yet left; but on taking off the top of the barrel appeared an halter ! LAMBETH CHURCH. MARY de Efte, the unhappy queen of James II. flying with her infant prince from the ruin impending over their house, after croffing the Thames from the abdicated Whitehall, took fheiter beneath the ancient walls of this church a whole hour, from the rain of the inclement night of December 6, 1688. Here the waited with aggravated mifery till a common coach, procured from the next inn, arrived and conveyed her to Gravefend, whence the failed, and bid an eternal adieu to thefe kingdoms. DE THOU, THE celebrated hiftorian, had a very fingular adventure at Saumur, in the year 1598. One night, having retired to reft very much fatigued, while he was enjoying a found fleep he felt a very ftrong weight upon his feet, which having made him turn fuddenly, fell down and awakened him. At first he imagined that it had been only a dream, but hearing foon after fome noife in his chamber, he drew afide the curtains, and faw by the help of the moon, which at that time fhone very bright, a large white figure walking up and down, and at the fame time obferved upon a chair fome rags, which he thought belonged to thieves who had come to rob him. The figure then approaching his bed, he had the courage to ask what it was. “ I am,” said it," the queen of heaven." Had fuch a figure appeared to any credulous ignorant man in the dead of the night and made fuch a fpeech, would he not have trembled with fear, and have frightened the whole neighbourhood with a marvellous defcription of it? But De Thou had too much under. ftanding to be fo impofed upon. Upon hearing the words which dropped from the figure, he immediately concluded that it was fome mad woman; got up, called his fervants, and ordered them to turn her out of doors; after which he returned to bed and fell asleep. Next morning he found that he had not been deceived in his conjecture, and that having forgot to fhut his door, this female figure had escaped from her keepers and entered his apartment. The brave Schomberg, to whom De Thou related his adventure fome days after, confeffed that in fuch a cafe he would not have fhewn fo much courage. The king alfo, who was informed of it by Schomberg, made the fame acknowledgement. ERASMUS USED to dine late that he might have a long morning to ftudy in. After dinner, he would converfe cheerfully with his friends about all forts of subjects, and deliver his opinions very freely upon men and things. So fays Milicheus, who was a student at Fribourg, and there had the pleasure of being well acquainted with Erafmus. CARDINAL POLE. THE very day after Cranmer was burnt, Pole was confecrated archbishop of Canterbury ;-fo that the words of Elijah to Ahab concerning Naboth were applied to him, Thou haft killed and taken poffeffion. ERASMUS having been exhorted by his patron, Montjoy, to write against Luther, replied with a franknefs which must please every reader :-" Nothing is more eafy than to call Luther a blockhead: nothing is lefs eafy than to prove him one; at least it seems fo to me? JORTIN. "IF a man finds," faid that great man," fome of his learned productions purloined by others, he may, generally speaking, make out his claim to his own property, if he thinks it worth while; and he ought not to be very uneasy about it as if fome ftrange accident had befallen befallen him. He fhould think and fay of his writings, as well as of all his other goods and chattels :-Thefe things I have collected for myfelf, for my neighbours, for friends, and for thieves, fince thieves will come in for a share. POPE LEO THE TENTH DIED of poifon, as it was commonly fuppofed. As he had remarkably favoured literature, and thewed fome kindness to Erafmus, this learned man, hath spoken favourably of him in some of his writings, and was willing to fpare his character as much as he could. His encouraging arts and sciences, his boundless liberality to the poor, to wits, and poets, and artifts, and men of letters, is what his apologists have to oppose to abundance of fcandalous defects and grievous faults in his character. CARDINAL WOLSEY. ON a time the Cardinal had drawn a draught of certain conditions of peace between England and France, and he asked Sir T. More's counfel therein, befeeching him earnestly that he would tell him if there were any thing therein to be misliked, and he fpake this fo heartily (faith Sir Thomas) that he believed verily that he was willing to hear his advice indeed. But when Sir Thomas had dealt really therein, and fhewed wherein that draught might have been amended, he fuddenly rofe in a rage, and faid :-" By the mafs, thou art the verieft fool of all the council." At which Sir Thomas fmilingly faid:" God be thanked, that the king, our mafter, hath but one fool in all his council. TILLOTSON ADDRESSING religious bigots, has this pointed turn: "Deluded people! that do not confider that the greatest herefy in the world is a wicked life, and that God will VOL. IV. X fooner fooner forgive a man an hundred defects of his understanding, than one fault of his will.” HUMANITY. "In my various journies (fays the benevolent Howard) in England and Wales, I have feen many houses defaced on account of the odious tax on windows; and I cannot help repeating my concern for its pernicious effects. I am perfuaded it has a very bad influence on the health of the lower claffes of people, and this may be one reafon of their not having now fuch healthy ruddy complexions as they had formerly. The farmer's fervants having been crowded into unventilated rooms, or halls, and our labouring poor having been habituated to clofe habitations, they diflike, when they come into workhouses or hofpitals, the admiffion of fresh air," ON THE READING OF NOVELS. HE inclination for reading of novels, which at this Time predominates in almost every clafs of fociety, excites in the minds of the ferious, and of the reflecting, the most lively concern. It is not against every novel, it must be allowed, that any great objections are to be found. But the number of the unexceptionable are few. Thofe alone are the proper objects of disapprobation that have a tendency to mislead the mind, to enfeeble the heart, to reprefent nature in improper colours, to excite, rather than to fupprefs, in the young and ardent, romantic notions of love, and to lead the unwary amidst the winding mazes of intrigue, and the flowery fields of diffipation. Females, in general, are the most inclined to peruse them, and from a fatal inattention to their education, they are the most likely to fall victims to their baneful infinuations. It is matter of great surprise that they should be read with fo much avidity, when every perfon of the smallest difcernment must know, that in general general their plots are not much varied, for a famenefs runs throughout the whole of them. An ardent, fpirited, volatile young man, of loofe principles, blended with what is called a generous and liberal heart, though in reality only proper to be named profufeness of difpofition, is one of the chief characters; his perfon is reprefented as interefting, and handfome, the favourite of the fair, and though the feducer of, perhaps, the only daughter of an honeft and amiable pair, whofe peace he has murdered for ever, yet how often do we find his vices foftened, nay even by fophif tical reafoning attempted to be juftified. Another hero is poffeffed of every virtue, mild, difinterested, benevolent, chafte, and forgiving; this character, to thofe who love the portraiture of man to be fhaded with fome imperfection, gives difguft. The heroine alfo is often a fentimental girl, romantic in her notions of love, fraught with fenfibility, grave as a matron, the darling of the poor, and the pattern for all the females of her acquaintance. Another female, juft the contrast of the other, is introduced, a pert, lively, thoughtlefs girl, free to romp and prattle with any fop whom chance may throw in her way. With thefe two is joined an artful, chatty Abigail, calculated to manage an intrigue, and to train Mifs in the art of love; the whole generally concluding with the reformation of the rake by the fentimental lady, who gives him her fair hand in marriage; whilft the gay girl, by her credulity, falls a victim to the malignant machinations of an unprincipled villain. So much for the morality of a novel. It appears from a clofe infpection, that one incident defeats the intention of the other; for the rake should be held in deteftation by the virtuous; wherever he entered difapprobation fhould meet him, and nothing fhould free him from this justly merited odium, but an atonement for the injuries he has committed by a marriage with the unfortunate fair one. Those women who marry what is called a reformed rake, unite them X 2 felves |