charity of religious people, was so much, that their usual saying now was, "Sunt mutæ musæ, nostraque fama fames." The following clerical anecdotes may amuse you, at the same time that they illustrate the style of preaching, as well as the charity of the priests of those times : "Richard Tavener, Esq. did several times preach at Oxford, and when he was high sheriff of the county, came into St. Mary's Church, out of pure charity, with a gold chain about his neck, and a sword, it is said, by his side." One of his sermons began as follows: 66 Arriving at the mount of St. Mary's in the strong stage (the stone pulpit) where I now stand, I have brought you some fyne bisketts baked in the oven of charitye, carefully conserved for the chickens of the church, the sparrows of the spirit, and the sweet swallows of salvation." Mr. Sheriff Tavener must have been another Friar Gerund. Two itinerant priests coming, says Anthony Wood, towards night, to a cell of Benedictines near Oxford, where, on a supposition of their being Mimes or Minstrels, they gained admittance. But the cellarer, sacristan, and others of the brethren, hoping to have been entertained by their buffoonery, and finding them to be nothing more than two poor priests, who had nothing but spiritual consolation to offer in return for their hospitality, disappointed of their mirth, they beat them soundly, and turned them out of the monastery. The same author gives a character of Sir Walter Raleigh, who was of Oriel College, which I copied, for two reasons. Raleigh ought ever to be remembered and honoured in our country, as one of the first who employed his influence and his fortune in laying the foundation of our western empire. His example, his persuasions, and his wealth, gave the first impulse to the tide of emigration in the southern portion of the United States; and it is to him the succeeding generations should look up as their founder. For this reason, every particular of him is interesting to my mind; and I should have copied the extract, even if it had not exhibited the original of a passage in Johnson's Life of Goldsmith, which has often been admired and quoted." His eminent worth," says Wood, speaking of Raleigh, "both in domestic polity, foreign expeditions and discoveries, arts and literature, both practive and contemplative, was such, that they seemed at once to conquer both example and imitation. Those that knew him well, esteemed him to be a person born to that only which he went about, so dexterous was he in all or most of his undertakings, in court, in camp, by sea, by land, with sword, with pen." There is something I think singularly and oddly affecting in the following notices of the early Protestant martyrs, which I got out of Strype's MeI morials, an old book in the Bodleian "I cannot here omit," he says, "old Father Latimer's habit at his appearing before the commissioners, which was also his habit while he remained prisoner at Oxford. He held his hat in his hand; he had a kerchief on his head, and upon it a nightcap or two, and a great cap such as townsmen used, with two broad flaps to button under his chin: an old thread-bare freez gown of Bristow, girded to his body with a penny lether girdle, at which hanged by a long string of leather his Testament and his spectacles without case, hanging about his neck upon his breast." What would our modern English bishops, with their twenty, thirty, ay, fifty thousands a year, say to this costume of one of the noblest of their tribe? I mean those consistent ones, who, it has been aptly said, "All over luxury, they at vice declaim, Chide at ill lives, and at good livings aim; "In October," continues Strype, "Ridley and Latimer were brought forth to their burning; and passing by Cranmer's prison, Ridley looked up to have seen him, and to have taken his last farewell. But he was not then at the window, being engaged in a dispute with a Spanish friar. But he looked after them, and devoutly falling on his knees, prayed to God, to strengthen their faith and patience in that their last, but painful passage." I will conclude this letter with some curious particulars relating to the first introduction of newspapers into England, which took place little more than two hundred years ago. It is curious to trace the rise and progress of this species of periodicals, and to observe from what small beginnings they have increased to such a degree of consequence, as to have become one of the most powerful instruments in governing the minds of the people, and checking the excesses of their rulers. They undoubtedly originated in the growing importance of the people, and the consequent necessity of influencing their opinions, and they may justly be styled the peculiar guardians of their rights. Newspapers, together with the other branches of periodical literature, are now, in truth, in a great measure superseding the elaborate and ponderous VOL. I. F in tomes of those profound philosophers and statesmen, whose works were only useful to the governors, not to the governed. And thus, while the progress and diffusion of free principles operate to a more general distribution of property, they, at the same time, produce a similar equality in the possession of intellectual acquirements. By means of periodical and diurnal literature, a portion of that knowledge, which was for ages locked up libraries inaccessible to common people, and contained in books which they had as little leisure as opportunity to read, is now placed perpetually within reach, and in a form suitable to their leisure and capacity. I imagine the general diffusion of literature is, however, as little favourable to the production of prodigies in learning, as the general diffusion of free principles proves to the monopoly of wealth or power. I am indebted to honest Anthony Wood for the succeeding list, and the particulars collected with so much industry. The first paper mentioned by him, is "Mercurius Rusticus, or the Countrie's Complaint." It first appeared, he says, the 22d of August, 1642, in a single quarto sheet, and extended to only nineteen or twenty numbers. I believe Wood is mistaken here with regard to this being the first. Cleaveland, in giving an account of the London periodicals and diurnals, states, that "the original desiner of this kind was Dutch Gallo Belgicus the Protoplast, and the modern Mercuries but Hans en Kelders." I have somewhere read that the Mercurius-Gallo-Belgicus is mentioned in Carew's Survey of Cornwall, first published in 1602, and by Donne in some verses of the date of 1611. If the Mercurius Rusticus was the first of these diurnals, there is probably some error in the date as set down by Wood. There was a second part of Mercurius Rusticus, giving an account of some outrages committed on the cathedrals in various parts of England. These were all collected in a volume, four or five years after their first publication; but I believe no copy is extant at this time. It would be an invaluable accession to the treasures of His Grace of ******* or my Lord ******** These papers were writ ten by one Bruno Ryves, a Dorsetshire man, first one of the clerks in New College, then chaplain to Magdalen, and then "a most noted and florid preacher" at Stanwell in the county of Middlesex. He afterwards became rector of St. Martin's, London, and chaplain to Charles the First. When the Presbyterians got the upper hand, they turned him out of his rectory, and he fared ill enough, until the Restoration, when he enjoyed several rich benefices, was 66 sworn scribe" to the order of the garter, and died in 1677. Mercurius Aulicus, the next paper of this kind, was begun at Oxford, where the court then was, in 1642, and continued to be published once a week, till the latter part of 1645, when it ceased to appear with any degree of regularity. Wood says, it had a great deal of wit and buffoonery; and that Nedham, the writer of Mercurius Britannicus, was no more to be compared with Aulicus, than a dwarf to a giant. Mercurius Aulicus, according to Nedham, was the work of several hands, such as George Digby, Secretary Nicholas, and Birkenhead the scribe. He also says, that each college was assessed both for a weekly contribution of money and wit. But Wood says, that notwithstanding what this liar affirms, all Oxford knew, that John Birkenhead began, and continued them, only that in his absence his place was supplied by Peter Heylin. Birkenhead was the son of a saddler in Cheshire, and became amanuensis to Archbishop |