such titles still to sleep
Than all a realm about the trial weep?"

This estimable writer had been a member of parliament in the time of
Henry VIII., and was imprisoned by that despot in 1542, very probably
without any just cause. He about the same time translated into English
the great charter of Englishmen which had become a dead letter through
the tyranny of the Tudors; and he rendered the same public service
respecting several important statutes which existed only in Latin or
Norman French; proofs of a free and courageous spirit extremely rare in
that servile age!

Ferrers lived far into the reign of Elizabeth, finishing his career at
Flamstead in his native county of Herts in 1579.

From the pleasing contemplation of a life devoted to those honorable
arts by which society is cultivated, enlightened and adorned, we must
now return to tread with Northumberland the maze of dark and crooked
politics. By many a bold and many a crafty step this adept in his art
had wound his way to the highest rank of nobility attainable by a
subject, and to a station of eminence and command scarcely compatible
with that character. But no sooner had he reached it, than a sudden
cloud lowered over the splendid prospect stretched around him, and
threatened to snatch it for ever from his sight. The youthful monarch in
whom, or over whom, he reigned, was seized with a lingering disease
which soon put on appearances indicative of a fatal termination. Under
Mary, the next heir, safety with insignificance was the utmost that
could be hoped by the man who had taken a principal and conspicuous part
in every act of harshness towards herself, and every demonstration of
hostility towards the faith which she cherished, and against whom, when
he should be no longer protected by the power which he wielded, so many
lawless and rapacious acts were ready to rise up in judgement.

One scheme alone suggested itself for the preservation of his authority:
it was dangerous, almost desperate; but loss of power was more dreaded
by Dudley than any degree of hazard to others or himself; and he
resolved at all adventures to make the attempt.

By means of the new honors which he had caused to be conferred on the
marquis of Dorset, now duke of Suffolk, he engaged this weak and
inconsiderate man to give his eldest daughter, the lady Jane Grey, in
marriage to his fourth son Guildford Dudley. At the same time he
procured an union between her sister, the lady