be tempted with Satan; I am only tempted
with Sorrow, whose sharp teeth devour my heart. O God! Thou art goodness
itself; Thou canst not but be good to me. O God! that art mercy itself;
Thou canst not but be merciful to me!

[Sidenote: _Apology for Self-Destruction._]

'Oh, what will my poor servants think at their return, when they hear I
am accused to be Spanish, who sent them, at very great charge, to plant
and discover upon his territory. Oh, intolerable infamy! O God! I cannot
resist these thoughts. I cannot bear to think how I am derided, to think
of the expectation of my enemies, the scorns I shall receive, the cruel
words of lawyers, the infamous taunts and despites, to be made a wonder
and a spectacle! O Death! hasten thou unto me, that thou mayest destroy
the memory of these, and lay me up in dark forgetfulness. O Death!
destroy my memory, which is my tormentor; my thoughts and my life cannot
dwell in one body. But do thou forget me, poor wife, that thou mayest
live to bring up my poor child. The Lord knows my sorrow to part from
thee and my poor child. But part I must, by enemies and injuries; part
with shame, and triumph of my detractors. And therefore be contented
with this work of God and forget me in all things, but thine own honour,
and the love of mine.

'I bless my poor child, and let him know his father was no traitor. Be
bold of my innocence, for God--to whom I offer life and soul--knows it.'

[Sidenote: _Doubts._]

The obstacles to the acceptance of this composition as authentic are
almost insuperable. It does not ring truly. Hard as it may be to
distinguish rhetoric and passion in the death-bed phrases of men who
have lived before the world, the contrast here with the natural pathos
of the other, and undisputed, farewell of December, is too
irreconcilably vivid. Then there is the extraordinary apparition of an
otherwise invisible daughter. It is not the more intelligible for the
opposite difficulty that few forgers would have been likely to venture
upon so surprising an invention. The total disappearance of the original
manuscript, and the absence for more than two centuries of all knowledge
of its contents, are still stronger elements of doubt. Together, the
circumstances fully justify the scepticism of Mr. Hepworth Dixon in the
copious compilation styled by him a _History of the Tower_, though it is
not requisite to adopt his amusing surmise that a document allowed to
repose in the dark til