COUNTESS OF SOMERSET. 195 



For the former of these, I will not lead your 

 lordships into It, because I will engrieve nothing 

 against a penitent ; neither will I open any thing 

 against him that is absent. The one I will give to 

 the laws of humanity, and the other to the laws of 

 justice : for I shall always serve my master with a 

 good and sincere conscience, and, I know, that he 

 accepteth best. Therefore I will reserve that till 

 to-morrow, and hold myself to that which I called 

 the stage or theatre, whereunto indeed it may be 

 fitly compared : for that things were first contained 

 within the invisible judgments of God, as within a 

 curtain, and after came forth, and were acted most 

 worthily by the king, and right well by his minis 

 ters. 



Sir Thomas Overbury was murdered by poison, 

 September 15, 1613. This foul and cruel murder 

 did for a time cry secretly in the ears of God; but God 

 gave no answer to it, otherwise than by that voice, 

 which sometimes he useth, which is &quot; voxpopuli,&quot; 

 the speech of the people : for there went then a mur 

 mur that Overbury was poisoned ; and yet the 

 same submiss and low voice of God, the speech 

 of the vulgar people, was not without a counter 

 tenor or counter-blast of the devil, who is the com 

 mon author both of murder and slander ; for it was 

 given out that Overbury was dead of a foul disease ; 

 and his body, which they had made &quot; corpus Judai- 

 cum&quot; with their poisons, so as it had no whole part, must 

 be said to be leprosed with vice, and so his name 

 poisoned as well as his body. For as to dissolute- 



