LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 452.-15 JANUARY, 1853. From the New Monthly Magazine. will incline to pay her the compliment of saying, It has been observed that an absolute scepticism IN that shadowy borderland which separates the things which are seen and temporal from the things which are unseen and eternal-where the eye dwells on a swarth canopy of clouds, and the ear catches stray cadences of ineffable speech, and the feet stumble on the dark mountains-there, on the Night-side of Nature, loves Mrs. Crowe to pitch her tent. Thence she dispenses her dark sayings-thence publishes her revelations of matters in heaven and earth not dreamt of in our phi-given to the opinion that those almost universal losophy, or dreamt of only as a dream. superstitions which, in every age and nation, have Rich are her walks with supernatural cheer : implied the fact of occasional interferences of the The region of her inner spirit teems dead with the living, ought not to be summarily With vital sounds and monitory gleams dismissed as a mere folly of the vulgar, utterly unOf high astonishment, and pleasing fear.* real, until our knowledge of the spiritual world is so complete as shall entitle us to affirm that no Montaigne tells us he was once tainted with that such interferences can, in the nature of things, ever presumptuous arrogance which slights and con- have taken place. The mere supposition of there demns all things for false that do not appear to being any universal persuasion, which is totally us likely to be true-the ordinary vice of such as groundless, not only in its form and adjuncts, but fancy themselves wiser than their neighbors; and in its substance, does some violence to the prinif he heard talk of dead folks walking, of prophe-ciples of human reasoning, and is clearly of dancies, enchantments, witchcrafts, or kindred story gerous consequence." So writes Mr. Isaac Tayof somnia, terrores magicos, portentaque Thessala, lor, adding, that whether such and such alleged he refused credit point-blank, and pitied the credu- facts happen to come to us mingled with gross lous vulgar who were abused by such follies; "whereas I now find," quoth the older-and-wisergrown Gascon," that I was to be pitied at least as much as they; not that experience has taught me to supersede my former opinion, though my curiosity has endeavored that way; but reason has instructed me that thus resolutely to condemn anything for false and impossible is to circumscribe and limit the will of God and the power of nature within the bounds of my own capacity, than which no folly can be greater." And such a position of suspense, of readiness to investigate and slowness to repudiate à priori, is the mental status upon which Mrs. Crowe insists, at the very least, as essential to every student or observer of the mysterious. Her illustrations of this subject, her contributions to the romance of dream-land and ghost-seeing, are instinct with cordial good faith, so positive and real that her readers are commonly moved to go some way with her, and to commune each one with himself, after being plied with her accumulations of stirring evidence, in the poet's strain : popular errors, or not, is a circumstance of little importance in determining the degree of attention they may deserve--the one question to be considered being this: Is the evidence that sustains them in any degree substantial? He is, indeed, of opinion that almost all instances of alleged supernatural appearances may easily be disposed of, either on the ground of the fears and superstitious impressions of the parties recording them, or on that of the diseased action of the nervous system, which in certain conditions, generates * L'Etourdi., iv. 3. † Physical Theory of Another Life. Chap. xvii. end to our scientific curiosity on the subject, for instance, "Shall we allow," he asks, "an objector to put an of somnambulism, by saying, 'Scores of these accounts have turned out to be exaggerated or totally untrue?'or, This walking in the sleep ought not to be thought possible, or as likely to be permitted by the Benevolent Guardian of human welfare?'" Our business is, first, to obtain a number of distinct, and unimpeachable, and intheir testimony, as well as we can, to other parts of our telligent witnesses; and then to adjust the results of philosophy of human nature. Mr. Taylor, let us add, gravely conjectures, what we cannot so gravely quote, that, as almost all natural modes of life are open to some degree of irregularity, and admit exceptive cases, so the pressure of the innumerable community of the dead, toward the precincts of life, arising from a yearning after the lost corporeity, or after the expected corporeity, may, in certain cases, actually