Wat. They saye Scripture is so diffuse That laye-people on it to muse

Shulde be never the better.

It is no medlynge for foles,

But for such as have bene at scholes,

As Doctours that be graduate.

Jeff.-Wenest thou that Peter the fyssher Understode not Scripture clearlyer

Then the Pharisaies obstinate?
Who did so wilfully resist
Agaynst the receayvinge of Christ
As they which were learned?

Fyrst a poure man of farre dwellynge,
For his wyfe and children labouringe,
To kepe and fynde them honestly;
Peraventure, for some sickenes,
Or for a vowe of folisshnes,

To accomplishe Satan's institute;
Taketh on hym a farre viage
To some sayncts shryne or ymage,
Leavynge his houshoulde destitute;
Which often tymes do mis-cary
The mean while that he doth tary,

Bestowynge his laboure in vayne. And so Goddis commaundment neglecte For small tryfles of none effecte;

They put theymselves unto payne.
Secondaryly, what peevishness
Is it to honoure with ryches

Of deade saynctes the bodies;
Seyinge that whyls they here lyved,
From riches they were deprived,
As we rede in their storyes.
Thirdly, it is no Christian touche
To se many a golden ouche

With rynges and stones preciously; To make deade saynctes forto shyne, Where pouer folke for honger pyne, Dying withoute healpe, petiously.

Wat.-Haw! to that dede who durst,
Seynge that he shulde be acourst,

And as an heretyke reputed ?
Jef.-Let theym with furiousness swell,
Coursynge with boke, bell, and candell,
Whyls they have breath for to speake;
Yet, had we the kynges license,
We woulde, withouten diffydence,

Their golden shrines in pieces breake. Wat.-What shulde we do with their ryches?

Jeff.-Geve it to pouer men in almes,

To whom of dutè it doth longe.
W. The saynctes then wolde be angry,
Yf that we shulde be so hardy,

Yet Jeffrey, in spite of all dangers,

Unlawfully to do theym wronge;
For some men have it assayde,
When saynctes have shrewedly arayde,

In revengynge their injury.
So that, by an whole nyghtes space
They were fayne to kepe one place,

The dores stondynge open apertly.
J.-And what was their fynall chaunce?
W. By my sothe, in an hangynge daunce,
Their necks in a corde to preve.
J.-Use the saynctes eny men to kyll?
W.-No; but they make theym stonde
still,

Untill they be taken of the schereve.

W.-Thouexceptest S. Chutbert of Duram,
With oure Lady of Walsyngham,
Also our Lady of the Moore.†

J.-God beynge our direction,
We wolde make none excepcion

Agaynst the devils enchauntments: To do theyr best let theym not spare, For we would make theym full bare Of theyr precious ornamentes.

* Willesdon in Middlesex.

J.-Why more we then the Cardinall? W. He attempteth nothinge at all Soche matters in his bisshopryckes. J.-I am sure thou hast heard spoken What monasteries he hath broken,

Without theyr fownders consentes ; He subverteth churches and chapells, Takyng awaye bokes and bells,

With chalesces and vestmentes. He plucketh downe the costly leades, That it may rayne on saynctes heades,

Not sparynge God, nor our Ladye. Where as they red service devyne, There is grountynge of pigges and swyne, With lowynge of oxen and kye. The aulters of their celebracions Are made pearches for henns and capons, Defoylynge theym with their durt: And though it be never so prophane, He is counted a good Christiane, No man doynge hym eny hurtt, &c.

*

*

*

Wat. however, stops him.

No more, for oure Lordis passion!

Thou raylest nowe of a fashion,

With rebukes most despytous;

O paynted pastoure of Satan the prophet,
Ragynge courre, wrapped in a wolves
skynne,
[meete,
O butcherly bisshop! to be a ruler un-
Maker of misery, occasion of synne,
God graunt the grace now to begynne
Of thy dampnable dedes to be penitent,
Brennynge Goddis worde, the wholy tes-

tament.

No man shall these wordes advert, But will judge theym of an hert, To procede most contumelious.

