different objects: Petrarch's towards the glory of the Roman name, Rousseau's towards his idol of a state of nature; the one religious, the other un esprit fort; but may not Petrarch's spite to Babylon be considered, in his time, as a species of free-thinking-and concludes, that both were mad, but of a different nature.' Unquestionably there were features much alike, and almost peculiar to these two literary characters; but I doubt if Hurd has comprehended them in the parallel.

I now give a specimen of those parallels which have done so much mischief in the literary world, when drawn by a hand which covertly leans on one side. An elaborate one of this sort was composed by Longolius or Longueil, between Budaeus and Erasmus.* This man,. though of Dutch origin, affected to pass for a Frenchman, and, to pay his court to his chosen people, gives the preference obliquely to the French Budæus; though, to make a show of impartiality, he acknowledges that Francis the First had awarded it to Erasmus; but probably he did not infer that kings were the most able reviewers! This parallel was sent forth during the lifetime of both these great scholars, who had long been correspondents, but the publication of the parallel interrupted their friendly intercourse. Erasmus returned his compliments and thanks to Longolius, but at the same time insinuates a gentle hint that he was not over-pleased. What pleases me most,' Erasmus writes, 'is the just preference you have given Budæus over me; I confess you are even too economical in your praise of him, as you are too prodigal in mine. I thank you for informing me what it is the learned aesire to find in me; my self-love suggests many little excuses, with which, you observe, I am apt to favour my defects. If I am careless, it arises partly from my ignorance, and more from my indolence; I am so constituted, that I cannot conquer my nature; I precipitate rather than compose, and it is far more irksome for me to revise than to write.'

This parallel between Erasmus and Budæus, though the parallel itself was not of a malignant nature, yet disturbed the quiet, and interrupted the friendship of both. When Longolius discovered that the Parisian surpassed the Hollander in Greek literature and the knowledge of the civil law, and wrote more learnedly and laboriously, how did this detract from the finer genius and the varied erudition of the more delightful writer? The parallist compares Erasmus to a river swelling its waters and often overflowing its banks; Budæus rolled on like a majestic stream, ever restraining its waves within its bed. The Frenchman has more nerve and blood, and life, and the Hollander more fulness, freshness, and colour.'

This taste for biographical parallels must have reached us from Plutarch; and there is something malicious in our nature which inclines us to form comparative estimates, usually with a view to elevate one great man at the cost of another, whom we would secretly depreciate. Our political parties at home have often indulged in these fallacious parallels, and Pitt and Fox once balanced the scales, not by the standard weights and measures which ought to bave been used, but by the adroitness of the hand that pressed down the scale. In literature these comparative estimates have proved most prejudicial. A finer model exists not than the parallel of Dryden and Pope, by Johnson; for without designing any undue preference, his vigorous judgment has analyzed them by his contrasts, and has rather shown their distinctness than their similarity. But literary parallels usually end in producing parties; and, as I have elsewhere observed, often originate in undervaluing one man of genius, for his deficiency in some eminent quality possessed by the other man of genius; they not unfrequently proceed from adverse tastes, and are formed with the concealed design of establishing some favourite one. The world of literature has been deeply infected with this folly. Virgil probably was often vexed in his days by a parallel with Homer, and the Homerians combated with the Virgilians. Modern Italy was long divided into such literary sects: a perpetual skirmishing is carried on between the Ariostoists and the Tassoists; and feuds as dire as those between two Highland clans were raised concerning the Petrarchists and the Chiabrerists. Old Corneille lived to bow his venerable genius before a parallel with Racine; and no one has suffered more unjustly by such arbitrary criticisms than Pope, for a strange unnatural civil war has often been renewed between the Drydenists and the Popists. Two men of great genius should It is noticed by Jortin, in his Life of Erasmus, vol. I, p. 160.

never be depreciated by the misapplied ingenuity of a parallel; on such occasions we ought to conclude, that they are magis pares quam similes.

