was tried by the parliament of Paris, and condemned to be burnt alive. Francis I. with the dukes of Vendome, of Guise, and other great lords, were present at the trial. The sentence was actually executed in 1759; and yet, the same Noel Bede, whom we have just mentioned, presumed, in a sermon which he preached, to rail against the king for not prosecuting heretics with sufficient rigour! The king conceiving, probably, that M. Bede's ideas might be enlightened by a little personal experience on the subject, sentenced him for his impertinence, to be banished the country. TRISTRAM SHANDY'S HYPOTHESIS OF CHRISTIAN NAMES. DR. FERRIAR, in his "Illustration of Sterne," supposes that Mr. Shandy's hypothesis of christian names was first suggested to the author by some passages in Montaigne's Essays, and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. It seems, however, much more probable, that he was indebted for the idea to a poem, written by Aaron Hill's wife, and printed in a collection of miscellaneous poems published by the unfortunate Savage, and now become very scarce. The following is a copy of the poem: To Lady Harvey on a Conversation concerning Names. BY MIRANDA. Soul-moving HARVEY, in whose smiling eyes The azure stamp of heav'n distinguish'd shines; And your flute's sweetness modulate my While I, no poet, yet presume to shew, In poet's numbers, with unlicens'd flame, And borrow that example from our name. The bleeding bosom, and the pictur'd Fame lines : Instruct each young Lucretia to be chaste; And see no faults in those whom beauty grac'd. Marg'ries and Joans may stray from honour's law, Nor awe to distance Tom's and Dick's address; And, with the decent pride of caution, bless. Daphnis and Corydon, attractive swains! Ask your lov'd lord, so letter'd and polite, Whether Heers, Hop, and Rumpf, in times to come, Can, in the blaze of story, shine as bright As the smooth legates of old Greece and Rome? Had Bubb Dodington ne'er been known to Spain, What barb'rous censures had our nation 'scap'd! The soft-mouth'd Signiors ne'er had minc'd in vain, Those stubborn consonants, so Goth-like shap'd. Who, that was christen'd Julius, dare be base, When he looks back at his great pattern's fame? Or, if some huge Van Trump wants air and grace, Who blames the monster when he hears his name? Were I to say what title I would wear, Could I Knockfergus or Kilpatrick chuse, When Dorset or Argyle had tun'd my ear, Or Harvey's softer vowels charm'd my muse? Oh! what a tuneful thunder shook the tongue, When Marlbro' (conqu❜ring sound) alarm'd the foe! Had Jablonowski led our armies on, The gen'ral's scare-crow name had foil'd each blow. Epaminondas! Does that sound like Wills? Can ev'n your voice make rough Cadogan fall, With that soft grandeur that so smoothly trills, When we say-Casar! Hector! Hannibal! Had Helena been Moll; or Paris, Hob; Troy had but heard, and 'scap'd the fatal flame; Shunning the vulgar tracks of homely sound, Go on, fair HARVEY, to distinguish well: Round your lov'd knees, let Altamiras stand, Give us Augustuses to grace our land, And pour their mother's sweetness round the isle. L PERILS OF FREE TRANSLATION. A NUMBER of works by Dôtet were all at once condemned to the flames, at Paris, by order of parliament, 14th February, 1543. The unfortunate printer himself was afterwards sentenced to be hanged and burned, as a relapsed atheist. The principal charge made against Dôtet was founded upon his translation of Plato's Dialogues. In a passage there, the translator, instead of saying" After death, you will be nothing," says " After death, you will be nothing at all.” The Faculty of Theology determined, that the words "at all" were not authorized by the original, and that they smelt of heresy and an attachment to the sects of Sadducees and Epicureans. The true cause of poor Dôtet's fall appears to have been the hatred previously conceived against him by the Sorbonne. He is said to have discovered a design which the doctors had formed of extinguishing the art of printing in France; and with an esprit de corps, as excusable in printers as divines, he turned his press into an engine of constant hostility against them. SEXTUS THE FIFTH'S BIBLE. 66 LECLERC, in his "Universal Library," says, "They speak of the murmurs excited by the Italian version of the Bible made by order of the Pope. Olivares, the Spanish ambassador, thought it shameful that the example of heretics should be followed at Rome.”—“ Oh, sir," said the pope, do not trouble yourself: we made it for you, who do not understand Latin." This minister wrote concerning it to his master; many cardinals added letters, in which they represented to his majesty that his interest was more concerned than that of the other powers in the suppression of this Bible, because of the great states the king of Spain possessed in Italy. Olivares accordingly went again to the pope, and made a long remonstrance upon this subject. Receiving no answer, he at last said, "Your holiness makes no reply; I know not what I am to think."