the French custom is derived of securing a number of friends to applaud their pieces at their first representations. I find the following droll anecdote concerning this droll tragedy in Beauchamp's Recherches sur le Theatre.

The minister after the ill success of his tragedy retired unaccompanied the same evening to his country house at Ruel. He then sent for his favourite Desmarets, who was at supper with his friend Petit. Desmarets, conjecturing that the interview would be stormy, begged his friend to accompany him.

Well said the cardinal as soon as he saw them, " 'the French will never possess a taste for what is lofty: they seem not to have relished my tragedy.'- My lord answered Petit, it is not the fault of the piece, which is so admirable, but that of the players. Did not your eminence perceive that not only they knew not their parts, but that they were all drunk? Really,' replied the cardinal, something pleased, 'I observed they acted it dreadfully ill.'

Desmarets and Petit returned to Paris, flew directly to the players to plan a new mode of performance, which was to secure a number of spectators; so that at the second representation bursts of applause were frequently heard!

Richelieu had another singular vanity of closely imitating Cardinal Ximenes, Pliny was not a more servile imitator of Cicero. Marville tells us that, like Ximenes, he placed himself at the head of an army: like him he degraded princes and nobles; and like him rendered himself formidable to all Europe. And because Ximenes had established schools of theology, Richelieu undertook likewise to raise into notice the schools of the Sorbonne. And, to conclude, as Ximenes had written several theological treatises, our cardinal was also desirous of leaving posterity various polemical works. But his gallantries rendered him more ridiculous. Always in ill health, this miserable lover and grave cardinal would, in a freak of love, dress himself with a red feather in his cap and sword by las side. He was more hurt by a filthy nickname given him by the queen of Louis XIII than even by the hiss of theatres and the criti. cal condemnation of academies.

Cardinal Richelieu was assuredly a great political genius. Sir William Temple observes, that he instituted the French Academy to give employment to the wits, and to hinder them from inspecting too narrowly into his politics and his administration. It is believed that the Marshal de Grammont lost an important battle by the orders of the cardinal; that in this critical conjuncture of affairs his majesty, who was inclined to dismiss him, could not then absolutely, do without him.

Vanity in this cardinal levelled a great genius. He who would attempt to display universal excellence will be impelled to practise meannesses, and to act follies which, if he has the least sensibility, must occasion him many a pang and many a blush.

ARISTOTLE AND PLATO.

No philosopher has been so much praised and censured as Aristotle: but he had this advantage, of which some of the most eminent scholars have been deprived, that he enjoyed during his life a splendid reputation. Philip of Macedon must have felt a strong conviction of his merit when he wrote to him on the birth of Alexander :-'I receive from the gods this day a son; but I thank them not so much for the favour of his birth, as his having come into the world at a time when you can have the care of his education; and that through you he will be rendered worthy of being my son.'

Diogenes Laertius describes the person of the stagyrite. His eyes were small, his voice hoarse, and his legs lank. He stammered, was fond of a magnificent dress, and wore costly rings. He had a mistress whom he loved passionately, and for whom he frequently acted inconsistently with the philosophic character; a thing as common with philosophers as with other men. Aristotle had nothing of the austerity of the philosopher, though his works are so austere: he was open, pleasant, and even charming in his conversation; fiery and volatile in his pleasures; magnificent in his dress. He is described as fierce, disdainful, and sarcastic. He joined to a taste for profound erudition that of an elegant dissipation. His passion for luxury occasion ed him such expenses when he was young that he consumed all his property. Laertius has preserved the will of Aristotle, which is curious. The chief part turns on the future welfare and marriage of his daughter. If, after my death she chooses to marry, the executors will be careful she

marries no person of an inferior rank. If she resides at Chalcis, she shall occupy the apartment contiguous to the garden; if she chooses Stagira, she shall reside in the house of my father, and my executors shall furnish either of those places she fixes on.'

Aristotle had studied under the divine Plato; but the disciple and the master could not possibly agree in their doctrines: they were of opposite tastes and talents. Plato was the chief of the academic sect, and Aristotle of the peripatetic. Plato was simple, modest, frugal, and of austere manners; a good friend and a zealous citizen, but a theoretical politician: a lover indeed of benevolence, and desirous of diffusing it amongst men, but knowing little of them as we find them; his 'republic' is as chi merical as Rousseau's ideas, or Sir Thomas More's Utopia.

