220 The Littlecote Legend. (No. 4.) 



fictitious tale of Amy Robsart, has the same misgivings of man- 

 kind. " Nevertheless " he says " the calumny has endured for 

 three centuries, and is like to survive as many more." My only 

 object has been the truth, and when I first began my researches my 

 anxious desire was (for I then gave a sort of credit to the story) 

 to discover the record of the trial at Salisbury ; but time wore on, 

 no trial could be found, other documents came to liyht, and then 

 I formed the opinion that the whole thing was based on gossip. 

 Had the old woman's declaration thrown a gleam of light upon 

 Darell and Littlecote, and had that declaration produced investiga- 

 tion — committal — and trial, and so on, I might still have remained 

 a little suspicious of our hero in spite of his acquittal : but when I find 

 nothing of the kind; on the contrary', when I find the whole edifice 

 crumbling to its foundation-stone, and the supposed culprit leading 

 the life of a country gentleman of high position for eleven long 

 years after the suspicion was set afloat, instead of breaking his 

 neck the same year over a stile three feet high, I unhesitatingl}' say 

 the case is "not proven," and I now leave it to my readers, as jurors, 

 to decide according to the evidence, whether, as against Darell the 

 charge can be sustained : and I ask them whether, had it been a grave 

 case of History, they are of opinion that a Hume or a Gibbon would 

 have given it a place in their pages, or like Camden, would have 

 cast it aside as utterly unworthy of credit. 



I cannot conclude without quoting the following very apposite 

 passage from a publication by Lord Campbell relating to 8haks- 

 peare : — "Observing" he says, "what fictitious statements are 

 introduced into the published ' Lives' of living individuals, in our 

 own time, when truth in such matters can be so much more easily 

 ascertained, and error so much more easily corrected, we sliould be 

 slow to give faith to an uncorroborated statement made near three 

 centuries ago by persons who were evidently actuated by malice." 



I am, your's very sincerely, 



d E. LOKG. 