-" I am thinking," replied Sextus, "of throwing you out of the window, to teach you the respect due to the sovereign pontiff." What authority is there for the truth of this story? or even for the existence of this pretended Italian version? Leclerc gives none; and the work, if it ever existed, has hitherto eluded the research of the curious. 147 BELLARMIN'S "VINDICATION OF POPEDOM." In this celebrated work, which was published at Rome in 1610, Bellarmin asserts the prerogatives of the church of Rome, in a style of bold pretension never perhaps exceeded by any votary of that establishment. According to him, the pope is not only absolute monarch of the universal church, but likewise the complete master of crowns and kings; he is the source of all ecclesiastical jurisdictions, the infallible judge of the faith, superior even to general councils. Bellarmin treats as heretics those who maintain that princes, in temporal things, have no superior but God. A decree of the parliament of Paris, 26th Nov. 1710, suppressed this book, because the' propositions which it contained were false and detestable, tending to the overthrow of the sovereign powers ordained and established by God, and encouraging the insurrection of subjects against their princes. The pope caused his nuncio to make strong remonstrances against this decree, which, he said, "brought great detriment to the papal authority;" but the French monarch was inexorable; and "Bellarmin on the Power of the Popes" remained a suppressed book throughout the dominions of his most Christian majesty. MONTESQUIEU'S SPIRIT OF LAWS. FEW circumstances in literary history are more remarkable than the suppression of Dupin's "Observations on a book entitled the Spirit of Laws.' This work, which is said to have been one of the best replies ever made to Montesquieu, was suppressed and burned by the author, at the request of Madame de Pompadour. The family and friends of Montesquieu had used their utmost influence with that lady, then allpowerful at court, to prevail upon her to take this step. She accordingly sent for Dupin, informed him that she took the author of the Spirit of Laws under her immediate protection, and persuaded him to withdraw all the copies and burn the edition. It is not stated what share Montesquieu himself had in this unphilosophical mode of refutation. メ THE DUTY OF WIVES. ONE of the most curious specimens of the literature of the Hindoos is a poem, supposed to have been written fourteen centuries ago, entitled the "Teroo-Vaulaver-Kuddul, or the Ocean of Wisdom." The following is a prose translation of a portion of this poem : "On the Duty of Wives. "She is the true helpmate, who, possessing an amiable temper and prudent disposition, proportions her husband's expenses to his income. "The goodness of her heart will manifest itself, in feeding holy hermits, in graciously entertaining her husband's guests, and in shewing mercy to the poor. Her prudence will be displayed, in providing, personally, for the future wants of her family, in preparing her husband's meals with regularity, and in maintaining the just reputation of a good manager. She will take care so to arrange the current expenditure, as not to encroach on the capital of her husband's property. "Where such a conduct in the wife is wanting, though the house should overflow with gold, yet shall it prove to the owner no better than an empty hovel. "Where an amiable heart and a prudent disposition are united in the wife, no want will be felt in that house: her judicious management will create a sense of abundance in all its happy inhabitants. Therefore, the first qualities in a wife are temper and prudence. "If you desire earthly blessings, let a good wife be your first object: be assured, no wealth is to be compared to her. Such a wife as above described, is worth enduring a life of penance to obtain. "A chaste woman, who, considering her husband as the more immediate object of her devotion, dedicates her first waking thoughts to him, is so superior a character, that the very rain will descend at her requisition. "A good wife will rise early to perform her devotion to the gods, a service she will delight in she will guard her chastity; prepare her husband's food with care; will conduct herself with such judicious caution, as to secure his good fame, no less than her own; and, finally, she will cultivate a kind, no less than a prudent disposition. "What avails it to a husband, to guard his wife's honour with spies and bolts? His best security will be, so to conduct himself, as to induce her to be on her guard. Alas! when |