Nor doth the duke his invitation send
        To princes, or to those that on them tend,
        But pays his kindness to a hungry maw;
        His charity, his reason, and his law. 
    For, to say truth, Hunger hath hundreds brought
    To dine with him, and all not worth a groat.

]

[Footnote 78:  Let not the delicate female start from the revolting scene, nor censure the writer, since that writer is a woman—­suppressing her own agony, as she supported on her lap the head of the miserable sufferer.  This account was drawn up by Mrs. Elizabeth Willoughby, a Catholic lady, who, amidst the horrid execution, could still her own feelings in the attempt to soften those of the victim:  she was a heroine, with a tender heart.

The subject was one of the executed Jesuits, Hugh Green, who often went by the name of Ferdinand Brooks, according to the custom of these people, who disguised themselves by double names:  he suffered in 1642; and this narrative is taken from the curious and scarce folios of Dodd, a Roman Catholic Church History of England.

“The hangman, either through unskilfulness, or for want of sufficient presence of mind, had so ill-performed his first duty of hanging him, that when he was cut down he was perfectly sensible, and able to sit upright upon the ground, viewing the crowd that stood about him.  The person who undertook to quarter him was one Barefoot, a barber, who, being very timorous when he found he was to attack a living man, it was near half an hour before the sufferer was rendered entirely insensible of pain.  The mob pulled at the rope, and threw the Jesuit on his back.  Then the barber immediately fell to work, ripped up his belly, and laid the flaps of skin on both sides; the poor gentleman being so present to himself as to make the sign of the cross with one hand.  During this operation, Mrs. Elizabeth Willoughby (the writer of this) kneeled at the Jesuit’s head, and held it fast beneath her hands.  His face was covered with a thick sweat; the blood issued from his mouth, ears, and eyes, and his forehead burnt with so much heat, that she assures us she could scarce endure her hand upon it.  The barber was still under a great consternation.”—­But I stop my pen amidst these circumstantial horrors.]

[Footnote 79:  Harl.  MSS. 36. 50.]

[Footnote 80:  This pathetic poem has been printed in one of the old editions of Sir Walter Rawleigh’s Poems, but could never have been written by him.  In those times the collectors of the works of a celebrated writer would insert any fugitive pieces of merit, and pass them under a name which was certain of securing the reader’s favour.  The entire poem in every line echoes the feelings of Chidiock Titchbourne, who perished with all the blossoms of life and genius about him in the May time of his existence.]