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Charles II. faid one day to Gregorio Leti,"When shall we have your hiftory of the prefent times?" I know not, Sir," faid he, "what to do about it. A man would find it an hard matter to tell the truth without offending Kings and great men, though he were as wife as Solomon."" Why then, Signior Gregorio," faid Charles, "be as wife as Solomon, and write Proverbs."

Dr. S wrote a very fmall hand, and crouded a great deal into his pages. He did it to fave the expence of paper. He put one of his manufcripts into a friend's hands to peruse; who returned it to him, with this compliment, "If you reason as closely as you write, you arę invincible,"

In former days, a certain Bishop of Ely, heartily hated in his diocese, had a tranflation to Can terbury. Upon which a Monk stuck up this dif tich, on the doors of his Cathedral of Ely, in Leonine verfes, the best of the kind that I ever met with.

Exultant Cali, tranfit quod Simon ab Eli:
Cujus ob adventum flent in Kent millia centum.*

*On the decease of a certain great man, not much beloved, the following was found, infcribed in chalk, upon the valves of his coach-house door: "He that giveth unto the poor, lendeth unto the Lord. N. B. The Lord oweth this man— -nothing." M

Mr was a scholar, a bigot, and a freethinker. When he died, leaving two fons behind him, he seemed to be split afunder, and divided between them. The one inherited his bigotry, the other his freethinking. His learning, like a volatile spirit, flipped away; and neither of them could. catch it.

Christopher Urfewick is faid by Wood to have been Recorder of London in the reigns of Edw. IV. Rich. III. and Henry VII. Speed tells us, that under the last, he might have attained the highest dignities in the Church, and the most profitable offices in the State; but that he refused the Bishoprick of Norwich. Titulo res digna fepulchri! Accordingly his Epitaph, which is a good one, and much to his credit, fays, Magnos honores totâ vitâ Sprevit; frugali vitâ contentus.

To deferve a Bishoprick, and to reject it, is no common thing. But that our Urfewick may not ftand alone, the following is related of another illuftrious man of the fifteenth century,

Sixtus the Fourth, having a great esteem for John Weffel, of Groeningen, one of the most learned men of the age, fent for him, and faid to him, "Son, afk of us what you will; nothing fhall be refufed, that becomes our character to bestow, and your condition to receive,"-" Moft holy Fa

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ther," said he, "and my generous Patron, I shall not be troublesome to your Holinefs. You know that I never fought after great things. The only favour I have to beg, is, that you would give me out of your Vatican Library, a Greek and a Hebrew Bible." "You fhall have them," faid Sixtus: "but what a fimple man are you! Why do you not ask a Bishoprick?" Weffel replied, “Because I do not want one!" The happier man was he: happier than they, who would give all the Bibles in the Vatican, if they had them to give, for a Bishoprick *.

The Cappadocians refused liberty, when offered to them by the Romans, and obliged the Senate to give them a King; faying, as the Ifraelites of old did to Samuel, Nay, but we will have a King over us.Such are the peasants of Livonia; they are slaves to the nobility, who drub them without mercy. Stephen Batori, King of Poland, commiferating their wretched ftate, offered to deliver them from this cruel tyranny, and to change their baftinadoes into flight fines. The Peasants could not bear a propofition tending to deftroy fo ancient and venerable a custom, and most humbly befought the King, "that he would please to make no innovations." See Bibl. Univ. IV. 161.

Pylades, the comedian, being reprimanded by the Emperor Auguftus, becaufe tumults and factions See Life of Erasmus, Vol. I. p. 48.

were

were raifed in Rome upon his account, by thofe who favoured him, in oppofition to other actors, replied, "It is your intereft, Cæfar, that the people fhould bufy themselves and fquabble about us."

Father Morinus, as Simon tells us, had made a collection of all the rude and fcurrilous language to be found in ancient and claffical authors, to ferve him upon occafion. There is a ludicrous curfe in Plautus; Tu ut oculos emungaris ex capite per nafum tuos!" I with you may blow your eyes out at your nofe.'

That rhetoric, fays Selden, is beft, which is moft feasonable and catching. We have an instance in that old blunt Commander at Cadiz, who fhewed himself a good orator. Being Being to fay fomething to his foldiers (which he was not used to do) he made them a fpeech to this purpose: "What a fhame will it be to you, Englishmen, who feed upon good, Beef, to let thofe Spaniards beat you, that live upon oranges and lemons!"

Dr. B. once wanted to fell a good-for-nothing horse; and mounted him, to shew him to the best advantage: but he performed his part so very forrily, that the perfon with whom he was driving the bargain, faid, "My dear friend, when you want to impofe

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impose upon me, do not get up on horseback: get
into the Pulpit."

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The Philofopher Antifthenes affected to go in
rags, like a beggar. Socrates faid to him one day,
"Pride and vanity peep through those holes of
your cloke." Ælian. Var. Hiftor. Lib. IX. c. 35.*

Bayle, enumerating the new taxes invented by
Louis XIV. and the uncouth names by which they
went, fays, "Here are Words, admirably fuited to
impoverish Subjects, and to enrich Dictionaries."

When Charles V. (fays a Spanish Hiftorian) fled
before Maurice of Saxony, and hurried from
Infpruck on foot, he walked after his retinue, to
testify his courage; and bade them double their
pace, faying, "Haften away, and be not afraid
of a Traitor, who hath wickedly rebelled against
his Prince." If it be true that Charles faid thus, to
hearten his men, and encourage them to run for it, he
followed the maxim of Sandoval, his Cronicador,wha
puts at the head of one of his chapters,

"Los Spanoles vittoriofos fe ne fuyeron."
The victorious Spaniards ran away, &c.
See Bibl. Univ. X. 14.

Kühnius re-

* The original is Ου παύση εγκαλλωπίζομαι υμιν.
marks on the paffage, "Clariùs hæc Diogenes: Scribit enim
dixiffe, Όρω σε δια το τρίβωνος την Φιλοδοξίαν. V. Edit. Kühn.*
Argenterati. 1685.

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