THE PEARL BIBLES, AND SIX THOUSAND ERRATA:

As a literary curiosity, I notice a subject which might extraordinary state of our English Bibles, which were for rather enter into the history of religion. It relates to the some time suffered to be so corrupted that no books ever yet swarmed with such innumerable errata!

tary commissions, passages interpolated, and meanings These errata unquestionably were in great part volunforged for certain purposes; sometimes to sanction the new creed of a half hatched sect, and sometimes with an intention to destroy all scriptural authority by a confusion, or an omission of texts-the whole was left open to the option or the malignity of the editors, who, probably, like certain ingenious wine-merchants, contrived to accomodate the waters of life' to their customers' peculiar taste. They had also a project of printing Bibles as cheaply and in a form as contracted as they possibly could for the com mon people; and they proceeded till it nearly ended with having no bible at all: and, as Fuller, in his Mixt Contemplations on better Times,' alluding to this circumstance, with not one of his lucky quibbles, observes, 'The small price of the Bible hath caused the small prizing of the Bible.'

This extraordinary attempt on the English Bible began even before Charles the First's dethronement, and proba bly arose from an unusual demand for Bibles, as the sec tarian fanaticism was increasing. Printing of English Bibles, was an article of open trade; every one printed at the lowest price, and as fast as their presses would allow, Even those who were dignified as 'his Majesty's Printers' were among these manufacturers; for we have an account of a scandalous omission by them of the important negative in the seventh commandment! the printers were summoned before the court of High Commission, and this served to bind them in a fine of three thousand pounds. A prior circumstance, indeed, had occurred, which induced the government to be more vigilant on the Biblical press. The learned Usher, one day hastening to preach at Paul's Cross, entered the shop of one of the stationers as booksellers were then called, and inquiring for a Bible of the London edition, when he came to look for his text, to his astonishment and his horror, he discovered that the verse was omitted in the Bible! This gave the first occa sion of complaint to the king of the insufferable negligence and incapacity of the London press; and, says the manuscript writer of this anecdote, first bred that great contest which followed, between the University of Cambridge and the London stationers, about the right of printing Bibles.*

The secret bibliographical history of these times would show the extraordinary state of the press in this new trade of Bibles. The writer of a curious pamphlet exposes the combination of those called the king's printers, with their contrivances to keep up the prices of Bibles; their corres pondences with the book-sellers of Scotland and Dubun, by which means they retained the privilege in their own hands; the king's London printers got Bibles printed cheaper at Edinburgh. In 1029, when folio Bibles were wanted, the Cambridge printers sold them at ten shillings in quires; on this the Londoners set six printing houses at work, and, to annihilate the Cambridgians printed a simi lar folio Bible, but sold with it five hundred quarts Roman Bibles, and five hundred quarto English, at five shillings a book; which proved the ruin of the olio Bibles, by keeping them down under the cost price. Another competi tion arose among those who printed English Bibles in Holland, in duodecimo, with an English colophon, for half the price even of the lowest in London. Twelve thous and of these duodecimo Bibles, with notes, fabricated in Holland, usually by our fugitive sectarians, were seized by the king's printers, as contrary to the statute. Such was this shameful war of Bibles-folios, quartos, ani duodeci mos, even in the days of Charles the First. The public spirit of the rising sects was the real occasion of these increased demands for Bibles.

*Harl. MS, 6395.

+ Scintilla, or a Light broken into darke Warehouses of some Printers, sleeping Stationers, and combining Booksell lers; in which is only a touch of their forestalling and ingruss. ing of Books in Pattents, and raying them to excessive prises Left to the consideration of the high and honourable House of Parliament, now assembled. London: No where to be sold, but some where to be given. 1641.'

During the civil wars they carried on the same open trade and competition, besides the private ventures of the smuggled Bibles. A large impression of these Dutch English Bibies were burnt by order of the Assembly of Divines, for these three errors

Gen. xxxvi, 24.-This is that ass that found rulers in the wilderness-for mule.

Ruth iv, 13.-The Lord gave her corruption-for conception.

Luke xxi, 28.-Look up and lift up your hands, for your condemnation draweth nigh-for redemption.

These errata were none of the printers; but, as a writer of the times expresses it, egregious blasphemies, and damnable errata' of some sectarian, or some Bellamy editor of that day!