Rapin, the critic, has sketched an ingenious parallel of these two celebrated philosophers.

The genius of Plato is more polished, and that of Aristotle more vast and profound. Plato has a lively and teeming imagination; fertile in invention, in ideas, in expressions, and in figures; displaying a thousand different turns, a thousand new colours, all agreeable to their subject; but after all it is nothing more than imagination. Aristotle is hard and dry in all he says, but what he says is all reason, though it is expressed dryly: his diction, pure as it is, has something uncommonly austere; and his ob scurities, natural or affected, disgust and fatigue his readers. Plato is equally delicate in his thoughts and in his expressions. Aristotle, though he may be more natural, has not any delicacy: his style is simple and equal, but close and nervous; that of Plato is grand and elevated, but loose and diffuse. Plato always says more than he should say: Aristotle never says enough, and leaves the reader always to think more than he says. The one surprises the mind, and charms it by a flowery and sparkling charac ter: the other illuminates and instructs it by a just and solid method. Plato communicates something of genius by the fecundity of his own; and Aristotle something of judgment and reason by that impression of good sense which appears in all he says. In a word, Plato frequently only thinks to express himself well; and Aristotle only thinks to think justly.

An interesting anecdote is related of these philosophers. Aristotle became the rival of Plato. Literary disputes long subsisted betwixt them. The disciple ridiculed his master, and the master treated contemptuously his disciple. To make this superiority manifest, Aristotle wished for a regular disputation before an audience where erudition and reason might prevail; but this satisfaction was denied.

Plato was always surrounded by his scholars, who took a lively interest in his glory. Three of these he taught to rival Áristotle, and it became their mutual interest to depreciate his merits. Unfortunately, one day Plato found himself in his school without these three favourite scholars. Aristotle flies to him-a crowd gathers and enters with him. The idol whose oracles they wished to overturn was presented to them. He was then a respectable old man, the weight of whose years had enfeebled his memory. The combat was not long. Some rapid sophisms embarrassed Plato. He saw himself surrounded by the inevitable traps of the subtlest logician. Vanquished, he reproached his ancient scholar by a beautiful figure:-'He has kicked against us as a colt against his mother.'

Soon after this humiliating adventure he ceased to give public lectures. Aristotle remained master in the field of battle. He raised a school, and devoted himself to render it the most famous in Greece. But the three favourite scholars of Plato, zealous to avenge the cause of their master, and to make amends for their imprudence in having quitted him, armed themselves against the usurper. Xe nocrates, the most ardent of the three, attacked Aristotle, confounded the logician, and re-established Plato in all his rights. Since that time the academic and peripatetic sects, animated by the spirits of their several chiefs, avowed an eternal hostility. In what manner his works have de scended to us has been told at page 15 of this volume. Aristotle having declaimed irreverently of the gods, and dreading the fate of Socrates, wished to retire from Athens. In a beautiful manner he pointed out his successor. There were two rivals in his schools: Menedemus the Rhodian, and Theophrastus the Lesbian. Alluding delicately to his own critical situation, he told his assembled scholars that the wine he was accustomed to drink was injurious to him,

and he desired them to bring the wines of Rhodes and Lesbos. He then tasted both, and declared they both did honour to their soil, each being excellent, though different in quality. The Rhodian wine is the strongest, but the Lesbian is the sweetest, and that he himself preferred it. Thus his ingenuity pointed out his favourite Theophras tus, the author of the Characters,' for his successor.

ABELARD AND ELOISA.