break through the boundaries that hem in the ethereal crowds, and that so it may happen, as if by trespass, that the dead may, in single instances, infringe upon the ground of common corporeal life. If so, it is inexcusable that the "re siduary establishment" of ghosts, though "non-intrusionists," or rather because they are so, should not despatch after the stray ghost the ghost of a "Peeler," armed with special warrant, or whatever is their analogue to our "Habeas corpus." visual illusions of the most distinct kind; but he | agreeably dispersed and cleared up, was delightful contends that no such explanations will meet the matter for those whom it concerned. The perplexmany instances, thoroughly well attested, in which ity was not, however, managed with consummate the death of a relative, at a distance, has been conveyed, in all its circumstances, to persons during sleep; nor, again, to those instances in which some special information, buried in the bosom of the dead, has been imparted, in sleep, to the living. In maintaining the affirmative side of the vexed question concerning supernatural experiences, Mrs. Crowe occupies a foremost place among modern agitators. Nor can she be accused as many of the latter, not always unjustly, are, of deficiency in shrewdness, sagacity, and hard common sense. These qualities are as characteristic of her style of mind as is a love for the marvellous. art; for too much light was cast upon the process the wires of the machinery were slightly hid, and creaked in undue tell-tale fashion; you were not kept in suspense as to the issue: you felt, in a degree calculated to injure a work of fiction, that when things were getting to be at the worst, they would inevitably mend, and that it was a law of the work that the darkest hour should be the immediate precursor of sunrise. Mrs. Crowe's next story, "Men and Women; or, Manorial Rights," showed a similar wealth of invention in melodramatic action, and a similar defect of skill in the apparatus for the evolution of its plot. Circumstantial evidence was again the pivot of its progress; but that Groves, the Courvoisier of the tale, should never have been suspected, while so many respectable people were, puzzled such readers as saw from the first" how the land lay.' 66 Her acute faculty of observation, and cool-headed tact in eliminating a mystery through devious mazes, are seen in her frequent and favorite tales of circumstantial evidence. Give her a case of that kind, as one of her reviewers has said, and Lilly Dawson" belongs to the same "exciteshe will draw out every scrap of it so cunningly ment" school. In construction, it showed no that, during the progress of the story, you will advance of tact upon its predecessors. But its tone fix the guilt on half a dozen individuals in succes- was, on the whole, more healthy, its observation sion; nor is it always, apparently, quite clear to of life more keen and probing, and its array of Mrs. Crowe herself who is the real delinquent, characters more true to both nature and art. until she is compelled to decide the question to- Nowhere, probably, has Mrs. Crowe wrought up wards the close of the third volume. There is, scenes of terror with more grisly effect than in this nevertheless, room in her constructions for an in-romance- -for example, Lilly's unobserved presence genuity of design and arrangement which shall be more artful, or rather artistic, and less artificial, and which shall have the ars celare artem. About a dozen years since, a great "hit" was made at the circulating libraries by the production of" Susan Hopley," with the fascinating alias of "Circumstantial Evidence." On a work so widely read, there is little for us to remark, at this time of day. Undoubtedly it was read and commended up to the pitch of its deserts, and perhaps a little beyond. It was just the book for ordinary habitués of the Temple of Novel-ty-not a whit beyond their comprehension or reflective powers-demanding no pause on their part to 18ark as well as read, or inwardly digest as well as swallow; and at the same time cramming them with incident, scheming and cross-scheming, ravelling and unravelling, plot and counterplot, to the very top of their bent. A huge favorite was Susan with provincial matrons, who daily scan the lights and shadows of human nature in its avatars at the police-courts and assizes. Her adventures were as good as a twelvecolumned murder case, with the speeches by Bodkin and Ballantyne, and the cross-examination by Serjeant Wilkins into the bargain. The imbroglio of confusion worse confounded, yet so sure to be *By the way, it was once observed by Coleridge, that in all the best attested stories of ghosts and visions, as in that of Brutus, of Archbishop