The wholy bisshop of Saynct Asse,

A post of Satan's jurisdiccion, Whom they call Doctour Standisshe,* Wone that is neither flesshe nor fysshe, At all tymes a common lyer. He is a bablynge questionist, And a mervelous grett sophist;

Som tyme a lowsy graye fryer. Of stomacke he is fearce and bolde, In brawlynge wordes a very scolde, Menglynge vennem with sugre; He despyseth the trueth of God, Takynge parte rather with falsehod

For to obtayne wordly lucre. In carde-playinge he is a good Greke, And can skyll of post and glyeke,

Also a payre of dyce to trolle, For whordom and fornicacions He maketh many visitacions, His dioces to pill and polle. Though he be a stoute divyne,

Yett a prest to kepe a concubyne

He them admitteth wittyngly; So they paye their yearly tributes Unto his dyvlisshe substitutes,

Official or commissary. To rehearse all his lyvynge; God geve it yvell chevynge

Or els some amendment shortly.
W.-Howe did he the Gospell betraye?
J.-As soone as ever he hearde saye-

That the Gospell came to Englande,
Immediately he did hym trappe,
And to the man in the redde cappe

He brought hym with stronge honde.
Before whose proude consistory,
Bryngyng in false testimony,

The Gospell he did theare accuse. W. He did mo persones represent Then Judas, the traytour malivolent, Whiche betrayed Christ to the Jues, &c.

"

Diary of the Times of Charles II. by the Hon. Henry Sidney, afterwards Earl of Romney, including his Correspondence with the Countess of Sunderland, and other distinguished persons at the English court; to which are added Letters illustrative of the Times of James II. and William III. Edited, with notes, by R. W. Blencowe, Esq. A.M. 2 vols. 8vo. THE nobleman whose diary is here published is described by Burnet as "a man of a sweet and caressing temper," who 'had no malice in his heart, but too great a love of pleasure." Swift, on the other hand, declares him to have been “an idle, drunken, ignorant rake, without sense, truth, or honour." As in other cases, truth probably lies between these conflicting estimates; but at any rate the subject of them was not a man who in better times, or under any other than the most fostering circumstances, could have arrived at one atom of distinction save that for which he was indebted to the accident of his birth. As one of the chief agents in the Revolution of 1688, Burnet viewed him with infinite favour; on the same account Swift regarded him with the extremity of aversion; and if there be any good reason for the publication of his Diary it must be found, not in the Diary itself, which is almost worthless, but in the circumstance that the employment of the diarist in a great public business made him a person of a little consideration, in spite of the poverty of his intellect and the licentiousness of his life.

The Diary extends from 1679 to 1682, and is for the most part a mere series of memoranda of visits paid and received, of physic taken, of dinners given, of towns visited, and of letters written or received, with occasional notes of foolish tittle-tattle about public affairs, neither precise enough nor certain enough to be of any material

use.

We have endeavoured to find a passage or two that would suit our pages, but without success.

The Correspondence extends throughGENT. MAG. VOL. XX.

out the same period as the Diary, and is carried on for a few years after it came to an end, for the pupose, apparently, of making up the prescribed quantity of two volumes octavo. Many of the letters are reprinted from Dalrymple and other sources; the greater number of those which are new are from the well-known Robert Spencer, second earl of Sunderland, from Anne his countess, or from Sir William Temple. The earl's letters are sad stuff, such as a weak, inconstant man, who accommodated himself to all changes at court, and clung to office until excluded by the suspicion and dislike of all parties, might be expected to write. Sunderland was a man of and for those times. Duplicity and corruption," as the editor remarks,

were the order of the day ;" and Sunderland used the power connected with the high stations in which he was placed, not with any view of guiding or purifying the feelings and opinions of those beneath him, but merely in compliance with the depraved general taste. He followed the multitude to do evil.

