Large as had been his expenditure on his noble collections, and openhanded as was his manner of life and of giving, Sir Robert COTTON was still wealthy. Some persons who had benefited by his repeated generosity thought they saw an opening, in the summer of 1630, to increase the gain by a clever and lucrative plot. The method they took reads, nowadays, less like a real incident in English literary biography, than like one of those— ... last, best, of the ‘_Hundred Merry Tales_’ Of how [a grave and learned sage] devised To carry off a spouse that moped too much, And cured her of the vapours in a trice; · · · · · For now the husband—playing Vulcan’s part,— ... started in hot pursuit To catch the lovers, and came raging up; Cast then his net, and call’d neighbours to see The convicts in their rosy impudence. The victim of this plot was now in his sixtieth year. Whatever may have been the sins of his youth, there was obvious risk in a contrivance to extort money by telling such a tale as that, about a man the fever of whose blood must needs have abated; even had he not been already broken down under cumulative weight of the sorrow and hunger of the heart. [Sidenote: THE CONSPIRACY OF WILCOX AND STEVENSON AGAINST SIR R. COTTON.] The intended victim, too, was a man with troops of friends. But the conspirators, it is evident, thought that Sir Robert’s known disgrace at Court would tell as a good counterpoise in their favour. A man already in circumstances of peril would, they thought, be likely to open his pursestrings rather than incur the burden of a new accusation. On a June morning in 1630 Sir Robert COTTON received an urgent letter from an elderly woman—one Amphyllis FERRERS—who had the claim upon him of distant kinship, and upon whom, in that character, he had bestowed many kindnesses. The letter made a new appeal to his compassion; told him of the distresses of the writer’s daughter—married not long before to a needy man—and besought him to pay them a visit; that he might judge of their necessities with his own eyes. Both mother and daughter lived together in Westminster, at no great distance from Cotton House. Sir Robert paid the invited visit; was told of various family plans connected with the recent marriage, and, amongst other things, of a pressing need for some household furniture. When the talk turned upon furniture, he was asked to look, himself, at an upstairs room, and form his own opinion about the request. Both mother and daughter went up with him; but the three had hardly entered the room, when a loud battering noise was heard on the other side of the thin wall which separated them from the neighbouring house. And, presently a still greater noise was heard from the rush of footsteps upon the stairs.