Cranmer, that of Benvenuto Cellini, recorded by himself, and the vision of Galileo, communicated by him to his favorite pupil Torricelli, the ghost-seers were in a state of cold or chilling damp from without, and from anxiety inwardly. ""T was bitter cold, and they were sick at heart, and not a mouse stirring." See his "Literary Remains" (Notes on Shakspeare). + Southey writes: "I never fear to avow my belief that warnings from the other world are sometimes communicated to us in this; and that, absurd as the stories of apparitions generally are, they are not always false, but that the spirits of the dead have sometimes been permitted to appear." He adds, to his correspondent: "Perhaps you will not despise this as a mere superstition when that Kant, the profoundest thinker of modern came, by the severest reasoning, to the same conclusion." Westminster Review. I say ages, amid the smugglers who bring home the corpseand its repetition in the case of the murder of Charlotte Littenhaus by her brother Luke. But then, again, she has nowhere, probably, evidenced such care and mastery in the development of character and the by-ways of the human heart. The gradational transition of Lilly from a state of dense, crass, impenetrable obtuseness, and the adjustment of the means necessary to this revolution, are effected with remarkable talent, and testify to the author's acquaintance with psychology, and, we may add, to her ability to sustain a loftier part than has usually been her choice in fiction-even had we not the instance of her neglected but meritorious play," Aristodemus," to give confirmatory witness on this point. How Lilly's heart awoke her intellect-how a few days of sunshine swelled the bud that had been nipped by bitter east winds how kindness made her begin to feel, and feeling induced thought-how a sudden impulse of affection unfolded to her some faint ideas of what human life was, or should be, and of how the world was held together-and how the vibration of a chord thus struck, by exciting her love, awakened dormant faculties of keen vitality and large compass-this educational process is ably portrayed. There is consistent reality, too, about the character of May Elliott, kindly yet selfish, imposing and dashing-" a riddle far beyond Lilly's guessing," who is too happy in being permitted to adore May, and in believing nobody to be so clever, and wise, and good, and handsome-so great is the effect of her fashionable dress and fine ladyism. Old Abel White, again, interests us, with his fond memory of his dead and gone Matty, and his ready love for the humblest of God's creatures. Winny and Shorty manage the low comedy with tolerable success -Luke and Jacob Littenhaus are still better in the tragic business-and of the other actors, Philip Ryland and his mother, Giles and Martha Lintock, Colonel Adams, and Master Freddy, not one is a mere lay figure, or even marionette, but they all tread the stage with ap propriate demeanor, and contribute to the nexus is, of their rendering their presence sensible to us, of the drama. who are yet in the flesh, and whose gross organs A veritable bonne bouche for epicures in super-are only calculated and designed to take cognizance naturalism is the " Night-side of Nature; or, of material objects-is a question that can be argued Ghosts and Ghost-seers." Its bill of fare contains only by experience; while this very experience, in many a dainty dish to set before the king-of ter- all ages and countries, is, she contends, in favor rors himself. Highly spiced entremets abound, of the fact; and although allowing herself igand certain formidable and, to some constitutions, norant of the peculiar conditions under which indigestible pièces de résistance. Spectres, wraiths," preternatural" recognitions take place, whether doubles, presentiments, and mesmerism in all its phases of faith, are served up ungrudgingly, and never under-done; for the purveyor is au fait in the mysteries of her art. Committing ourselves to her guidance, we enter darkling a region of Substance and shadow, light and darkness, all Of shapes, and forms, and tendencies to shape, spiritual presentiments, And such refraction of events She has been said to be enamored of her reve nants and restants, because they convey to her soul the dear assurance of a world to come-the purpose of this book being the conveyance of that grand conviction to other minds; she is eager for the in depending on the state of the seer or the seen, or the mutual rapport of both, she states her perfect satisfaction that such occurrences are more frequent than is commonly imagined, and valiantly protests against that "human pride and scepticism, and a reaction from the superstitions of a preceding age," which caused them