The printing of Bibles at length was a privilege conceded to one William Bentley; but he was opposed by Hills and Field; and a paper war arose, in which they mutually recriminated on each other, with equal truth. Field printed in 1653 what was called the Pearl Bible; alluding, I suppose, to that diminutive type in printing, for it could not derive its name from its worth. It is a twentyfours; but to contract the mighty book into this dwarfishness, all the original Hebrew texts prefixed to the Psalms, explaining the occasion and the subject of their composition, is wholly expunged. This Pearl Bible, which may be inspected among the great collection of our English Bibles at the British Museum, is set off by many notable errata, of which these are noticed :

Romans vi, 13.-Neither yield ye your members as instruments of righteousness unto sin-for unrighteousness, First Corinthians vi, 9.-Know ye not the unrighteous shall inherit the kingdom of God?-for shall not inherit.

This erratum served as the foundation of a dangerous doctrine; for many libertines urged the text from this corrupt Bible, against the reproofs of a divine.

This Field was a great forger; and it is said that he received a present of 15001 from the independents to corrupt a text in Acts vi, 3, to sanction the right of the people to appoint their own pastors. The corruption was the easiest possible; it was only to put a ye instead of a we; so that the right in Field's Bible emanated from the people, not from the apostles. The only account I recollect of this extraordinary state of our Bibles is a happy allusion in a line of Butler:

Religion spawn'd a various rout
Of petulant, capricious sects,
The maggots of corrupted texts.

In other Bibles by Hills and Field we may find such abundant errata, reducing the text to nonsense or to blasphemy, making the Scriptures contemptible to the multitude, who came to pray, and not to scorn.

It is affirmed, in the manuscript account already referred to, that one Bible swarmed with six thousand faults! Indeed, from another source we discover that Sterne, a solid scholar, who was the first who summed up the three thousand and six hundred faults, that were in our printed Bibles of London.*

If one book can be made to contain near four thousand errors, little ingenuity was required to reach to six thousand: but perhaps this is the first time so remarkable an incident in the history of literature has ever been chronicled. And that famous edition of the Vulgate by Pope Sixtus the Fifth, a memorable book of blunders, which commands such high prices, ought now to fall in value, before the Pearl Bible, in twenty-fours, of Messrs Hills and Field!

Mr Field, and his worthy coadjutor, seem to have carried the favour of the reigning powers over their opponents; for I find a piece of their secret history. They engaged to pay 500 per annum to some, whose names I forbear to mention,' warily observes the manuscript writer; and above 100 per annum to Mr Marchmont Needham and his wife, out of the profits of the sales of their Bibles; dending, insulting, and triumphing over others, out of their confidence in their great friends and purse, as if they were lawless and free, both from offence and punishment.† This Marchmont Needham is sufficiently notorious, and his secret history is probably true; for in a Mercurius Poiticus of this unprincipled Cobbett of his day, I found an elaborate puff of an edition, published by the annuitygrantor to this Worthy and his Wife!

⚫G Garrard's Letter to the Earl of Strafford, Vol. I, p. 208. Harl. MS. 7580.

Not only had the Bible to suffer these indignities of size and price, but the Prayer-book was once printed in an illegible and worn out type; on which the printer being complained of, he stoutly replied, that it was as good as the price afforded; and being a book which all persons ought to have by heart, it was no matter whether it was read or not, so that it was worn out in their hands.' The puritans seem not to have been so nice about the source of purity itself.

These hand-bibles of the sectarists, with their six thousand errata, like the false Duessa, covered their crafty deformity with a fair raiment; for when the great Selden, in the assembly of divines, delighted to confute them in their own learning, he would say, as Whitelock reports, when they had cited a text to prove their assertion, Perhaps in your little pocket-bible with gilt leaves,' which they would often pull out and read, the translation may be so, but the Greek or the Hebrew signifies this.'

