holding in his hand a book inscribed BRITANNIA. Dr. Sinith, in his life of Camden, says that a certain young gentleman of a very good family, thinking the reputation of his mother hurt by somewhat that Camden has delivered of her in his history, could find no other way to be revenged, than by breaking off a piece from the nose of his statue in Westminster Abbey. A modern writer accuses Sir Walter Raleigh of this mean action, on account of Camden's having mentioned in his Annals of Elizabeth, Sir Walter's intrigue with a lady of fashion* tale, however, stands on no authority, and is totally inconsistent with Raleigh's character. Anthony Wood again attributes the injury done to Camden's statue, to some accident that happened at the solemnity of the pompous funeral of the last Earl of Essex, general of the army raised by the Parliament against Charles the first. This is a far more probable account, and it has this at least to support it, that no writer before that time has taken any notice of the mutilation.

This last

Mr. Seward, in the European Magazine, Vol. XVII. p. 251.

"The injury done to the statue has, however, been lately repaired and the feature restored by the direction and at the expense of a friend to the memory of Camden."

Hawkins's Life of Johnson, p. 519.

SIR EDWARD COKE.

THIS great lawyer was the son of Robert Coke, Esq. a barrister at law, of Mileham, in Norfolk, where the son, Edward, was born in 1550. He had for a tutor at Cambridge, according to Dr. Fuller, no less a man than Dr. afterwards archbishop Whitgift; and if so, it is not a little remarkable, that he and his constant antagonist, Bacon, should be indebted for their academical education to the same person.From the university, Coke removed first to Clifford's Inn, and next to the Inner Temple, where at six years standing, he was called to the bar.He acquired a great reputation in his profession, nor less so as a member of parliament for his native county. In the 35th of Elizabeth he was chosen Speaker, at which time also he was the queen's solicitor. On his being made attorneygeneral, archbishop Whitgift sent him a greek testament, with this remarkable message, "That he had studied the common law long enough, and that it was time now to study the law of God."

As attorney-general, he had a principal concern in the prosecution of the unfortunate earls of Essex and Southampton, and he conducted himself with so much asperity in the trial, that both noblemen inveighed bitterly against him.-Essex interrupted him several times, and the earl

of Southampton said at the end of his defence, "Mr. Attorney, you have urged the matter very far, and you wrong me therein. My blood be upon your head."

At the beginning of James's reign, he managed the prosecution of Sir Walter Raleigh with as much eagerness as if he had thirsted for that brave man's blood. His language on that occasion will sufficiently shew the temper of the man, for he did not scruple to insult the court and humanity, by calling Sir Walter "a traitor, monster, viper, and spider of hell."

Yet it is said by an anonymous writer, that Coke having retired into a garden to take some air, and his man brought him word, that the jury had condemned Raleigh of treason, he answered

Surely thou art mistaken, for I myself accused him but of misprision of treason ;" and this relation, says the author, upon the word of a Christian, I have received from Sir Edward Coke's own mouth.*"

He displayed such wonderful powers in unravelling all the dark scenes of the gunpowder treason, that the earl of Salisbury, in his speech upon the trial of the conspirators, said, "the evidence had been so well distributed and opened by the attorney-general, that he never heard such a mass

* Observations on Sanderson's History of Mary Queen of Scots.

of