How do I thank ye, death, and bless thy power,
    That I have passed the guard, and ’scaped the Tower! 
    And now my pardon is my epitaph,
    And a small coffin my poor carcass hath;
    For at thy charge both soul and body were
    Enlarged at last, secur’d from hope and fear. 
    That amongst saints, this amongst kings is laid;
    And what my birth did claim, my death hath paid.]

[Footnote 340:  This conjecture may not be vain; since this has been written, I have heard that the papers of Sir Edward Coke are still preserved at Holkham, the seat of Mr. Coke; and I have also heard of others in the possession of a noble family.  The late Mr. Roscoe told me that he was preparing a beautifully embellished catalogue of the Holkham library, in which the taste of the owner would rival his munificence.

A list of those manuscripts to which I allude may be discovered in the Lambeth MSS.  No. 943, Art. 369, described in the catalogue as “A note of such things as were found in a trunk of Sir Edward Coke’s by the king’s command, 1634,” but more particularly in Art. 371, “A Catalogue of Sir Edward Coke’s Papers then seized and brought to Whitehall.”]

[Footnote 341:  Lloyd’s State Worthies, art. Sir Nicholas Bacon.]

[Footnote 342:  Miss Aikin’s Court of James the First appeared two years after this article was written; it has occasioned no alteration.  I refer the reader to her clear narrative, ii. p. 30, and p. 63; but secret history is rarely discovered in printed books.]

[Footnote 343:  These particulars I find in the manuscript letters of J. Chamberlain.  Sloane MSS. 4172, (1616).  In the quaint style of the times, the common speech ran, that Lord Coke had been overthrown by four P’s—­PRIDE, Prohibitions, Praemunire, and Prerogative.  It is only with his moral quality, and not with his legal controversies, that his personal character is here concerned.]

[Footnote 344:  In the Lambeth manuscripts, 936, is a letter of Lord Bacon to the king, to prevent the match between Sir John Villiers and Mrs. Coke.  Art. 63.  Another, Art. 69.  The spirited and copious letter of James, “to the Lord Keeper,” is printed in “Letters, Speeches, Charges, &c., of Francis Bacon,” by Dr. Birch, p. 133.]

[Footnote 345:  Stoke Pogis, in Buckinghamshire; the delightful seat of J. Penn, Esq.  It was the scene of Gray’s “Long Story,” and the chimneys of the ancient house still remain, to mark the locality; a column on which is fixed a statue of Coke, erected by Mr. Penn, consecrates the former abode of its illustrious inhabitant.]

[Footnote 346:  A term then in use for base or mixed metal.]

[Footnote 347:  Lambeth MSS. 936, art. 69 and 73.]

[Footnote 348:  State Trials.]

[Footnote 349:  Prynne was condemned for his “Histriomastix,” a book against actors and acting, in which he had indulged in severe remarks on female performers; and Henrietta Maria having frequently personated parts in Court Masques, the offensive words were declared to have been levelled at her.  He was condemned to fine and imprisonment, was pilloried at Westminster and Cheapside, and had an ear cut off at each place.]