While these transactions were occurring, it appears that the authentic translation of the Bible, such as we now have it, by the learned translators in James the First's time, was suffered to lie neglected. The copies of the original manuscript were in the possession of two of the king's printers, who, from cowardice, consent, and connivance, suppressed the publication; considering that a Bible full of errata, and often, probably, accommodated to the notions of certain sectarists, was more valuable than one authenticated by the hierarchy! Such was the state of the English Bible till 1660.*

The proverbial expression of chapter and verse seems peculiar to ourselves, and, I suspect, originated in the puritanic period, probably just before the civil wars under Charles the First, from the frequent use of appealing to the Bible on the most frivolous occasions, practised by those whom South calls those mighty men at chapter and verse.' With a sort of religious coquetry, they were vain of perpetually opening their gilt pocket Bibles; they perked them up with such self-sufficiency and perfect ignorance of the original, that the learned Selden found considerable amusement in going to their assembly of divines,' and puzzling or confuting them, as we have noticed. A ludicrous anecdote on one of these occasions is given by a contemporary, which shows how admirably that learned man amused himself with this assembly of divines! They were discussing the distance between Jerusalem and Jericho, with a perfect ignorance of sacred or of ancient geography; one said it was twenty miles, another ten, and at last it was concluded to be only seven, for this strange reason, that fish was brought from Jericho to Jerusalem market! Seldon observed, that possibly disputants. the fish in question was salted,' and silenced these acute

It would probably have greatly discomposed these chapter and verse' men, to have informed them that the Scriptures had neither chapter nor verse! It is by no means clear how the holy writings were anciently divided, and still less how quoted or referred to. The honour of the invention of the present arrangement of the Scriptures is ascribed to Robert Stephens, by his son, in the preface to his Concordance, a task which he performed during a journey on horseback from Paris to London, in 1551; and whether it was done as Yorick would in his Shandeau manner lounging on his mule, or at his intermediate baits, he has received all possible thanks for this employment of his time. Two years afterwards he concluded with the Bible. But that the honour of every invention may be disputed, Sanctus Pagninus's Bible, printed at Lyons in 1527, seems to have led the way to these convenient divisions; Stephens however improved on Pagninus's mode of paragraphical marks and marginal verses; and our present chapter and verse,' more numerous and more commodiously numbered, were the project of this learned printer, to recommend his edition of the Bible; trade and learning were once combined! Whether in this arrangement any disturbance of the continuity of the text has followed, is a subject not fitted for my inquiry.

VIEW OF A PARTICULAR PERIOD OF THE STATE OF
RELIGION IN OUR CIVIL WARS.

Looking over the manuscript diary of Sir Symonds D'Ewes, I was struck by a picture of the domestic religious life which at that period was prevalent among families. Sir Symonds was a sober antiquary, heated with no

* See the London Printers' Lamentation on the Press op. pressed, Harl. Coll. III, 280.

LITERATURE.

py parties, who were hungering and thirsting for each
other's blood, were fasting in spite one against the other!
Without inquiring into the causes, even if we thought
that we could ascertain them, of that frightful dissolution of
religion which so long prevailed in our country, and of
which the very corruption it has left behind still breeds in
monstrous shapes, it will be sufficient to observe, that the
destruction of the monarchy and the ecclesiastical order
was a moral earthquake, overturning all minds, and open-
ing all changes. A theological logomachy was substituted
by the sullen and proud ascetics who ascended into power.
These, without wearying themselves, wearied all others,
and triumphed over each other by their mutual obscurity.
The two great giants in this theological war were the fa-
They both wrote a
mous Richard Baxter and Dr Owen.
library of books; but the endless controversy between
them was the extraordinary and incomprehensible subject,
whether the death of Christ was solutio ejusdem, or only
tantundem; that is, whether it was a payment of the very
thing, which by law we ought to have paid, or of some-
thing held by God to be equivalent. Such was the point
on which this debate between Owen and Baxter, lasted
without end.

