214 Wild Darell of Littlecote. 



" taking purses on the highway," &c. Mr. Macaulay considering 

 it, naturally, as the mere husk of history, gives implicit credit to 

 the story of Darell's crime, ignoring even the acquittal. He deli- 

 berately tells us that it " was perpetrated," and passes on to more 

 important matter. Lord Campbell, indifferent to Darell, but with 

 a natural fellow-feeling for his brother Judge, sums up the case 

 of Popham by saying, that it "would be unfair to load the 

 memory of a judge with the obloquy of so great a crime, upon 

 such unsatisfactory testimony." Mutato nomine, this may be 

 applied, we think, to Darell, and here we may be allowed to express 

 some surprise, that the noble and learned biographer should have 

 entirely omitted all aUusion to Camden, a cotemporary, in all pro- 

 j bability an acquaintance of Popham, and a far higher authority 



than either FuUer or Aubrey. These are the words of Camden, 

 when speaking of the Judge. "Now it" viz. Wellington, "is a 

 market Town, whose chief distinction is the Honorable Sir John 

 Popham, a person of ancient nobility, strict justice, and unwearied 

 application ; for it is not proper that men of distinguished virtue, 

 and who have deserved well of their country, should be forgotten. 

 While Chief Justice of the King's Bench he adminstered justice 

 with 80 much impartiality and wholesome severity, that England 

 a , /CS^ has been long indebted to him, principally for its domestic tran- 

 /> ^quillity and security." Camden published his work in 1607, in 

 lU ' /<f ' '^^i^^ y^^^ *^^ Judge died, and he repeats this eulogium when 

 /*** ^ noticing: Littlecote. Is it then to be believed, in the face of such 



testimony, that such a man could have so acted ? We think not. 

 Before, however, we continue our remarks on "Wild Darell" 

 himself, it may not be altogether out of place to correct a slight 

 inaccuracy in Lord Campbell's statement, respecting the Judge's 

 property. He says that "the family retained a remnant of the 

 Judge's possessions at Littlecote, for two or three generations, and 

 then became extinct." This is not the fact. His descendants re- 

 tain, to this day, the whole of the Littlecote estates. Six genera- 

 tions in the male line succeeded the Judge, and the present owner 

 is the representative of the family, his grandmother having been 

 sole heir of the last male possessor. 