to be concealed or denied, or explained away. In her polemics in favor of mesmerism, she scarcely does her spiriting gently. The collection of stories published under the name of "Light and Darkness," comprises specimens of Mrs. Crowe's manner in its "all and a sundry" varieties. There is more darkness, indeed, than light; more of grave than gay; less of lively than severe. The book is beloved of those who relish a supper-full of horrors, and who find special entertainment in the simultaneous experience of the chimes of two in the morning ("not a mouse stirring," look you!), and the death-throes of a flickering lamp, and the alarms of a ghost-tale -all contributing to a shivering crisis of excitement, which sends the reader, with the perturbed gesture and dilated eyeball and stealthy tread of Queen Macbeth, "to bed-to bed-to bed!" Thus, "The Monk's Story" relates with " dreary" somnambule for roving about o'nights, and sticking circumstantiality the uncomfortable mania of decent people in their first sleep; The Surgeon's vestigation of any new facts, in how questionable Adventures pleasantly sets forth the unpleas a guise soever they may come, which may, perhaps, and ragouts of the flesh stipulated for in Shylock's antries of Italian banditti, with their pastoral inns. let in some more light upon the darkness which bond; The Lycanthropist," or wolf-man, who compasses the mystery of life. Famous company would she have been for John Leyden, who, when essays, with success fully equal to his merits, the The Bride's Journey," he got upon this topic, used to rivet the attention part of the vampire; of Scott and other beaux esprits, by "maintaining with its strange series of contretemps and narrow powerfully," and "with great learning," the effete escapes; and "The Priest of St. Quentin," a traditions of ghost-seeing, and the romantic police report after the own heart of exploded "The Poisoners" furnish doctrines of demonology," and sometimes police report students. effect to confirm the strange tales with which his memsimilar matter, calculated to be highly welcome to "The Society of Connoisseurs in Murder," who, ory abounded, by reference to the ghostly experiences of his childhood." In him she would have as their natural history and unnatural tastes are hailed an M.D. who, in spite of his diploma, would expounded in the English Opium-eaters' memoclaim exemption from the stern strictures she rable Lecture, profess to be curious in homicide; passes on scientific "critics and colleges” en masse, as systematically and most ignorantly "putting acteristic of Mr. de Quincey's writings-replete with down" every new discovery-mesmerism and clair-humorous irony, ingenious illustration, erudite gossip, and voyance, for instance-which opposes the textus philosophic burlesque. The sustained gravity of the lecreceptus of their inspired rule of faith, or which turer, and his keen zest in explaining a recondite beauty, are inimitably fine. To readers of this generation, lament"promises to be troublesome from requiring new ably unread in the periodical literature of five lustra since, thought to render it intelligible." Against these we may be permitted to explain, that the jeu d'esprit iu doctors throughout all the world Mrs. Crowe uplifts question expounds the aesthetics of Murder-methodically a ringing, protestant cry, as stiff-necked and dull-ranging from Cain to Mr. Thurtell-from barbarian ages, when the art was little understood, and distressing bunpated partisans, who, having declared against any new theory or discovery in the outset, find it "im-gling disgraced the profession, to the present age, when portant to their petty interest that the thing to quote the Lecturer himself, "people begin to see that shall not be true; and they determine that it shall not if they can help it." Her principle is-as expounded in another of her works-that on subjects connected with the invisible world, all à priori reasoning is perfectly worthless; the possibility of the reappearance of the dead, for instance that *Wordsworth: "Prelude." 