Yet these metaphysical absurdities were harmless, com-
pared to what was passing among the more hot fanatics,
who were for acting the wild fancies which their melan-
choly brains engendered; men, who from the places into
which they had thrust themselves, might now be called
'the higher orders of society! These two parties alike
sent forth an evil spirit to walk among the multitude.-
Every one would become his own law-maker, and even
his own prophet; the meanest aspired to give his name to
his sect.
All things were to be put into motion according
'Away
to the St. Vitus's dance of the last new saint.
with the Law! which cuts off a man's legs and then bids
him walk!' cried one from his pulpit. Let believers sin
as fast as they will, they have a fountain open to wash
We had the Brownists,
them,' declared another teacher.
from Robert Brown, the Vaneists, from Sir Harry Vane,
then we sink down to Mr Traske, Mr Wilkinson, Mr
Robinson, and H. N., or Henry Nicholas, of the Family
of Love, besides Mrs Hutchinson, and the Grindietonian
family, who preferred motions to motives,' and conve-
niently as sumed, that their spirit is not to be tried by the
Scripture, but the Scripture by their spirit.' Edwards,
the author of Gangrena,' the adversary of Milton, whose
work may still be preserved for its curiosity, though im-
mortalized by the scourge of genius, has furnished a list of
about two hundred of such sects in these times. A divine
of the Church of England observed to a great secretary,
'You talk of the idolatry of Rome; but each of you, when
ever you have made and set up a calf, will dance about

it.'

This confusion of religions, if, indeed, these pretended modes of faith could be classed among religions, disturbed the consciences of good men, who read themselves in and out of their vacillating creed. It made, at last, even one of the puritans themselves, who had formerly complained that they had not enjoyed sufficient freedom under the bishops, cry out against this cursed intolerable intoleration.' And the fact is, that when the presbyterians bad fixed themselves into the government, they published several treatises against toleration! The parallel between these wild notions of reform, and those of another character, run closely together. About this time well-meaning persons, who were neither enthusiasts from the ambition of founding sects, nor of covering their immorality by their impiety, were infected with the religiosa insania. One A Mr Greswold, a gentleman case may stand for many. of Warwickshire, whom a Brownist had by degrees enticed from his parish church, was afterwards persuaded to return to it-but he returned with a troubled mind, and A horror of his fost in the prevalent theological contests. future existence shut him out, as it were, from his present one: retiring into his own house, with his children, he ceased to communicate with the living world. He had hu food put in at the window; and when his children lay sick, he admitted no one for their relief. His house, at length, was forced open; and they found two children dead, and the father confined to his bed. He had mangled his bible, and cut out the titles, contents, and every thing but the very text itself; for it seems that he thought that every thing human was sinful, and he conceived that the tines of the books and the contents of the chapters, were

to be cut out of the sacred Scriptures, as having been
composed by men.*

*

More terrible it was when the insanity, which had hitherto been more confined to the better classes, burst forth among the common people. Were we to dwell minutely on this period, we should start from the picture with horror: we might, perhaps, console ourselves with a disbelief of its truth; but the drug though bitter in the mouth we must sometimes digest. To observe the extent to which the populace can proceed, disfranchised of law and religion, will always leave a memorable recollection.

What occurred in the French revolution had happened here-an age of impiety! Society itself seemed dissolved, for every tie of private affection and of public duty was unloosened. Even nature was strangely violated! From the first opposition to the decorous ceremonies of the national church, by the simple puritans, the next stage was that of ridicule, and the last of obloquy. They began by calling the surplice a linen rag on the back; baptism a Christ-cross on a baby's face; and the organ was likened to the bellow, the grunt, and the barking of the respective animals. They actually baptized horses in churches at the fonts; and the jest of that day was, that the Reformation was now a thorough one in England, since our norses went to church.† St Paul's cathedral was turned into a market, and the aisles, the communion table, and the altar, served for the foulest purposes. The liberty which every one now assumed of delivering his own opinions led to acts so execrable, that I can find no parallel for them except in the mad times of the French Revolution. Some maintained that there existed no distinction between moral good and moral evil; and that every man's actions were prompted by the Creator. Prostitution was professed as a religious act; a glazier was declared to be a prophet, and the woman he cohabited with was said to be ready to lie in of the Messiah. A man married his father's wife. Murders of the most extraordinary nature were occurring; one woman crucified her mother, another in imitation of Abraham sacrificed her child; we hear, too, of parricides. Amidst the slaughters of civil wars, spoil and blood had accustomed the people to contemplate the most horrible scenes. One mad-man of the many, we find drinking a health on his knees, in the midst of a town, to the devil! that it A Scotchman, one Alexander might be said that his family should not be extinct without doing some infamous act.' Agnew, commonly called 'Jock of broad Scotland,' whom one cannot call an atheist, for he does not seem to deny Omitthe existence of the Creator, nor a future state, had a shrewdness of local humour in his strange notions. ting some offensive things, others as strange may exhibit the state to which the reaction of a hypocritical system of Scotland said he was nothing in God's common, for God religion had driven the common people. Jock of broad had given him nothing; he was no more obliged to God than to the devil, for God was very greedy. Neither God nor the devil gave the fruits of the ground; the wives of When asked wherein he the country gave him his meat. believed, he answered, ' He believed in white meal, water, and salt. Christ was not God, for he came into the world He declared after it was made, and died as other men.'