Abelard, so famous for his writings and his amours with Eloisa, ranks among the heretics for opinions concerning the Trinity! His superior genius probably made him appear so culpable in the eyes of his enemies. The cabal formed aginst him disturbed the earlier part of his life with a thousand persecutions, till at length they persuaded Bernard, his old friend, but who had now turned saint, that poor Abelard was what their malice described him to be. Bernard, inflamed against him, condemned unheard the unfortunate scholar. But it is remarkable that the book which was burnt as unorthodox, and as the composition of Abelard, was in fact written by Peter Lombard, bishop of Paris; a work which has since been canonized in the Sorbonne, and on which the scholastic theology is founded. The objectionable passage is an illustration of the Trinity by the nature of a syllogism! As (says he) the three propositions of a syllogism form but one truth, so the Father and Son constitute but one essence. The major represents the Father, the minor the Son, and the conclusion the Holy Ghost! It is curious to add that Bernard himself has explained this mystical union precisely in the same manner, and equally clear. The understanding,' says this saint, Is the image of God. We find it consists of three parts: memory, intelligence and will. To memory, we attribute all which we know, without cogitation; to intelligence, all truths we discover which have not been deposited by memory. By memory, we resemble the Father; by intelligence the Son, and by will the Holy Ghost.' Bernard's Lib. de Anima. Cap. I, Num. 6, quoted in the Mem. Secretes de la Republique des Lettres.' We may add also, that because Abelard, in the warmth of honest indignation, had reproved the monks of St Denis, in France, and St. Gildas De Ruys, in Bretagne, for the horrid incontinence of their lives, they joined his enemies, and assisted to embitter the life of this ingenious scholar; who perhaps was guilty of no other crime than that of feeling too sensibly an attachment to one who not only possessed the enchanting attractions of the softer sex, but what indeed is very unusual, a congeniality of disposition, and an enthusiasm of imagina

tion.

'Is it, in heaven, a crime to love too well?

It appears by a letter of Peter de Cluny to Eloisa, that she had solicited for Abelard's absolution. The abbot gave it to her. It runs thus: Ego Petrus Cluniacensis Abbas, qui Petrum Abælardum in monachum Cluniacensum recepi, et corpus ejus furtim delatum Heloissa abattissæ et moniali Paracleti concessi, auctoritate omnipotentis Dei et omnium sanctorum absolvo eum pro officio ob omnibus peccatis suis.

An ancient chronicle of Tours records that when they deposited the body of the Abbess Eloisa in the tomb of her lover Peter Abelard, who had been there interred twenty years, this faithful husband raised his arms, stretched them, and closely embraced his beloved Eloisa. This poetic fiction was invented to sanctify, by a miracle, the frailties of their youthful days. This is not wonderful:-but it is strange that Du Chesne, the father of French history, not only relates this legendary tale of the ancient chroniclers, but gives it as an incident well authenticated, and maintains its possibility by various other examples. Such fanciful incidents once not only embellished poetry, but enlivened history.

Bayle tells us that billets dour and amorous verses are two powerful machines to employ in the assaults of love; particularly when the passionate songs the poetical lover composes are sung by himself. This secret was well known to the elegant Abelard. Abelard so touched the sensible heart of Eloisa, and infused such fire into her frame, by employing his fine pen and his fine voice, that the poor woman never recovered from the attack. She herself informs us that he displayed two qualities which are rarely found in philosophers, and by which he could instantly win the affections of the female-he wrote and sung finely. He composed love-verses so beautiful, and songs so agreeably, as well for the words as the airs, that all the

world got them by heart, and the name of his mis'ress was spread from province to province.

What a gratification to the enthusiastic, the amorous, the vain Eloisa! of whom Lord Lyttleton in his curious life of Henry II, observes, that had she not been compelled to read the fathers and the legends in a nunnery, but had been suffered to improve her genius by a continual applica tion to polite literature, from what appears in her letters, she would have excelled any man of that age.

Eloisa, I suspect, however, would have proved but a very indifferent polemic. She seems to have had a cer tain delicacy in her manners which rather belongs to the fine lady. We cannot but smile at an observation of hers on the apostles which we find in her letters. 'We read that the apostles, even in the company of their master, were so rustic and ill bred that, regardless of common decorum, as they passed through the corn fields they plucked the ears and ate them like children. Nor did they wash their hands before they sat down to table. To eat with unwashed hands, said our Saviour to those who were offended, doth not defile a man.'

It is on the misconception of the mild apologetical reply of Jesus, indeed, that religious fanatics have really con sidered that to be careless of their dress, and not to free themselves from filth and slovenliness, is an act of piety, just as the late political fanatics, who thought that republi canism consisted in the most offensive filthiness. On this principle, that it is saintlike to go dirty, ragged, and sloven ly, says Bishop Lavington, enthusiasm of the Methodists and Papists,' how piously did Whitfield take care of the outward man, who in his journal writes, My apparel was mean-thought it unbecoming a penitent to have pow dered hair I wore woolen gloves, a patched gown, and dirty

shoes"

After an injury, not less cruel than humiliating, Abelard raises the school of the Paraclete; with what enthusiasm is he followed to that desert! His scholars in crowds hasten to their adored master. They cover their mad sheds with the branches of trees. They do not want to sleep under better roofs, provided they remain by the side of their unfortunate master. How lively must have been their taste for study! It formed their solitary passion, and the love of glory was gratified even in that desert.

