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This is another dwarf from Wierix's Bible, 1594. The figure occurs in a design illustrating a passage in the parable of the Prodigal Son, who "took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living." The original engraving, by C. de Malery, represents the Prodigal running away from a woman who beats him down the steps of a tavern with her shoes, and is assisted in the assault by two men. A dog upon the steps barks at the flying spendthrift, and the dwarfish fool drops his bauble to mock him, which he effects by placing the thumb of his left hand at the end of his nose, the tip of the little finger of the same hand on the top of his right thumb, and spreading out the fingers of both hands, forfexlike, to their utmost extent. Here, then,

we see a print, executed two centuries and a half ago, exhibiting a ludicrous practice of that period, which suddenly arose as a novelty within the last twenty years among the boys of the metropolis.

In this respect alone the print is curious; but it is further remarkable as exemplifying the fact, that formerly fools were kept at taverns to amuse the customers, before whom they exhibited with a Jews-harp and joint-stool, and sometimes sang in the Italian manner. Respecting tavern-fools, and every other class of fools, Mr. Douce affords the

Luke xv. 13.

largest information in his "Illustration of Shakspeare, and of ancient manner 1807," 2 vols. 8vo; which is becoming a work of rarity, and is to a literary antiquarian, an indispensable acquisition.

LAUD AND PRYNNE.

There was a memorable prosecution in the star chamber, in which Laud bore a part, against a book called "Histriomastix, the Player's Scourge, or Actor's Tragedie," written by William Prynne, professedly against the stage plays, interludes, music, dancing, hunting, keeping, May-poles, festivals, and bonfires, and reviled the ceremonies and superstibut in which he blamed the hierarchy, tious innovations introduced by Laud into the public worship. The church

Christmas

music he affirmed not to be the noise of

men, but a bleating of brute beasts; "choristers bellow the tenor, as it were oxen; bark a counterpart, as it were a kennel of dogs; roar out a treble, as it were a sort of bulls; and grunt out a base, as it were a number of hogs :" and yet this book appeared in the age of licensing, with the licenser's imprimatur How this happened is not very clear. It appears, from the proceedings in the star chamber, that the book was seven years in writing, and almost four in passing through the press. It is a closely printed quarto volume, of nearly 1100 pages; though, originally, it consisted of only a

quire of paper, which Prynne took to Dr. Goode, a licenser, who deposed on the trial that he refused to sanction it. It seems that, about a year afterwards, when it had probably increased in size, Prynne applied to another licenser, Dr. Harris, who also refused the allowance sought, and deposed that “this man did deliver this book when it was young and tender, and would have had it then printed; but it was since grown seven times bigger, and seven times worse.' Disappointed by two licensers, but not despairing, Prynne resorted to a third licenser, one Buckner, chaplain to archbishop Abbot, Laud's predecessor in the see of Canterbury. Buckner was either tampered with, or so confused by the multifariousness of the contents, and the tedious progress in the printing of the enormous volume, that his vigilance slackened, and he deposed that he only licensed part of it. Be that as it may, the work came out with the license of the archbishop's chap lain prefixed, and involved the author, and all that were concerned in it, in a fearful prosecution in the court of the star chamber. Prynne was a barrister: he was condemned to be disbarred, to be pilloried in Westminster and Cheapside, to have an ear cut off at each place, to pay a fine of £5000 to the king, and to be impri

soned for life.

The sentence was carried into effect, but in vain. Prynne again libelled the prelacy; was again tried, and again sentenced; and the judge, perceiving that fragments of his ears still remained, ordered them to be unmercifully cut off, and further condemned him to be burnt in the cheek, enormously fined, and imprisoned in a distant solitude. At the place of punishment, in palace-yard, Westminster, Prynne steadily ascended the scaffold, and calmly invited the executioner to do his office, saying, "Come friend; come, burn me! cut me! I fear not! I have learned to fear the fire of hell, and not what man can do unto me. Comc; scar me! scar me!" The executioner had been urged not to spare his victim, and he proceeded to extraordinary severity, by cruelly heating his branding iron twice, and cutting the remainder of one of Prynne's ears so close as to take away a piece of the cheek; while his victim stirred not under the torture, but, when it was finished, smiled, and exclaimed, "The more I am beaten down, the more I am lifted up." At the conclusion of

this punishment, Prynne was taken to the tower, by water, and, on his passage in the boat, composed the following Latin verses on the two letters S. L., which had been branded on his cheek, to signify Schismatical Libeller, but which he chose to translate "Stigmata Laudes," the stigmas of his enemy, archbishop Land