66 66 *This Lecture is one of the cleverest and most char masterpieces of excellence have been executed, and when, something more goes to the composition of a fine murder than two blockheads to kill and be killed—a knife—a purse-and a dark lane. Design, gentlemen-design," light and shade, poetry, sentiment, are now deemed incontinues this earnest and eloquent professor, "grouping, dispensable to attempts of this nature. Mr. Williams has exalted the idea of Murder to all of us. . . . Like Aschylus or Milton in poetry, like Michael Angelo in painting, he has carried his art to a point of colossal sublimity ;* and, as Mr. Wordsworth observes, has in a manner as amateurs and dilettanti in the various modes of bloodshed; and, in short, murder-fanciers, and who, whenever the police annals of Europe bring up a fresh atrocity of that class, meet and criticize it as they would a picture, statue, or other work of art. Then, again, Mrs. Crowe's knack in getting up a case of circumstantial evidence, and tangling a web of mystery, is displayed in such narratives "The Accusation," "Beggar and Burgomaster," and "The Tile-burner and his Family.' Her revelations of social life are represented in "The Money Seekers," and her comic vein, not very broad, or deep, or richly flowing, is traceable in the head-gear afflictions of "The Two Miss Smiths." On the whole, the contents of these volumes read better in their original fugitive form, as magazine papers, than in the more imposing guise of guinea-and-a-half glorification. And speaking for ourselves, we must own that these tales of terror did not cast over us such a spell as to elicit an unconditional assent and consent to their assumed right of reappearance in another form-of revisiting thus the glimpses of the moon, in the hope of making night hideous, and a second edition pay. son." the seat assigned her be shared by the Houdins and Döblers of their craft. The wizard of the Northwe mean Scott, not "Professor Anderson"would never have attained to that title of facile princeps, had he confined his orbit to going round about the caldron of magic such as this. From the Athenæum. A Narrative of the Attempted Escapes of Charles the First from Carisbrook Castle, and of his Detention in the Isle of Wight, from November, 1647, to the Seizure of his Person by the Army. at Newport, in November, 1648. Including the Letters of the King to Col. Titus, now first deciphered and printed from the Originals. By GEORGE HILLIER. Bentley. Narrative" that period. As they exist, however, in the Brit ish Museum, they were scarcely available to the general student of history-for they are partly written in cipher, all the names, dates, and es sential details being thus concealed. Mr. Hillier has therefore done a useful thing in copying them fairly out, and printing them with a key. THE interesting correspondence of Charles the First with Capt. Titus, quasi Tighthose-a man famous and infamous in history as the alleged author of "Killing no Murder," and summarily described by Swift as "the greatest rogue in England"-has, as our readers know, been acquired by purchase for the National Library. NotwithNor are we over well-affected towards Mrs. standing the previous existence of a great many Crowe's last venture, "The Adventures of a letters, memoirs, and confessions on the subject Beauty." If the invention of a labyrinthine plot to which it refers-Ashburnham's is all-in-all, this novel is a triumph of high art; (edited a few years ago by the late Lord Ashburnand as there are readers who decide in the affirm- ham, from family papers), Berkeley's "Memoirs," ative, and who postpone all other qualities to that Firebrace's "Narrative," the several "Memoirs" of intricately-woven story, it is sure of its section of Herbert, Warwick, and Cooke-all personal of the myriad-minded public. But if character-attendants on his majesty in the island-together ization is of importance-if deep searchings of with the Journals of Parliament and the voluminheart are in request-if the anatomizing art of ous collections of state papers in Thurloe, RushHawthorne is desired, or Currer Bell's sounding worth, Clarendon, and others-these Titus Papers of the soul's dark and heaving waters, or Thack- have their own points of interest. They relate eray's ironic cautery of conventional life-then is some of the most curious events of the year's capthis history of Agnes Grosvenor null and void. tivity in the king's own words, and they throw In this respect, it is a decline from "Lilly Daw-light on his condition of mind and person during "L'originalité des caractères a disparu, et c'est elle qui seule peut rendre une fiction viante."* To this axiom, however, not all subscribers to circulating libraries will ex animo subscribe; some even have a notion, uttered or unexpressed, that the less une fiction has of philosophic character-delineation, the more vivante it necessarily is. The Adventures of a Beauty" we have seen aptly compared to one of those puzzles in which you discover a number of rings shut up one within another; you cannot for the life of you tell how they got there, and are still more bewildered to know how they are to be got out again; but to Mrs. Crowe all this is perfectly easy. In her hands, "the perplexities of a plot through which the tangled threads of circumstances overlay the humanity, and render moral truths subordinate to a machinery of intricate incidents, may not only