men's limbs asunder, was constantly
kept going. What these unhappy men confessed, or what was ever confessed
by any one under that agony, must always be received with great doubt, as
it is certain that people have frequently owned to the most absurd and
impossible crimes to escape such dreadful suffering. But I cannot doubt
it to have been proved by papers, that there were many plots, both among
the Jesuits, and with France, and with Scotland, and with Spain, for the
destruction of Queen Elizabeth, for the placing of Mary on the throne,
and for the revival of the old religion.

If the English people were too ready to believe in plots, there were, as
I have said, good reasons for it. When the massacre of Saint Bartholomew
was yet fresh in their recollection, a great Protestant Dutch hero, the
PRINCE OF ORANGE, was shot by an assassin, who confessed that he had been
kept and trained for the purpose in a college of Jesuits. The Dutch, in
this surprise and distress, offered to make Elizabeth their sovereign,
but she declined the honour, and sent them a small army instead, under
the command of the Earl of Leicester, who, although a capital Court
favourite, was not much of a general. He did so little in Holland, that
his campaign there would probably have been forgotten, but for its
occasioning the death of one of the best writers, the best knights, and
the best gentlemen, of that or any age. This was SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, who
was wounded by a musket ball in the thigh as he mounted a fresh horse,
after having had his own killed under him. He had to ride back wounded,
a long distance, and was very faint with fatigue and loss of blood, when
some water, for which he had eagerly asked, was handed to him. But he
was so good and gentle even then, that seeing a poor badly wounded common
soldier lying on the ground, looking at the water with longing eyes, he
said, 'Thy necessity is greater than mine,' and gave it up to him. This
touching action of a noble heart is perhaps as well known as any incident
in history--is as famous far and wide as the blood-stained Tower of
London, with its axe, and block, and murders out of number. So
delightful is an act of true humanity, and so glad are mankind to
remember it.

At home, intelligence of plots began to thicken every day. I suppose the
people never did live under such continual terrors as those by which they
were possessed now, of Catholic risings, and burnings, and poisonings,
an