The two reprehensible lines in Pope's Eloisa, too celebrated among certain of its readers.

'Not Cæsar's empress would I deign to prove;
'No,-make me mistress to the man I love!

are, however, found in her original letters. The author of that ancient work, The Romaunt of the Rose,' has giv. en it thus naively: a specimen of the natural style in those. days.

Se le'empereur, qui est a Rome
Soubz qui doyvent etre tout homme,
Me daignoit prendre pour sa femme,
Et me faire du monde dame;
Si vouldroye-je mieux, dist-elle
Et Dieu en tesmoing en appelle
Etre sa Putaine appellée

Qu'etre emperiere couronnée.

PHYSIOGNOMY.

A very extraordinary physiognomical anecdote has been given by De la Place in his Pieces interessantes et peu connues.' v. i,v p. 8.

A friend assured him that he had seen a voluminous and secret correspondence which had been carried on between Louis XIV, and his favourite physician De la Chambre on this science: the faith of the monarch seems to have been great, and the purpose to which the correspondence tended was extraordinary indeed, and perhaps scarcely cre dible. Who will believe that Louis XIV was so convinced of that talent which De la Chambre attributed to himself, of deciding merely by the physiognomy of persons not only on the real bent of their character, but to what employment they were adapted, that the king entered into a secret correspondence to obtain the critical notices of his physicgnomist? That Louis XIV should have pursued this system, undetected by his own courtiers, is also singular; but it appears by this correspondence that this art positively swayed him in his choice of officers and favourites. On one of the backs of those letters De la Chambre had writ ten, If I die before his majesty, he will incur great risk of making many an unfortunate choice!

This collection of physiognomical correspondence, if it does really exist, would form a curious publication; we

with crowns as if they were bowls; who look upon scepters as so many crooks.'

That the deformity of the body is an idea we attach to the deformity of the mind, the vulgar must acknowledge; but surely it is unpardonable in the enlightened philosopher thus to compare the crookedness of corporeal matter with the rectitude of the intellect: yet Melbourne and Dennis, the last, a formidable critic, have frequently considered, that comparing Dryden and Pope to whatever the eye turned from with displeasure was very good argument to lower their literary abilities. Salmasius seems also to have entertained this idea, though his spies in England gave him wrong information; or, possibly, he only drew the figure of his own distempered imagination.

Salmasius sometimes reproaches Milton as being but a puny piece of man; an humunculus, a dwarf deprived of the human figure, a bloodless being composed of nothing but skin and bone; a contemptible pedagogue, fit only to flog his boys; and sometimes elevating the ardour of his mind into a poetic frenzy, he applies to him the words of Virgil, Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. Our great poet thought this senseless declamation merited a serious refutation; perhaps he did not wish to appear despicable in the eyes of the ladies; and he would not be silent on the subject, he says, lest any one should consider him as the credulous Spaniards are made to believe by their priests, that a heretic is a kind of rhinoceros or a dog-headed monster. Milton says, that he does not think any one ever considered him as unbeautiful; that his size rather approaches mediocrity than the diminutive; that he still felt the same courage and the same strength which he possessed when young, when, with his sword, he felt no difficulty to combat with men more robust than himself; that his face, far from being pale, emaciated, and wrinkled, was sufficiently creditable to him; for though he had passed his fortieth year, he was in all other respects ten years younger. And very pathetically he adds, that even his eyes, blind as they are, are unblemished in their appearance; in this instance alone, and much against my inclination, I am a deceiver!'

Morus, in his Epistle dedicatory of his Regii Sanguinis Clamor, compares Milton to a hangman; his disordered vision to the blindness of his soul, and vomits forth his

venom,

When Salmasius found that his strictures on the person of Milton were false, and that on the contrary it was uncommonly beautiful, he then turned his battery against those graces with which Nature had so liberally adorned his adversary. And it is now that he seems to have laid no restriction on his pen; hut raging with the irritation of Milton's success, he throws out the blackest calumnies, and the most infamous aspersions.