be endured with complacency, but enjoyed as one enjoys the feats of a conjurer who can make a card fly out of the pack into a gentleman's pocket or a lady's reticule, and restore it into its proper place with a wave of his wand." Yet one is scarcely resigned to a result which classes the author of Aristodemus" with professors of the legerdemain of romance-though 'created the taste by which he is to be enjoyed.'" The "as Mr. Wordsworth observes," is here delicious, all things considered, and must almost have ravished a smile from the poet himself. But to Wordsworth a sense of the ludicrous was as absolutely wanting, as the sense of smell, Madame de Staël. +Westminster Review, April, 1852. But, though it is the most essential part, this is not the whole of Mr. Hillier's labor. He seems to have felt that these letters of the king to his agent would be uninteresting and unintelligiblesave only to the few-if sent into the world without voluminous notes and commentary; and ho wisely, as we think, resolved to put his explanatory information into the form of a narrative. By this method he has produced a monograph on a very interesting episode of English history; which, if, owing to the writer's bias, it be not exactly what might be desired on the subject, is still the best account that we have of the transactions referred to in its pages. In this day of compilation and book manufacture, it is something to say so much. Mr. Hillier, who takes the martyr's side and a sentimental view of the great transaction of those times, is disposed to make a minor hero of every man who served the king. He treats us to a biography of Col. Titus-to which we refer those of our readers, if there be any such, who feel any interest in the "greatest rogue in England;"contenting ourselves in the mean time with transferring to these columns a single paragraph from the said biography :— ous act. Captain, ultimately Colonel Titus, is, however, the absence of her son, he was entertained by the old better known to the public as the author of the cele- countess of that name, during the time his adherents brated pamphlet, "Killing no Murder," which he were prosecuting their mission in the Isle of Wight... published in 1657, under the fictitious name of Wil-On reaching Lymington, the inclemency of the weather liam Allen; and in it endeavored to prove that kill- prevented them crossing the Solent until the next ing the protector would be both a legal and meritori- morning, when they made their way from thence to Cromwell is said to have been so powerfully Carisbrook, arriving there between ten and eleven affected by the perusal of this publication as to cause o'clock; and having learned that Hammond had gone him ever afterwards to become gloomy and suspi- to Newport, to meet some gentlemen and officers concious, seldom sleeping two nights in the same bed, and nected with the island, followed and overtook him; invariably carrying fire-arms. Having by some Berkeley, apparently in a most unskilful and abrupt secret intelligence discovered the real author, he manner, at once telling him the king had left Hampton made the following attempt to secure his person. Court, under dread of assassination, and was then in Understanding the royalists were in the habit of the neighborhood; to which Hammond made answer, holding meetings at a certain tavern in London, he" that he knew not what course to take; but having, sent an officer, in whose attachment and fidelity he upon serious consideration, weighed the great concernplaced great confidence, to seize Colonel Titus and ment that the person of the king was of, on this juncFirebrace. The officer ordered his men to halt at the tion of affairs, to the settlement of the peace of the kingdoor until he went into the house for further infor- dom, resolved it his duty to the king, to the Parliament mation. He there privately asked the landlord and the kingdom, to use the utmost of his endeavors to whether Titus and Firebrace were within, assuring preserve his person from any such horrid attempt, and him that his purpose was to save, and not to take to bring him to a place of safety, where he might also away their lives; and going into the room where they be in a capacity of answering the expectations of Parwere, threw his red cloak over his head, and ex- liament and the kingdom, in agreeing to such things claimed, "if Titus or Firebrace be in the room, let as might extend to the settlement of those great divisthem escape for their lives this instant." He then ions and distractions which abound in every corner returned, and called in the soldiers to take them; but thereof." On this much controversy ensued, and disthey, heeding his advice, had in the mean time es- trust as to Hammond's character