I come, likewise, to let your proud antichrist vnderstand that he doth offend the heauenly maiesty, robbe God of his honour, and poysoneth the whole world with his abominable blasphemies; making them homage stockes and stones, and that filthy sacrament, which is nothing else but a foolish idol.' When they hearde these wordes, one Hugh Griffin, a Welsh man, and a student in the colledge, caused him to be put in the inquisition; where howe they examined him, and howe he answered them, I knowe not. After certain dayes, he was sette at lybertie againe. "And one day, going in the streete, he met a priest carrying the sacrament; which offending his conscience to see the people so croutch and kneele to it, he caught at it to haue throwne it downe, that all the people might see what they worshipped. But, missing his purpose, and being iudged by the people, that he did catch at the holinesse that (they say) commeth from the sacrament, vpon meere deuotion, he was let passe, and nothing sayde to him. "Few dayes after, he came to S. Peter's church, where diuers gentlemen and others were hearing masse; and the priest, being at the eleuation, he, using no reuerence, stepped among the people to the aultar, and threw down the challice with the wine; striuing, likewise, to haue pulled the cake out of the priestes handes. For which, diuers rose vp and beate him with theyr fistes, and one drew his rapier, and would haue slaine him; so that, in breefe, he was carried to prison, where he was examined wherefore he committed such heinous offence. Whereto he aunswered, that he came purposely for that intent, to rebuke the pope's wickednesse, and theyr idolatrie. Vpon this, he was condemned to be burned: which sentence, he sayde, he was right willing to suffer; and the rather, because the sum of his offence pertayned to the glory of God. an During the time he remayned in prison, sundry English men came vnto him, willing him to be sorie for that he had done, and to recant from his damnable opinion. But all the meanes they vsed were in vaine. He confuted their dealings by diuers places of Scripture, and willed them to be sorie for their wickedness, while God did permit them time, els they were in daunger of euerlasting damnation. These wordes made the English men depart, for they could not abide to heare them. "Within a while after, he was set vpon an asse, without any saddle, he being, from the middle vpwarde, naked; hauing some English priestes who talked to him. But he regarded them not, but spake to the people in so good language as he coulde, and tolde them they were in a wrong way; and, therefore, willed them, for Christe's sake, to haue regard to the sauing of theyr soules. "All the way as he went, there were fowre did nothing else but thrust at his naked body with burning torches; whereat he neither moued, nor shrunke one iote, but, with a cheerefull countenaunce, laboured still to perswade the people-often bending his body to meete the torches as they were thrust at him, and would take them in his own hand, and hold them burning styll vpon his body, whereat the people not a little wondered. Thus he continued, almost the space of halfe a mile, till he came before St. Peters, where the place of execution was. 66 When he was come to the place of execution, there they had made a deuise not to make the fire about him, but to burne his legges first; which they did, he not dismaying any whit, but suffered all meruailous cheerefullie; which mooued the people to such a quandary, as was not in Rome many a day. Then they offered him a crosse, and willed him to embrace it, in token that he dyed a Christian; but he put it away with his hand, telling them that they were euyll men to trouble him with paltrie, when he was preparing himselfe to God, whom he behelde, in maiesty and mercie, readie to receiue him into the eternall rest. 66 They, seeing him styll in that minde, departed, saying, let us goe, and leave him to the deuill, whome he serues.' Thus ended this faithfull soldier and martir of Christe; who is, no doubte, in glory with his maister, whereto God graunt vs all to come. Amen." 66 "THE CHARIOT OF ANTIMONY." BASIL VALENTINE, who lived towards the end of the fifteenth century, published a singular work, which he called Currus Triumphalis Antimonii." Valentine ranks among the first who introduced metallic preparations into medicine; and is supposed to be the first that ever used the word antimony. In his " Currus Triumphalis Antimonii," after setting forth the chemical preparations of that metal, he enumerates their medicinal effects. According to the prevailing custom of the age, he boasts of supernatural assistance; and his work furnishes a good specimen of the controversial disputes between the chemical physicians, and those of the school of Galen; the former being attached to active remedies, and the latter to more simple and inert remedies. Valentine's "Chariot of Antimony" opens with the most pious exhortations to prayer and contemplation, to charity and benevolence. But the author soon forgets himself, and breaks out in the following strain of virulent invective:-" Ye wretched and pitiful medicasters; who, full of deceit, breathe out I know not what! Thrasonick brags! infamous men! more mad than Bacchanalian fools! who will neither learn, nor dirty your hands with coals! You titular doctors, who write long scrolls of receipts! You apothecaries, who, with your decoctions, fill pots, no less than those in princes' courts, in which meat is boiled for the sustenance of some hundreds of men! You, I say, who have, hitherto, been blind, suffer a collyrium to be poured into your eyes, and permit me to anoint them with balsam, that this ignorance may fall from your sight, and that you may behold truth as in a clear glass! But," says Basil Valentine, after proceeding in this strain for some length, "I will put an end to my discourse; lest my tears, which I can scarcely prevent continually falling from my eyes, should blot my writing; and, whilst I deplore the blindness of the