where they lodged, and drank three bottles of wine before they went to bed, and had some jocular conversation with their landlord Gurrey; he believed Mr. Stevens might ask him if he knew Mrs. Sarah Stout, and what sort of woman she was; and he believed he might say, my friend may be in with her; that Mr. Rogers also asked him (Marson) what money he had got that day? meaning at the Borough Court, and he answered, 50s.; to which Rogers replied, we have been here spending our money, I think you ought to treat us! As to the bundle mentioned, he knew of none, except a pair of sleeves and a neckcloth.

Mr. Rogers, in his defence, said

They came down with the Marshal of the King's Bench; and, not thinking Mr. Marson would have come that day, had not provided a lodging for him that they went from the coffee house to the tavern, as Mr. Marson had related; and there they had some merry and open discourse of this gentlewoman, but he never saw her, or heard her name before she was mentioned there.

Mr. Stevens gave the same account of their going to Hertford.

Here one of the jurymen desired they might withdraw; but the judge told him, they must make an end first.

Mr. Jones said, the friends of the deceased would call some wit

nesses to her reputation; and he believed the whole town could attest that she was a woman of a good reputation: indeed, the prisoners had produced some letters without a name; but, if they insisted on any thing against her reputation, they must call witnesses.

Judge Hatsel answered, he believed nobody disputed that she might be a virtuous woman, and her brains might be turned by her passion, or some distemper. He then directed the jury.

The jury withdrawing for about half an hour, returned with their verdict, that neither Mr. Cowper, nor any one of the other three prisoners, were Guilty; and thereupon they were all discharged.

Mrs. Stout, the mother of the deceased, being still unappeased, procured an appeal of murder to be lodged against the verdict, at the suit of Henry Stout, the heir-at-law, a child ten years of age. Toller, the Under-Sheriff of Herts, having made no return to this writ, accounted to the Court of King's Bench for his neglect, by stating, that he had given the writ to the appellant, who stated that he had burnt it. For this, the under-sheriff was fined one hundred marks. Mrs. Stout then petitioned the Lord Keeper for a new writ of appeal, but the time, a year and a day, having elapsed for suing out a writ, her petition was, of course, rejected.

Mr. Spencer Cowper was not prevented by the trial from attaining rank and repute, both in his profession and in Parliament. On his brother's elevation to the woolsack, he succeeded him in the representation of Beeralston, and sat afterwards for Truro; adhered with inflexibility to the Whig party, was a frequent and successful speaker, and one of the managers in the impeachments of Sacheverell in 1710, and of the rebel lords in 1716. On the accession of George the First, he was appointed Attorney-General to the Prince of Wales; in 1717, Chief Justice of Chester; and in 1727, a Judge of the Common Pleas, retaining, also by the especial favour of the Crown, his former office until his death in December, 1728. His second son, John, as above stated, became the father of William Cowper, the poet.

In a note to the State Trials, Mr. Spencer Cowper and Miss Stout are stated to have been the Mosco and Zara of Mrs. Manley's New Atalantis.

THE DEATHS OF THE SOVEREIGNS OF ENGLAND.

cease.

(Concluded.)

"Le pauvre en sa cabane, ou le chaume le couvre,
Est sujet à ses lois;

Et la garde qui veille aux barrières du Louvre,
N'en defend pas nos Rois."

MALHERBE, in allusion to Death.

WITH the death of James II the romance of English history appears to The heroic achievements of the Plantagenets, the magnificence of the Tudors, and the chivalry of the Stuarts, gave way at the Revolution to that common place and common sense mode of government, which, whilst it contributed so much to the comfort and happiness of the people, afforded but little scope for poetry or romance. Henceforward we find the Sovereigns of England living and dying much like other people. The mortal career of each is similar to that of any person of rank and station in the realm; it passes without personal difficulty or danger from human causes, and the great debt of nature is paid in the sick room. The crown of England no longer falls upon the battle-field, nor is it yielded up in the dungeon or on the scaffold our princes, since the Revolution, have exercised their sway in an age of reality and reason.