that he did not know whether God or the devil had the greatest power, but he thought the devil was the greatest. When I die, let God and the devil strive for my soul, and let him that is strongest take it.' He no doubt had been taught by the presbytery to mock religious rites; and when desired to give God thanks for his meat, he said, ' Take a sackful of prayers to the mill and grind them, and take your breakfast of them.' To others he said, 'I will give you a two-pence, to pray until a boll of meal, and one stone of butter, fall from heaven through the house rigging to you.' When bread and cheese were laid on the ground The Hypocrite discovered and cured, by Sam. Torshall, 4to, 1644.

There is a pamphlet which records a strange fact. 'News from Powles: or the new Reformation of the Army, with a true Relation of a Colt that was foaled in the Cathedral Church of St Paul, in London, and how it was publiquely baptized, and the name (because a bald Colt) was called Baal-Rex! 1649. The water they sprinkled from the soldier's helmet on this occasion is described. The same occurred elsewhere. See Foulis's History of the Plots, &c, of our pretended Saints. These men who baptized horses and pigs in the name of the Trinity, sang Psalms when they marched. One cannot easily comprehend the nature of fanaticism, except when we learn that they refused to pay rents!

by him, he said,' If I leave this, I will long cry to God before he give it me again.' To others he said, 'Take a bannock, and break it in two, and lay down one half thereof, and you will long pray to God before he put the other half to it again! He seems to have been an anti-trinitarian. He said he received every thing from nature, which had ever reigned and ever would. He would not conform to any religious system, nor name the three Persons-' At all these things I have long shaken my cap,' he said. Jock of broad Scotland seems to have been one of those who imagine that God should have furnished them with bannocks ready baked.

The extravagant fervour then working in the minds of the people is marked by the story told by Clement Walker of the soldier who entered a church with a lantern and a candle burning in it, and in the other hand four candles not lighted. He said he came to deliver his message from God, and show it by these types of candles. Driven into the churchyard, and the wind blowing strong, he could not kindle his candles, and the new prophet was awkwardly compelled to conclude his five documents, abolishing the Sabbath, tithes, ministers, magistrates, and, at last, the Bible itself, without putting out each candle, as he could not kindle them; observing, however, each time- And here I should put out the first light, but the wind is so high that I cannot kindle it.'

A perfect scene of the effects which this state of irreligious society produced among the lower orders, I am enabled to give from the manuscript life of John Shaw, vicar of Rotheram, with a little tediousness, but with infinite naiveté, what happened to himself. This honest divine was puritanically inclined, but there can be no exaggera

Such is the picture of the folly and of the wickedness, which after having been preceded by the piety of a rel gious age, were succeeded by a dominion of hypocritical sanctity, and then closed in all the horrors of immorality and impiety. The parliament at length issued one of their ordinances for punishing blasphemous and execrable opinions,' and this was enforced with greater power than the slighted proclamations of James and Charles; but the curious wording is a comment on our present subject. The preamble notices that men and wo men had lately discovered monstrous opinions, even such as tended to the dissolution of human society, and have abused, and turned into licentiousness, the liberty given in matters of religion.' It punishes any person not distemper ed in his brains, who shall maintain any mere creature to be God; or that all acts of unrighteousness are not forbidden in the Scriptures; or that God approves of them; or that there is no real difference betweed moral good and evil,' &c.

To this disordered state was the public mind reduced, for this proclamation was only describing what was passing among the people! The view of this subject embra ces more than one point, which I leave for the meditation of the politician, as well as of the religionist.

BUCKINGHAM'S POLITICAL COQUETRY WITH THE PU

RITANS.