"Stigmata maxillis referens insignia Latis Exultans remeo, victima grata Deo." A signal triumph awaited Prynne, and a reverse as signal befel Laud. In less than three weeks after the long parliament had commenced its sitting, Prynne entered London from his imprisonment at Mount Orgueil, amidst the acclamations of the people; his sentence was reversed, and in another month Laud was committed to the Tower, by the parliament, where he kept a diary, in which a remarkable searching of his person by Prynne, as a parliamentary commissioner, is recorded by the archbishop in these words :

"Mr. Prynne came into the Tower as soon as the gates were open-commanded the warder to open my door-he came into my chamber, and found me in bedMr. Prynne, seeing me safe in bed, falls first to my pockets, to rifle them--it was expressed in the warrant that he should search my pockets-I arose, got my gown upon my shoulders, and he held me in the search till past nine in the morning. He took from me twenty-one bundles of papers which I had prepared for my defence, &c., a little book or diary, con taining all the occurrences of my life, and my book of private devotions; both written with my own hand. Nor could I get him to leave this last; he must needs see what passed between God and me. The last place he rifled was a trunk which stood by my bed-side; in that he found nothing but about forty pounds in money, for my necessary expenses, which he meddled not with, and a bundle of some gloves. This bundle he was so careful to open, as that he caused each glove to be looked into: upon this, I tendered him one pair of the gloves, which he refusing, I told him he might take them, and fear no bribe; for he had already done me all the mischief he could, and I asked no favor of him; so he thanked me, took the gloves, and bound up my papers and went his way."

Land was brought to the block, and Prynne in his writings, and in parlia ment, consistently resisted oppression from

whatever quarter it proceeded. A little time before the execution of Charles I. he defended in the house of commons the king's concessions to parliament as sufficient grounds for peace. His speech was a complete narrative of all the transactions between the king, the houses, and the army, from the beginning of the parliament: its delivery kept the house so long together that the debates lasted from Monday morning till Tuesday morning. He was representative for Bath, and had the honor to be one of the excluded members. On the 21st of February, 1660, he was allowed to resume his seat. While making his way through the hall, wearing an old basket-hilt sword, he was received with shouts. The house passed an ordinance on the 1st of March for calling a new Parliament, and the next day, when it was discussed in whose name the new writs should run, Prynne openly answered "in king Charles's." This from any other man had been hazardous even at that time; but he was neither a temporizer of his opinions, nor a disguiser of his wishes.

In writing upon a subject Prynne never quitted it till he had cited every author he could produce to favor his views, and his great learning and laborious researches were amazing. His "Histriomastix"refers to more than a thousand different authors, and he quotes a hundred writers to fortify his treatise on the "Unloveliness of Love Locks." In the first-mentioned work he marshalled them, as he says, into "squadrons of authorities." Having gone through "three squadrons," he commences a fresh chapter thus: "The fourth squadron of authorities is the venerable troop of 70 several renowned ancient fathers;" and he throws in more than he promises, quoting the volume and page of each. Lord Cottington, one of his judges in the Star Chamber, astounded by the army of authorities in that mighty volume, affirmed that Prynne did not write the book alone -"he either assisted the devil, or was assisted by the devil." Mr. Secretary Cooke judiciously said "By this vast book of Mr. Prynne's, it appeareth that he hath read more than he hath studied, and studied more than he hath considered." Milton speaks of Prynne as having had "his wits lying ever beside him in the margin, to be ever beside his wits in the text."

Readers of Prynne's works will incline to the judgment of Milton, whose Satan "floating many a rood" was not more awful than the embattled host of authors

with which Prynne chokes the margins of his multitudinous tracts.

Prynne's works amount to nearly two hundred in number, and form forty enormous, closely printed, volumes in quarto and folio. It is probable that there is not so complete a set in existence as that which he gave to Lincoln's Inn library.

Sir William Blackstone dilligently collected Prynne's pieces, but was unable to complete the series. While Prynne stood in the pillory, enduring the loss of his ears at Westminster and Cheapside, "his volumes were burnt under his nose, which almost suffocated him." Yet who can doubt that the fumigation from such a burning was a reviving savor to Prynce's spirits under the suffering, and a stimulant to further and similar purposes and en durance?