It must be observed, when Milton first proposed to answer Salmasius he had lost the use of one of his eyes; and his physicians declared, that if he applied himself to the controversy, the other would likewise close for ever! His patriotism was not to be baffled but with life itself. Unhap pily, the predictions of his physicians took place! Thus a learned man in the occupations of study falls blind; a circumstance even now not read without sympathy. Salmasius considers it as one from which he may draw caustic ridicule and satiric severity.

Salmasius glories that Milton lost his health and his eyes in answering his apology for King Charles! He does not now reproach him with natural deformities; but he malig nantly sympathizes with him, that he now no more is in possession of that beauty which rendered him so amiable during his residence in Italy. He speaks more plainly in a following page; and in a word, would blacken the austere virtues of Milton with a crime too infamous to name. Impartiality of criticism obliges us to confess that Milton was not destitute of rancour. When he was told that his adversary boasted he had occasioned the loss of his eyes, he answered, with the ferocity of the irritated puritan

And I shall cost him his life" A prediction which was soon after verified: for Christina, Queen of Sweden, withdrew her patronage from Salmasius, and sided with Milton. The universal neglect the proud scholar felt, hastened his death in the course of a twelvemonth.

How the greatness of Milton's mind was degraded! He actually condescended to enter in a correspondence in Holland to obtain little scandalous anecdotes of his miserable adversary Morus, and deigned to adulate the unworthy Christina of Sweden, because she had expressed herself favourably on his Defence.' Of late years we have had

but too many instances of this worst of passions; the antipathies of politics! .

ORIGIN OF NEWSPAPERS.

We are indebted to the Italians for the idea of newspapers. The title of their gazzettas was perhaps derived from gazzera, a magpie or chatterer; or more probably from farthing coin, peculiar to the city of Venice, called gazetta, which was the common price of the newspapers. Another etymologist is for deriving it from the Latin gaza, which would colloquially lengthen into gazetta, and signify a little treasury of news. The Spanish derive it from the Latin gaza, and likewise their gazatero and our gazetteer for a writer of the gazette, and what is peculiar to themselves, gazetista, for a lover of the gazette.

Newspapers then took their birth in that principal land of modern politicians, Italy, and under the government of that aristocratical republic Venice. The first paper was a Venetian one, and only monthly; but it was merely the newspaper of the government. Other governments afterwards adopted the Venetian plan of a newspaper, with the Venetian name; from a solitary government gazette, an inundation of newspapers has burst upon us.

Mr George Chalmers, in his life of Ruddiman, gives a curious particular of these Venetian gazettes. A jealous government did not allow a printed newspaper: and the Venetian gazetta continued long after the invention of printing to the close of the sixteenth century, and even to our own days, to be distributed in manuscript.' n the Magliabechian library at Florence are thirty volumes of Venetian gazettas all in manuscript.

Those who first wrote newspapers, were called by the Italians menanti; because, says Vossius, they intended commonly by these loose papers to spread about defamatory reflections, and were therefore prohibited in Italy by Gregory XIII, by a particular bull, under the name of menantes, from the Latin minantes, threatening. Menage, however, derives it from the Italian menare, which signifies to lead at large, or spread afar.

Mr Chalmers discovers in England the first newspaper. It may gratify national pride, says he, to be told that mankind are indebted to the wisdom of Elizabeth and the pru dence of Burleigh for the first newspaper. The epoch of the Spanish Armada is also the epoch of a genuine newspaper. In the British Museum are several newspapers which were printed while the Spanish fleet was in the English Channel during the year 1588. It was a wise po licy to prevent, during a moment of general anxiety, the danger of false reports, by publishing real information. The earliest newspaper is entitled The English Mercurie, which by authority was imprinted at London by her highnesses printer, 1588.' These were, however, but extra ordinary gazettes, not regularly published. In this obscura origin they were skilfully directed by the policy of that great statesman Burleigh, who to inflame the national feeling, gives an extract of a letter from Madrid which speaks of putting the queen to death, and the instruments of torture on board the Spanish fleet.

Mr Chalmers has exultingly taken down these patriar chal newspapers, covered with the dust of two centuries.