evidently sprung caped through the window, and, mounting their up in the minds of both Ashburnham and Berkeley; horses, proceeded into Scotland, where they joined it being, however, ultimately agreed, that Berkeley General Monk. should remain at the castle, whilst Ashburnham took Mr. We will not deny that the latter part of this horse and returned to the king, with the vague intistory is curious and may be correct, as in this had made choice of him as a person of honor and mation from Hammond, "that he believed his majesty instance our compiler follows Gough, a respecta-honesty, to lay this great trust upon, and, therefore, ble authority;-but is Mr. Hillier certain that he would not deceive his majesty's expectations." Titus wrote " Killing no Murder?" Does he Berkeley, hereupon, to use his own language, "emthink Anabaptist Sexby's claim to that questionable honor set aside? At all events, he speaks somewhat too confidently. The grant of money made to Titus by Charles the Second recites most of the former's services to the royal cause-particularly that by his motion the carcasses of Cromwell, Bradshaw and Ireton were taken out of our royal chapel at Westminster, drawn to Tyburn, there hanged, then burned under the gallows, and the heads set up on Westminster Hall;"-but it says nothing about the assassination pamphlet. Indeed, we may say, in general terms, that outside the immediate topic in hand, Mr. Hillier's knowledge of the Cromwell period is second-hand and imperfect. We now come to the king's flight from a palace to a prison. At Hampton Court Charles had at least been treated as a prince-but his restless genius urged him continually into new perils Early on the evening of the 11th of November, 1647, after leaving three letters on his bed-room table, addressed to the Parliament, Col. Whalley, and Lord Montague, wherein he stated his reasons for privately withdrawing from the palace, the king accordingly made his way from his apartments, through a door where no guard was set, into the park unperceived, at once crossed the Thames by means of a boat ready to convey him, and landed at Ditton, where Ashburnham had been previously residing, and where his majesty was received by him, Sir John Berkeley, and Mr. Legg. In their company, he immediately directed his course into Hampshire; but on arriving within twenty miles of the coast, Charles ordered Mr. Ashburnham and Sir John Berkeley to proceed to the island, and ascertain how the governor would receive him-a command they were reluctantly compelled to abserve; whilst he at the same time, accompanied only by Mr. Legg, progressed towards Tichfield House, the residence of the Earl of Southampton, where, in braced the motion most readily, and immediately went over the bridge into the castle, though I had the image of the gallows very perfectly before me. Ashburnham, I believe, went with a better heart to horse; but before he was gone half a flight-shot, the governor (being before the castle-gate) called to him and had a conference of at least a quarter of an hour with him; to what purpose I never knew, until I came into Holland, where a gentleman of good worth wards in London, and in many places, that he then and quality told me that the governor affirmed afteroffered Mr. Ashburnham that I should go, and he should stay, as believing his majesty to be less willing to expose him than me, but that Mr. Ashburnham absolutely refused. Whatever passed between them, I am sure they both came back to me; and the governor, putting himself between us, said, that he would say which he was sure ought to content any reasonable man, which was, that he did believe his majesty relied on him as on a person of honor and honesty, and, therefore, he did engage himself to us to perform whatever could be expected from a person of honor and honesty. Before I could make any, Mr. Ashburnham made this reply: I will ask no more.' The governor then added, 'Let us then all go to the king, and acquaint him with it.' Mr. Ashburnham answered, With all my heart.' I then broke from the governor, who held me in his hand, and went to Mr. Ashburnham and said, 'What, do you mean to carry this man to the king, before you know whether his majesty will approve of this undertaking, or no? Undoubtedly you will surprise him.' Mr. Ashburnham said nothing, but I'll warrant you.'" .. Ashburnham and Berkeley, accompanied by the governor, at once proceeded to Cowes; where Hammond, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his companions, was joined by Capt. Baskett, who held the command of the castle there, and two servants, and from thence crossed the channel to Tichfield, when Ashburnham alone went upstairs to the king, and astounded him by announcing the governor's presence, |