Prynne was a man of great knowledge and little wisdom: he had vast erudition without the tact of good sense. He stood insulated from all parties, ridiculed by his friends and execrated by his enemies. He was facetiously called “William the Conqueror," and this he merited, by his inflexible and invincible nature. His activity in public life, and the independence of his character, were unvarying. He had endured prosecutions under every power at the head of affairs, and suffered ten imprisonments. In admiration of his earn. est honesty, his copious learning, and the public persecutions so unmercifully inflict ed upon him, Charles II. dignified him with the title of "the Cato of the Age." the restoration it became difficult to dispose of "busie Mr. Prin," as Whitelocke called him. The court wished to devise something for him "purposely to employ his head from scribbling against the state and the bishops;" and, to weary out his restless vigor, they put him to clear the Augean stable of our national antiquities.

At

The veteran desired to be one of the barons of the Exchequer, for which he was more than qualified; but he was made keeper of the Records in the Tower, where "he rioted in leafy folios and proved himself to be one of the greatest paper-worms which ever crept into old books and musty records."

In this fortress of the Tower Prynne achieved an herculean labor, well known to the historical antiquary by the name of "Prynne's Records," in three folio volumes. The second volume of this sur

prising monument of his great learning and indefatigable research was printed in 1665: the first appeared, afterwards, in 1666, and the third in 1670. Most of the copies of the first two volumes of this great and invaluable work were burnt by the fire of London in 1666: it is said that of the first volume only twenty-three copies were saved. A set of the 3 volumes complete is exceedingly rare, and worth ninety or a hundred guineas.

are in

A catalogue of Prynne's works, and particulars concerning himself, Wood's "Athenæ Oxoniensis." An account of him is in the late Mr. Hargrave's preface to his edition of Hale on Parliaments. Prynne's ardor in writing was intense. Wood says "his custom was to put on a long quilted cap, which came an inch over his eyes, serving as an umbrella to defend them from too much light; and seldom eating a dinner, he would every three hours or more be munching a roll of bread, and refresh his exhausted spirits with ale." He was born in 1606 and died in 1669; and, supposing that he commenced authorship in arriving at man's estate, he is computed to have written a sheet a day

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1753 Sir Hans Sloane, a celebrated physician and botanist, died at the age of 93. He was a native of Killileagh in the county of Down, Ireland. After he had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and admitted a member of the College of physicians, he embarked in 1687 for Jamacia, as physician to the duke of Albemarle, and returned with eight hundred unknown plants, and a proportional number of new specimens of the animal king dom. These he collected in so short a time that his French eulogist says he seemed to have converted minutes into hours. He was the first learned man whom science

had tempted from England to that distant quarter of the globe. On returning

Hun.e. Calamities of Authors. Granger. Seward. Pepys.

in May 1689, and, settling in London, he became eminent in his profession, and in 1694 was elected physician to Christ's Hospital, which office he filled till, compelled by infirmity, he resigned it in 1730. In 1693 he was elected secretary to the Royal Society, and revived the publication of the "Philosophical Transactions," which had been discontinued from 1687. He was succeeded in this office by Dr. Halley in 1712, about which time he actively promoted a "Dispensary" for the poor, which was at length established, and ridiculed by Dr. Garth in a once celebrated satire bearing that title. In 1702 Sloane was incorporated doctor of physic at Oxford, and became an associated member of several Academies on the continent. In 1708, during a war with France, he was elected member of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, as a compliment of high distinction to his eminent science. Queen Anne frequently consulted him; he attended her in her last illness, and on the accession of George I. he was created baronet, which was the first hereditary honor conferred in England on a physician. He also received the appointment of physician general to the army, which he held till 1727, when he was made physician to George II., and, being honored with the confidence of Queen Caroline, prescribed for the royal family till his death. In 1719 he was elected president of the Royal College of Physicians, and on the death of Sir Isaac Newton, in 1727, was chosen president of the Royal Society. While presiding over these, the two most illustrious scientific bodies of the kingdom, he learnedly and liberally promoted the objects of each.