The death of MARY II, although her reign was subsequent, occurred prior to that of her royal father whom she had supplanted on the throne, and towards whom she had shown such heartlessness in the manner of doing so. On the 21st December, 1694, Queen Mary was taken ill of the small-pox at Kensington-palace, and the symptoms proving dangerous, she prepared herself for death with great composure. She spent some time in exercises of devotion, and private conversation with the new archbishop; she received the sacrament with all the bishops who were in attendance; and expired on the 28th day of December, in the thirty-third year of her age, and in the sixth of her reign, to the inexpressible grief of King William, who, for some weeks after her death, could neither see company, nor attend to the business of state.

The Princess Anne being informed of the queen's dangerous indisposition, sent a lady of her bed-chamber, to desire she might be admitted to her Majesty; but this request was not granted. She was thanked for her expression of concern; and given to understand, that the physicians had directed that the queen should be kept as quiet as possible. Before her death, however, Mary sent a forgiving message to her sister: and after her decease, the Earl of Sunderland effected a reconciliation between the king and the princess, who visited him at Kensington, where she was received with uncommon civility.

Queen Mary's obsequies were performed with great magnificence. The body was attended from Whitehall to Westminster-abbey by all the judges, serjeants-at-law, the lord mayor and aldermen of the city of London, and both houses of parliament; and the funeral sermon was preached by Dr. Tennyson, Archbishop of Canterbury: Dr. Kenn, the

deprived Bishop of Bath and Wells, reproached him in a letter, for not having called upon her Majesty, on her death-bed, to repent of the share she had in the Revolution. This was answered by another pamphlet. One of the Jacobite clergy insulted the queen's memory, by preaching on the following text: "Go now, see this cursed woman, and bury her, for she is a king's daughter." On the other hand, the lord mayor, aldermen, and common council of London, came to a resolution to erect her statue, with that of the king, in the Royal Exchange.

WILLIAM III, naturally of a delicate constitution, had worn out his health by his unceasing activity in the warlike business of his reign. The immediate cause of his death, however, was an accident. On the 21st of February, 1701, in riding to Hampton-court from Kensington, his horse fell under him, and he himself was thrown upon the ground with such violence, as produced a fracture in his collar-bone. His attendants conveyed him to the palace at Hampton-court, where the ⚫ fracture was reduced by Ronjat, his sergeant-surgeon. In the evening he returned to Kensington in his coach, and the two ends of the fractured bone having been disunited by the jolting of the carriage, were replaced under the inspection of Bidloo, his physician. He seemed to be in a fair way of recovering till the 1st day of March, when his knee appeared to be inflamed, with acute pain and weakness. Next day he granted a commission under the great seal to several peers, for passing the bills to which both houses of parliament had agreed; namely, the act of attainder against the pretended Prince of Wales, and another in favour of the Quakers, enacting, That their solemn affirmation and declaration should be accepted instead of an oath in the usual form.

On the 4th day of March the king was so well recovered of his lame. ness, that he took several turns in the gallery at Kensington; but, sitting down on a couch where he fell asleep, he was seized with a shivering, which terminated in a fever and diarrhoea. He was attended by Sir Thomas Millington, Sir Richard Blackmore, Sir Theodore Colledon, Dr. Bidloo, and other eminent physicians; but their prescriptions proved ineffectual. On the 6th he granted another commission for passing the bill for the malt-tax, and the act of abjuration; and, being so weak that he could not write his name, he, in presence of the lord-keeper, and the clerks of parliament, applied a stamp prepared for the purpose. The Earl of Albemarle arriving from Holland, conferred with him in private on the posture of affairs abroad; but he received his information with great coldness, and said, "Je tire vers ma fin." In the evening he thanked Dr. Bidloo for his care and tenderness, saying, " I know that you and the other learned physicians have done all that your art can do for my relief; but, finding all means ineffectual, I submit." He received spiritual consolation from Archbishop Tennison, and Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury; on Sunday morning the sacrament was administered to him. The lords of the privy council, and divers noblemen, attended in the adjoining apartments, and to some of them who were admitted he spoke a little. He thanked Lord Auverquerque for his long and faithful services: he delivered to Lord Albemarle the keys of his closet and scrutoire, telling him he knew what to do with them. He inquired for the Earl of Portland: but being speechless before that nobleman arrived, he grasped his hand, and laid it to his heart, with marks of the most tender affection. On the 8th day of March he expired, in the fifty-second year of his age, after having reigned thirteen years.