a cruel and barbarous
manner, that he was by the said guard taken up for dead, and carried to
the Compter, where he soon after expired. "But the author of a treatise,
entitled 'The Forfeiture of the City Charters,'" says Maitland, "gives a
different account of this affair, and, fixing the scene of this tragedy
on the 14th of July, writes, that as the doctor passed through
Cheapside, he was attacked as above mentioned, which forced him to seek
a retreat down Wood Street, and that he was there screened from the fury
of the mob in a house, till they had broken all the windows, and forced
the door; and then, no help coming to the relief of the doctor, the
housekeeper was obliged to deliver him up to save the spoiling of his
goods.

"When the rabble had got him into their hands, some took him by the
legs, and others by the arms, and so dragging him along the streets,
cried, 'Lamb, Lamb, the conjuror, the conjuror!' every one kicking and
striking him that were nearest.

"Whilst this tumult lasted, and the City was in an uproar, the news of
what had passed came to the king's ear, who immediately ordered his
guards to make ready, and, taking some of the chief nobility, he came in
person to appease the tumult. In St. Paul's Churchyard he met the
inhuman villains dragging the doctor along; and after the knight-marshal
had proclaimed silence, who was but ill obeyed, the king, like a good
prince, mildly exhorted and persuaded them to keep his peace, and
deliver up the doctor to be tried according to law; and that if his
offence, which they charged him with, should appear, he should be
punished accordingly; commanding them to disperse and depart every man
to his own home. But the insolent varlets answered, _that they had
judged him already_; and thereupon pulled him limb from limb; or, at
least, so dislocated his joints, that he instantly died."

This took place just before the Duke of Buckingham's assassination by
Felton, in 1628. The king, very much enraged at the treatment of Lamb,
and the non-discovery of the real offenders, extorted a fine of L6,000
from the abashed City.

Dekker, the dramatist, was thrown into this prison. This poet of the
great Elizabethan race was one of Ben Jonson's great rivals. He thus
rails at Shakespeare's special friend, who had made "a supplication to
be a poor journeyman player, and hadst been still so, but that thou
couldst not set _a good face_ upon it. Thou hast forgot how thou
ambled'st in l