testine struggles, or, perhaps, when they have
ceased, and our hearts are calm, we perceive the eternal force of nature
acting on humanity; then the heroic virtues and private sufferings of
persons engaged in an opposite cause, and acting on different principles
than our own, appeal to our sympathy, and even excite our admiration. A
philosopher, born a Roman Catholic, assuredly could commemorate many a
pathetic history of some heroic Huguenot; while we, with the same
feeling in our heart, discover a romantic and chivalrous band of
Catholics.

Chidiock Titchbourne is a name which appears in the conspiracy of
Anthony Babington against Elizabeth, and the history of this
accomplished young man may enter into the romance of real life. Having
discovered two interesting domestic documents relative to him, I am
desirous of preserving a name and a character which have such claims on
our sympathy.

There is an interesting historical novel, entitled "The Jesuit," whose
story is founded on this conspiracy; remarkable for being the production
of a lady, without, if I recollect rightly, a single adventure of love.
Of the fourteen characters implicated in this conspiracy, few were of
the stamp of men ordinarily engaged in dark assassinations. Hume has
told the story with his usual grace: the fuller narrative may be found
in Camden; but the tale may yet receive from the character of Chidiock
Titchbourne, a more interesting close.

Some youths, worthy of ranking with the heroes, rather than with the
traitors of England, had been practised on by the subtilty of Ballard, a
disguised Jesuit of great intrepidity and talents, whom Camden calls "a
silken priest in a soldier's habit:" for this versatile intriguer
changed into all shapes, and took up all names: yet, with all the arts
of a political Jesuit, he found himself entrapped in the nets of that
more crafty one, the subdolous Walsingham. Ballard had opened himself to
Babington, a Catholic; a youth of large fortune, the graces of whose
person were only inferior to those of his mind. In his travels, his
generous temper had been touched by some confidential friends of the
Scottish Mary; and the youth, susceptible of ambition, had been
recommended to that queen; and an intercourse of letters took place,
which seemed as deeply tinctured with love as with loyalty. The
intimates of Babington were youths of congenial tempers and studies;
and, in their exalted imaginations, they could only vie