Thereafter the character sketch became a literary form, as in Hall, Overbury, and Earle, instead of remaining merely a rhetorical exercise.[209]

[Footnote 1: See the Life of Overbury.]

Here the notorious Earl and Countess of Somerset were tried in the reign of James I. for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury.

a passage from Sir Thomas Overbury's character of "a meene Petty fogger":"He cannot erre before judgment, and then you see it, only writs of error are the tariers that keepe his client undoing somewhat the longer" (quoted in Todd's Johnson, sub tarrier).

JOSEPH HALL'S CHARACTERS OF VICES AND VIRTUES were published four years earlier than Overbury's, but Overbury's were posthumous, and in actual time of writing there can have been no very material difference.

JOSEPH HALL'S CHARACTERS OF VICES AND VIRTUES were published four years earlier than Overbury's, but Overbury's were posthumous, and in actual time of writing there can have been no very material difference.

The conversation turned at last to the legends belonging to a certain family; and one circumstance was mentioned so nearly resembling, in many particulars, the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, that the Lady Ellinor, scarcely doubting that some slight suspicion of her parents' crimes had reached the ears of the Lady Anne, determined to change the subject at once.

that by the law of the land they had been convicted, and condemned to death as foul, adulterous murderers;the murderers of Sir Thomas Overbury!

Boswell, on the other hand, defined the proper degree of intelligence to be desired in a female companion by some verses in which Sir Thomas Overbury says that a wife should have some knowledge, and be "by nature wise, not learned much by art."

The above transient hint dwelt on the young man's fancy, and conjured into his memory all the murders which history records to have been committed in the Tower; Henry the Sixth, the Duke of Clarence, the two young princes, sons of Edward the Fourth, Sir Thomas Overbury, &c. He supposes all their ghosts assembled in this unexplored apartment, and to these his fertile imagination has added several others.

SIR T. OVERBURY.

In England the fashion had been set in 1614, by the Characters of Sir Thomas Overbury, who died by poison the year before his book was printed.

One of Overbury's sketchesthe Fair and Happy Milkmaidis justly celebrated for its old-world sweetness and quaintness.

OVERALL, Bishop, v. 356, n. 2. OVERBURY, Sir Thomas, ii. 76.

Overbury, Sir Thomas, a Tragedy, iii. 115.

He broke this serious prayer a thousand times, and at last was hanged on Tower Hill, in 1615, for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury.

Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, written in the Baconian age, are found delightful by some; but for my own part, though I have striven to follow the critic's golden rule, to have preferences but no exclusions, Overbury has for me no savour.

Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, written in the Baconian age, are found delightful by some; but for my own part, though I have striven to follow the critic's golden rule, to have preferences but no exclusions, Overbury has for me no savour.

The tragedy of "Sir Thomas Overbury," written by his early companion in London, Richard Savage, was brought out, with alterations, at Covent Garden Theatre, on February 1; and the prologue to it, written by Mr. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, introduced an elegant compliment to Johnson on his "Dictionary."

I accidentally met with the book some years ago, and dipt into that part where the author says, 'The preface (to Sir Thomas Overbury) contains a very liberal encomium on the blooming excellences of Mr. Theophilus Cibber, which Mr. Savage could not, in the latter part of his life, see his friends about to read, without snatching the play out of their hands.'

The volumes already published are: Increase Mather's "Remarkable Providences"; the poems of Drummond of Hawthornden; the "Visions" of Piers Ploughman; the works in prose and verse of Sir Thomas Overbury; the "Hymns and Songs" and the "Hallelujah" of George Wither; the poems of Southwell; Selden's "Table-talk"; the "Enchiridion" of Quarles; the dramatic works of Marston and Webster; and Chapman's translation of Homer.

The editing of the Homer we can heartily commend; and Dr. Rimbault, who carried the works of Overbury through the press, has done his work well; but the other volumes of the Library are very creditable neither to English scholarship nor to English typography.

"The same as those employed by Somerset and his Countess in the removal of Sir Thomas Overbury; but more expeditious and more certain," he replied under his breath.

There was one in which Somerset himself was concerned, involving the destruction of a far higher personage than Overbury; and this dare not even be hinted at.

"Somerset would never have been questioned about Overbury, if his fall had not been resolved upon by the King.