Sir Hans Sloane had begun early in life to form a museum, and he spared no expence in continually storing it with the rarest and most remarkable specimens in botany and other departments of natural history, and with useful and curious works of art and science. These acquirements, with an excellent library, and the collecto the West Indies, enabled him to pubtions he made during his short voyage to lish his Natural History of Madeira, Barbadoes, and other West India Islands, with an account of his voyage, in two folio volumes, which was productive of great benefit to science, and excited emulation

to similar pursuits both in England and abroad. From a catalogue in this work, it appears that his library and museum, in 1725, contained more than 26,200 sub

jects of natural history, exclusive of 200 volumes of preserved plants; the year before his death, they amounted to upwards of 36,600.

In May, 1741, Sir Hans Sloane resigned all his public offices and employments and retired to his mansion at Chelsea, which manor he had bought in 1712. Thither he removed his museum, and there he received, as he had in Londe, the visits of the royal family and persons of rank, learned foreigners, and distinguished literary and scientific men; nor did he refuse admittance or advice to either rich or poor, who went to consult him respecting their health. At ninety he rapidly decayed, and expired at the age of ninety-two, after an illness of only three days.

Sir Hans Sloane's manners were courteous, his disposition was kind, his benevolence to the poor and distressed abundant: He was a governor of almost every hospital in London; to each of them he gave £100 in his lifetime and bequeathed more considerable sums by will. He zealously promoted the colonization of Georgia in 1732, and in 1739 formed the plan of bringing up the children in the Foundling Hospital. In 1721 he gave freehold ground of nearly four acres at Chelsea, on which the botanical garden stood, to the company of Apothecaries.

"An epistolary letter from TH-to Sir H- -S-, who saved his life, and desired him to send over all the curiosities he could find in his Travels."

An Epistolary Letter, &c.

Since you, dear doctor, saved my life,
To bless by turns and plague my wife,
In conscience I'm obliged to do
Whatever is enjoined by you.
According then to your command,
That I should search the western land,
For curious things of every kind,
And send you all that I could find ;
I've ravaged air, earth, seas, and caverns,
Men, women, children, towns, and taverns,
And greater rarities can show

Than Gresham's children ever knew ;
Which carrier Dick shall bring you down
Next time his waggon comes to town.

I've got three drops of the same shower
Which Jove in Danae's lap did pour,
From Carthage brought: the sword I'll send
Which brought queen Dido to her end.
The stone whereby Goliah died,
Which cures the headach when applied
A whetstone, worn exceeding small,
Time used to whet nis scythe withall
St Dunstan's tongs, which story shows
Did pinch the Devil by the nose
The very shaft, as all may see,
Which Cupid shot at Anthony.
And what above the rest I prize
A glance from Cleopatra's eyes.
I've got a ray of Phœbus' shine,
Found in the bottom of a mine.
A lawyer's conscience, large, and fair,
Fit for a judge himself to wear.
In a thumb vial you shall see,
Close cork'd, some drops of honesty ;
Which after searching kingdoms round
At last were in a cottage found.
An antidote, if such there be,
Against the charm of flattery.
I ha'nt collected any Care,
Of that there's plenty every where
But, after wond'rous labor spent,
I've got one grain of rich Content.

With a natural anxiety that his museum
might not be dispersed, Sir Hans Sloane
bequeathed it to the public on condition
that £20,000 should be paid by parlia-
ment to his family, and in 1753 an act
was passed for the purchase of his collec-
tions and of the Harleian collection of
MSS., and for procuring a general de-
pository for their reception with the Cot-
tonian collection, and other public proper-
ty of a similar kind. The duke of
Montague's mansion in Bloomsbury was
bought for the purpose, and in 1759 these
collections, having been brought together
and arranged, were opened to the public
under certain regulations as the British
Museum, which since then has been in-
creased by parliamentary grants for pur-
chases, and a multitude of donations and
bequests of a like kind. Within a few
years restrictions that were vexatious have
been relaxed, additions made to the build- January 11.-Day breaks
ings, and further improvements and al-
terations are now in progress.

The following pleasantry on Sir Hans Sloane's ardor in collecting is in a printed tract entitled.

i

It is my wish, it is my glory,
To furnish your Nicknackatory.
I only wish, whene'er you show'em,
You'll tell your friends to whom you owe 'em,
Which may your other patients teach
To do as has done Yours,

T. H.

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The farmer may now look for lambs,

London, 1729, fcio.

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