world, blemish the lamentation which I would publish to all men.” TOUCHING FOR THE KING'S EVIL. THAT there was formerly a very general belief that the touch of a lawful king had the effect of curing the scrophula, or the king's evil, is an historical fact, too notorious to be contradicted. The origin of the superstition is not equally familiar; though it is proved to be of great antiquity. Edward the Confessor is known to have acquired great reputation for his royal touch; and Hakluyt gives a curious instance of the superstition and credulity of that monarch, or rather of his times. As Hakluyt relates the story, it is a complete instance of the claim to second sight. Upon the holy festival of Easter, king Edward the Confessor, wearing his royal crown, sat at dinner, at his palace of Westminster, surrounded by many of his nobles. While others, after the long abstinence of the Lent season, refreshed themselves with dainty viands, on which they fed with much eagerness, he raising his mind above all earthly enjoyments, and meditating on divine things, broke out into excessive laughter, to the great astonishment of his guests. But no one presuming into the cause of his mirth, all kept silence 'till dinner was ended. After dinner, when the king had retired to his bed-chamber to divest himself of his robes, three of his nobles, earl Harold, an abbot, and a bishop, who were more familiar with him than any of the other courtiers, followed him into the chamber, and boldly asked the reason of his mirth; as it had appeared strange to the whole court, that his majesty should break out in unseemly laughter, on so solemn a day, while all others were silent. I saw,' said the king, most wonderful things; and, therefore, did I not laugh without cause.' And they, as is customary with all men, became, therefore, the more anxious to learn the occasion of his mirth, and humbly beseeched him to impart the reason to them. After musing for some time, he at length informed them that Seven Sleepers had rested during two hundred years on Mount Cælius, lying always hitherto on their right sides; but that, in the very moment of his laughter, they had turned themselves over to their left sides; in which posture they should continue asleep for other seventy-four years, being a dire omen of future misery to mankind. For all those things, which our Saviour had foretold to his disciples were to be fulfilled about the end of the world, should come to pass within those seventy-four years. That nation should rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there would be, in many places, earthquakes, pestilence, and famine, and terrible apparitions in the heavens, and great signs, with great alterations of dominion; wars of the infidels against the Christians, and victories gained by the Christians over the unbelievers. And, as they wondered at these things, the king explained to them the passion of the Seven Sleepers, with the shape and proportion of each of their bodies, which wonderful things no man had hitherto committed to writing; and all this in so plain and distinct a manner, as if he had always dwelt along with them. "In consequence of this discourse, the earl sent a knight, the bishop a clerk, and the abbot a monk, as ambassadors to Maniches, the emperor of Constantinople, carrying letters and presents from the king. The emperor received them very graciously; and, after a friendly entertainment, sent them to the bishop of Ephesus, with letters, which they name sacred, commanding him to admit the English ambassadors to see the Seven Sleepers. And it came to pass, that the prophetic vision of king Edward was approved by all the Greeks, who protested that they were assured by their fathers, that the Seven Sleepers had always, before that time, reposed on their right sides; but, upon the entry of the Englishmen into the cave where they lay, their bodies confirmed the truth of the foreign vision and prophecy to their countrymen Neither were the calamities long delayed, which had been foretold by the king; for the Agareni, Arabians, and Turks, enemies of the people of Christ, invading the country of the Christians-spoiled and destroyed many cities of Syria, Lycia, and the Lesser and Greater Asias.-and, among the rest, depopulated Ephesus, and even the holy city of Jerusalem." From the time of Edward the Confessor to the abdication of James the Second, the power of kings to touch for the king's evil seems never to have been doubted, and to have been very frequently exercised; but of all these, the second Charles was the most liberal in dispensing this healing power of royalty. In a tract, entitled "Charisma Basilicon; or, the Royal Gift of Healing Strumaes, or King's Evil, by John Browne, Chirurgeon in Ordinary to his Majesty, London, 1684," there is "An account of persons touched by his Sacred Majesty, King Charles the Second, for the cure of the King's Evil, from May, 1660;" from a register kept by Thomas Haynes, esq. serjeant of his majesty's Chapel-royal: Register kept by Mr. Thomas Donkley, keeper of his majesty's closet, from May, 1667, to May, 1682: 1667.... 1681... ..3073 | 1682... .8477 The whole number was above ninety-two thousand. Even when travelling, Charles used to exercise his healing art. The grand duke Cosmo, of Tuscany, mentions having seen the king thus engaged at Newmarket; and in his passage through Holland to England, on the 18th and 19th May, 1659-60, he is known to have touched great numbers of persons afflicted with the king's evil. The following description of the ceremony is given by Thomas Gumble, D.D. chaplain to Gen. Monk, (who was present,) in a manuscript account of the Restoration, and of the entertainments, processions, and "glorious triumphs," that were given by the city of London on that occasion. It was written in 1662. "The ceremony, as in France, is done after the king hath communicated in the morning; so it was done here (at the Hague), in the English chapple, after sermon. There was a great chair placed for the king, in a place somewhat distant |