The first newspaper in the collection of the British Museum is marked No 50, and is in Roman, not in black let ter. It contains the usual articles of news like the London Gazette of the present day. In that curious paper, there are news dated from Whitehall, on the 23d July, 1588. Under the date of July 26 there is the following notice: Yesterday the Scots ambassador being introduced to Sir Francis Walsingham, had a private audience of her majesty, to whom he delivered a letter from the king his mas ter, containing the most cordial assurances of his resolution to adhere to her majesty's interests, and to those of the protestant religion. And it may not here be improper to take notice of a wise and spiritual saying of this young prince (he was twenty-two) to the queen's minister at his court, viz. That all the favour ho did expect from the Spaniards was the courtesy of Polypheme to Ulysses, to be the last devoured. Mr Chalmers defies the gazetteer of the present day to give a more decorous account of the introduction of a foreign minister. The aptness of King James' classical saying carried it from the newspaper into history. I must add, that in respect to his wit no man has been more injured than this monarch. More pointed sentences are recorded of James I than perhaps of any prince, and yet, such is the delusion of that medium by which the popular eye sees things in this world, that he is usually

considered as a mere royal pedant. I have entered more largely on this subject in an Inquiry of the literary and political character of James First.

From one of these Mercuries' Mr Chalmers has given some advertisements of books, which run much like those of the present times, and exhibit a picture of the literature of those days. Ali these publications were imprinted and sold' by the queen's printers, Field and Barker.

1st. An admonition to the people of England, wherein are answered the slanderous untruths reproachfully uttered by Mar-prelate, and others of his brood, against the bishops and chief of the clergy.*

2dy. The copy of a letter sent to Don Bernardin Mendoza, ambassador in France, for the king of Spain; declaring the state of England, &c. The second edition. Sdly. An exact journal of all passages at the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom. By an eye-witness.

4thly. Father Parson's coat well dusted; or short and pithy animadversions on that infamous fardle of abuse and falsities, entitled Leicester's Commonwealth.*

5thly. Elizabethe Triumphans, an beroic poem by James Asker; with a declaration how her excellence was entertained at the royal course at Tilbury, and of the overthrow of the Spanish fleet.

Periodical papers seem first to have been more generally used by the English, during the civil wars of the usurper Cromwell, to disseminate amongst the people the senti ments of royalty or rebellion, according as their authors were disposed. Peter Heylin in the preface to his Cosmography mentions, that the affairs of each town or war were better presented to the reader in the Weekly Newsbooks.' Hence we find some papers entitled News from Hull, Truths from York, Warranted Tidings from Ireland, &c. We find also The Scot's Dove' opposed to The Parliament Kite,' or The Secret Owl.'-Keener animosities produced keener tiles: Heraclitus ridens' found an antagonist in Democritus ridens,' and The weekly Discoverer' was shortly met by The discoverer stript naked.' Mercurius Britannicus was grappled by Mercurius Mastix, faithfully lashing all Scouts, Mercuries, Posts, Spies, and others.' Under all these names papers had appeared, but a Mercury was the prevailing title of these 'News-Books,' and the principles of the writer were generally shown by the additional epithet. We find an alarming number of these Mercuries, which, were the story not too long to tell, might excite some laughter; they present us with a very curious picture of those singular

times.

Devoted to political purposes they soon became a public nuisance by serving as receptacles of party malice, and echoing to farthest ends of the kingdom the insolent voice of all factions. They set the minds of men more at variance, inflamed their tempers to a greater fierceness, and gave a keener edge to the sharpness of civil discord.

Such works will always find adventurers adapted to their scurrilous purposes, who neither want at times, either ta. lents, or boldness, or wit, or argument. A vast crowd issued from the press, and are now to be found in a few private collections. They form a race of authors unknown to most readers of these times; the names of some of their chiefs however have just reached us, and in the minor chro⚫ nicle of domestic literature I rank these notable heroes; Marchamont Needham, Sir John Birkenhead, and Sir Roger L'Estrange.

