defeats by representing Drake as having been a magician, and in very close alliance with the devil.

But even in his native county of Devonshire Drake was long held to have been a magician, though one only practising in the Magia Alba, or white and innocent magic.

The abundant property which he left was much diminished by a prosecution instituted by the crown against his youngest brother, heir, and executor, Thomas Drake. It is said that this process rested solely upon 66 a pretended debt;" and this will be easily credited by those who best know the ungenerous, grasping spirit which prevailed at court, and among public men, during the last clouded years of Queen Elizabeth, and during the whole reign of James I. The estate which remained, however, placed Thomas's son Francis in such a station that he was created a baronet by James I., and returned as a member for his county.

THE life of Lord Burghley, if it were to be written with all the fulness of which the subject admits, would be the history of England, and in some measure of Europe, for the latter half of the sixteenth century. Even the materials that exist in print would, if they were collected, fill many large volumes. They have enabled Dr. Nares, Lord Burghley's biographer of the greatest pretension, to extend his narrative to three ponderous quartos.

In the space to which we are limited we must confine ourselves, as far as possible, to the man himself, to the incidents and circumstances of his career that are most of a personal nature and that most mark and illustrate his character. Of matter of this description there is also no scarcity. In particular, much that is very I curious and interesting has been supplied by a person of Lord Burghley's establishment, "one who lived in the house with him during the last twenty-five years of his life," in a

sketch which he has himself entitled The Complete Statesman,' but which is commonly referred to as the Diary of a Domestic. It was first published by Peck in the first volume of his Desiderata Curiosa, 4to. Lond. 1732, and again 1779; and we shall use his edition as the most convenient. Burghley's own letters, many of which have been published in the Forbes, Haynes, Murdin, and other collections, will also supply us with some particulars for our purpose.

William Cecil, afterwards ennobled by the title of Lord Burghley, was the descendant of a family which appears to have been originally English or Norman, but which had been seated in Wales, and possessed of lands in the principality and the neighbouring counties of Hereford and Gloucester, ever since the reign of William Rufus. The name in the oldest form that is recorded was Sitsilt, whence it was worn down in the popular speech, and in the spelling which accommodated itself to that, into the successive shapes of Sicelt, Seycil, Cycyl, till at last the process of curtailment or alteration was arrested about the beginning of the reign of Henry VIII., and the pronunciation and orthography settled in the form Cecil. This deduction sufficiently demolishes the fancy of Verstegan, the antiquary, in his 'Restoration of Decayed Intelligence,' that the Cecils were a branch of the old Roman Cecilii, who had settled in Britain when this island was a colony of the empire. Lord Burghley's father was Richard Cecil, Esq., master, or rather first yeoman, of the robes to King Henry VIII.; his mother was Jane, daughter and heiress of William Hickington, of Bourne, in Lincolnshire, and it was through her that the manor of Burghley came into the family. William, their only son, was born at Bourne, or Burn, probably in the house of his maternal grandfather, after whom he appears to have been named, on the 13th of September, 1520, as the date is given in a Diary in his own handwriting (his Domestic says 1521). At this time Henry VIII. had sat only twelve years on the throne, Wolsey was in the height of his greatness, and the authority of the Roman pontiff was still entire in

England, nor yet formally renounced in any part of western Christendom; the Diet of Worms, whose proceedings made the breach between Luther and the Church irreparable, was held in 1521; and the same year King Henry published his book against that reformer, which procured him from the pope his title of Defender of the Faith.

Cecil, therefore, was born and bred a Roman Catholic, in the religion of his father and mother, and of every body else of that day. The yeoman of the robes, we may here mention, who retained his office through Henry's reign, and was continued in it under Edward VI., died in 1552;; his widow survived till the year 1587, when she died at the age of fourscore and seven, after having seen her son raised to the highest honours of the state-an instance to be added to those three memorable ones of Mrs. Scott, Mrs. Copley, and Mrs. Brougham, in our own day. Besides this only son, she bore her husband three daughters: Margaret, who married first Roger Cave, of Stamford, Esq., and after his death Ambrose Smith, of Bosworth, Esq.; Elizabeth, married first to Robert Wingfield, of Upton, Esq., secondly to Hugh Allington, Esq.; and Anne, who became the wife of Thomas Whyte, of Tucksford, Esq.

Cecil, after having been put to school first at Grantham and afterwards at Stamford, was in 1535 sent to Cambridge, and entered of St. John's College. At the university, we are told by his Domestic, his diligence was so great that he hired the bell-ringer to call him up at four o'clock every morning; till at last, with early rising and late watching and continual sitting, he brought a flow of humours into his legs, which was with difficulty cured, and was supposed to be one of the original causes of the gout that used to attack him in after years. At the unusually early age of seventeen he read what was called the Sophistry lecture, and before he was twenty the Greek lecture, although that language was not yet generally studied at Cambridge. And "his diligent study," adds this admiring chronicler, "was also such, as, besides his exquisite knowledge in the Greek, he was

not meanly seen in all other manner of learning; able, likewise, judicially and learnedly, to maintain an argument with the best learned of treble his standings, in any manner of learning or science, with extraordinary applause of his audience; no less admiring his great learning for so little time than the excellency of his wit and temper of speech. So that he was then as famous for a scholar in Cambridge as he was afterwards all over Europe for a grave and great counsellor."

Having remained at the university till he took his degree of Master of Arts, in May 1541 he entered himself of Gray's Inn, and removed to London. A story told by the Domestic in this part of his narrative is characteristic both of the man and of the time. At Gray's Inn "he profited," says his historian, " as before at Cambridge; but, as his years and company required, he would many times be merry among young gentlemen, who were most desirous of his company for his witty mirth and merry temper. Among the rest, I heard him tell this merriment of himself. That a mad companion of his, whilst he was thus at Gray's Inn, enticed him to play; whereupon in a short time he lost all his money, bedding, and books to his companion, having never used play before. And, being afterwards among his other company, he told them how such a one had misled him, saying he would presently have a device to be even with him. And he was as good as his word; for with a long trunk [or tube] he made a hole in the wall near his play. fellow's bed's head, and in a fearful voice spake thus through the trunk :- O, mortal man, repent! repent of thy horrible time consumed in play, cozenage, and such lewdness as thou hast committed, or else thou art damned and canst not be saved!' Which being spoken at midnight, when he was all alone, so amazed him as drove him into a sweat for fear. Most penitent and heavy, the next day, in presence of the youths, he told with trembling what a fearful voice spake to him at midnight, vowing never to play again; and, calling for Mr. Cecil, asked him forgiveness on his knees, and restored all his money, bedding, and books. So two gamesters were