Buckingham, observes Hume, in order to fortify himself against the resentment of James'-on the conduct of the duke in the Spanish match, when James was latterly hearing every day Buckingham against Bristol, and Bris tol agaist Buckingham- had affected popularity, and entered into the cabals of the puritans; but afterwards, be

tion in these unvarnished facts. He tells a remarkable story of the state of religious knowledge in Lancashire, at a place called Cartmel: some of the people appeared desirous of religious instruction, declaring that they were with-ing secure of the confidence of Charles, he had since abanout any minister, and had entirely neglected every religious rite, and therefore pressed him to quit his situation at Lymm for a short period. He may now tell his own

story.

doned this party; and on that account was the more ex

posed to their hatred and resentment.'

Both

The political coquetry of a minister coalescing with an opposition party, when he was on the point of being dis graced, would doubtless open an involved scene of intrigue; and what one exacted, and the other was content to yield, towards the mutual accommodation, might add one more example to the large chapter of political infirmity. workmen attempting to convert each other into tools, by first trying their respective maileability on the an vil, are liable to be disconcerted by even a slight acc dent, whenever that proves to perfect conviction, how it tle they can depend on each other, and that each party comes to cheat, and not to be cheated!

'I found a very large spacious church, scarce any seats in it; a people very ignorant, and yet willing to learn; so as I had frequently some thousands of hearers. I catechised in season and out of season. The churches were so thronged at nine in the morning, that I had much ado to get to the pulpit. One day an old man about sixty, sensible enough in other things, and living in the parish of Cartmel, coming to me on some business, I told him that he belonged to my care and charge, and I desired to be informed in his knowledge of religion. I asked him how many Gods there were? He said he knew not. I informed him, asked again how he thought to be saved? He answered he could not tell. Yet thought that was a harder question than the other. I told him that the way to salDr Preston was an eminent character, who from his vation was by Jesus Christ, God-man, who as he was youth was not without ambition. His scholastic learning, man shed his blood for us on the cross, &c. Oh, sir, said the subtilty of his genius, and his more elegant accomplish he, I think I heard of that man you speak of once in a playments, had attracted the notice of James, at whose table at Kendall, called Corpus-Christ's play, where there was a man on a tree and blood run down, &c. And afterwards he professed he could not remember that he ever heard of sal-ly obstacle to his court preferment; yet Preston unques vation by Jesus, but in that play.'

The scenes passing in the metropolis, as well as in the country, are opened to us in one of the chronicaling poems of George Withers. Our sensible Rhimer wrote in November 1652, a Dark Lanthorne' on the present subject.

After noticing that God, to mortify us, had sent preach ers from the shop-board and the plough,'

-Such as we seem justly to contemn,

As making truths abhorred, which come from them : he seems, however, inclined to think, that these self-taught Teachers and Prophets' in their darkness might hold a certain light within them.

This piece of secret history is in part recoverable from
good authority. The two great actors were the Duke of
College, and the head of the puritan party.
Buckingham and Dr Preston, the master of Emmanuel

he was perhaps more than once honoured as a guest; a suspicion of his puritanic principles was perhaps the on

favour of James by the king's hope of withdrawing the doctionably designed to play a political part. He retained the tor from the opposition party; and commanded the favour of Buckingham by the fears of that minister; when to employ the quaint style of Hacket, the duke foresaw that he might come to be tried in the furnace of the next sessions of parliament, and he had need to make the refiners his friends' most of these refiners' were the puritame or op position party. Appointed one of the chaplains of Prince Charles, Dr Preston had the advantage of being in frequent attendance; and as Hacket tells us, this politic man felt the pulse of the court, and wanted not the intelligence of all dark mysteries through the Scotch in his highness's bed-chamber.' A close communication took place between the duke and Preston, who, as Hacket describes, was 'a good crow to smell carrion.' He obtained an easy admis sion to the duke's closet at least thrice a week, and in their notable conferences Buckingham appears to have commo nicated to his confidential friends. Preston, intent on car. rying all his points, skilfully commenced with the smaller He winded the duke circuitously,—he worked at him subterraneously. This wary politician was too sagacious to propose what he had at heart-the extirpation of the hierarchy ! The thunder of James's voice, no bush

ones.