His wife greatly surpassed him in intellect, but it may be doubted whether she was in any respect his superior in honesty. She was too clever to veer with every wind as her husband did; but, unless she is greatly belied, she

was

one of the most accomplished hypocrites that ever lived. Her character in that respect is a perfect curiosity, and deserves more attention than has yet been bestowed upon it. If Mr. Blencowe had thrown aside the paltry Diary, and the earl's common-place epistles, and had confined his attention to this lady, and her letters, and her character, alone, we are very much mistaken if he would not have produced a book which would have much better answered both his own purpose and that of his publisher than the one now before us.

The countess was a daughter of George Earl of Bristol, and inherited some of the showy fascinating qualities of her father. The world who looked 4 H

at her from a distance was loud in its admiration of her beauty, her affability, and her piety, and even good men like John Evelyn, who was intimate with her, echoed the general opinion. The present editor says, that "Evelyn had good reason to speak well of her," on account of the hospitality with which "she treated" him and his son. We have a better opinion of Evelyn than to suppose that his estimate of the general character of any person would be swayed by such paltry considerations. His opinion, whether right or wrong, was founded upon higher and worthier reasons. But what said the persons who were her equals and were better acquainted with the conduct of this " seeming-virtuous" lady? They openly accused her of an intrigue with Henry Sidney the present diarist, who, as we have already stated, was notoriously a loose-liver, and, although uncle to her husband, was rather an extraordinary person to be the very intimate acquaintance of a lady of exalted piety. Her letters to Sidney now published are written in a strain and tone of familiarity, which, although not conclusive upon the subject, offers anything but a contradiction to the accusation.

The Princess Anne, afterwards queen, described the countess in a confidential letter to her sister Queen Mary, as "a flattering, dissembling, false woman;

But," she continued, "she has so fawning and endearing a way, that she will deceive any body at first, and it is not possible to find out all her ways in a little time; she cares not at what rate she lives, but never pays anybody. She will cheat though it be for a little. Then she has had her gallants, though may be not so many as some ladies here, and with all these good qualities she is a constant churchwoman, so that to outward appearance one would take her for a saint, and, to hear her talk, you would think she was a very good Protestant, but she is as much one as the other, for it is certain that her lord [who had then turned Romanist] does nothing without her." (II. 263.)

In a subsequent letter the same great lady says of the countess, that "She plays the hypocrite more than ever; for she goes to St. Martin's, morning and afternoon, because there are not people enough to see her at Whitehall Chapel, and is half an hour before other people come, and half an hour after every body

is gone, at her private devotions. runs from church to church after the famousest preachers, and keeps such a clatter with her devotions, that it really turns one's stomach,"

remarked the princely pen woman; adding a sentence which is a very pretty specimen of royal cacography.

"Sure, there never was a couple so well matched as she and her good husband; for, as she is throughout in all her actions the greatest jade that ever was, so is he the subtillest workinest villain that is on the face of the earth." (II. 264.)

Royal witnesses to character are often very bad ones, for they live in an atmosphere of deception, and are entirely disabled from making personal inquiries; but the princess's evidence is confirmed by Lord Clarendon, and the two together raise a strong suspicion that Evelyn was deceived by an exhibition of pretended good qualities, which in all probability deceived many other persons besides. The editor has not himself determined the question of this lady's sincerity, and we leave it for some future inquirer.

The six letters of Sir William Temple are of little moment, although written in the terse vigorous style in which he was accustomed to express himself, and full of thoughtful, statesmanlike advice.

Two of the letters most to our taste are from Sir Robert Southwell, the President of the Royal Society, to Evelyn, soliciting advice and communicating information as to his planting at King's Weston. They give us the history of many of the fine trees which now adorn that lovely spot, and if we had space we would extract the long narrative of the agricultural proceedings of this "courtier turned clown." It ends with an account of the cider-mill erected on the banks of the Severn by one Rogers, a learned famous Quaker," which may be in teresting to Gloucestershire topographers. (II. 247.)

Frequent notices of the introduction of "the new tea" are worthy of observation, and at page 168, vol. I. the editor has a long note upon the subject.

The following, also, deserves to be remembered as a memorial of a custom now obsolete. In describing a marriage in high life which took place in 1680,