law; these received maintenance from divers of the nobility, and not a little, as was suspected, from the Earl of Northampton, which persons, although of themselves they were not able to attempt any enterprise, yet faith, honesty, and other good acts were little set by, and the citizens through lasciviousness consuming their estates, it was like that their number would rather increase than diminish, and under these pretences they entered into many desperate enterprises, and scarce any durst walk the streets after nine at night."
222. Sir Thomas Overbury.
The rare book from which the last extract is taken, contains a curious account of the manner in which Overbury was murdered. They poisoned him with aqua fortis, white arsenic, mercury, powder of diamonds, lapis costitus, great spiders, and cantharides, what-