Marchamont Needham, the great patriarch of newspaper writers, was a man of versatile talents and more versatile politics; a bold adventurer, and most successful, because the most profligate of his tribe. We find an ample account of him in Anthony Wood. From college he came to London was an usher in Merchant Taylor's school; then an under clerk in Gray's Inn; at length studied physic, and practised chemistry; and finally he was a captain, and in the words of honest Anthony, siding with the rout and scum of the people, he made them weekly sport by railing at all that was noble, in his Intelligence, called Mercu rius Britannicus, wherein his endeavours were to sacrifice the fame of some lord, or any person of quality, and of the king himself, to the beast with many heads.' He soon became popular, and was known under the name of Captain

*I have written the history of tho Mar-prelate faction, in Quarrels of Authors,' which our historians appears not to have known. The materials were suppressed by government, and not preserved even in our national depositories.

A curious secret history of the Earl of Leicester, by the Jequit Parson.

Needham of Gray's Inn; and whatever he now wrote was deemed oracular. But whether from a slight imprisonment for aspersing Charles I, or some pique with his own party; he requested an audience on his knees with the king; reconciled himself to his majesty, and showed himself a violent royalist in his Mecurius Pragmaticus,' and galled the presbyterians with his wit and quips. Some tune after, when the popular party prevailed, he was stil further enlightened, and was got over by President Bradshaw, as easily as by Charles I. Our Mercurial writer became once more a virulent presbyterian, and lashed the royalists outrageously in his Mercurius Politicus;' at length on the return of Charles II, being now conscious, says our friend Anthony, that he might be in danger of the halter, once more he is said to have fled into Holland, waiting for an act of oblivion. For money given to a hungry courtier, Needham obtained his pardon under the great seal. He latterly practised as a physician among his party, but lived universally hated by the royalists, and now only committed harmless treasons with the College of Physicians, on whom he poured ail that gall and vinegar which the government had suppressed from flowing through its natural channel.

The royalists were not without their Needham in the prompt activity of Sir John Birkenhead. In buffoonery, keenness, and boldness, havingbeen frequently imprisened, he was not inferior, nor was he at times less an adventurer. His Mercurius Aulicus was devoted to the court, then et Oxford. But he was the fertile parent of numerous political pamphlets, which appears to ab und in banter, wit, and saure. He had a promptness to seize on every temporary circumstance, and a facility in execution. His Paul's Church Yard' is a bantering pamphlet, containing fictitious titles of books and acts of parliament, reflecting on the mad reformers of these tunes. One of his poems is entitled "The Jolt,' being written on the Protector having fallen off his own coach-box: Cromwell had received a presene from the German Count Oldenburgh, of six German horses, and attempted to drive them himself in Hyde Park, when this grea: political Phaeton met the accident, of which Sir John Birkenhead was not slow to comprehend the benefit, and hints how unfortunately for the country it turned out! Sir John was during the dominion of Cromwell an author by profession. After various imprisonments for his majesty's cause, says the venerable historian of English literature, already quoted, he lived by his wits, in helping young gentlemen out at dead lifts in making poems, songs, and epistles on and to their mistresses; as also in translating, and other petite employments.' He lived however after the Restoration to become one of the masters of requests, with a salary of 3000 a year. But he showed the baseness of his spirit, (says Anthony,) by slighting those who had been his benefactors in his necessities.

Sir Roger L'Estrange among his rivals was esteemed as the most perfect model of political writing. The temper of the man was factious, and the compositions of the author seem to us coarse, yet I suspect they contain much idiomatic expression. His Esop's Fables are a curious specimen of familiar style. Queen Mary showed a due contempt of him after the Revolution, by this anagram;

Roger L'Estrange. Lie strange Roger!

Such were the three patriarchs of newspapers. De Saint Foix, in his curious Essais historiques sur Paris, gives the origin of newpapers to France. Renaudot, a physician at Paris, to amuse his patients was a great collector of news; and he found by these means that he was more sought after than his more learned brethren. But as the seasons were not always sickly, and he had many hours not occupied by his patients, he reflected, after several years of assiduity given up to this singular employment, that he might turn it to a better account, by giving every week to his patients, who in this case were the public at large, some fugitive sheets which should contain the news of various countries. He obtained a privilege for this pur. pose in 1632.

At the Restoration the proceedings of parliament were interdicted to be published, unless by authority; and the first daily paper after the Revolution took the popular title of The Orange Intelligencer.'

In the reign of Queen Anne, there was but one daily paper: the others were weekly. Some attempted to in troduce literary subjects, and others topics of a more general speculation. Sir Richard Steele formed the plan of his