An outlandish prince of vast honour and fame,
Unto this king's court he a visiting came;
Who then was attended with honour and state,
For the king sent his nobles upon him to wait.

And likewise to welcome this prince to the court,
Great feasting was made with pastime and sport:
Now give your attention, and I'll shew in brief
How this sport was turn'd to sorrow and grief.

The king saw the queen in the garden one day
Walking with the prince, which made him to say,
I fear the prince is too great with the queen,
And therefore I ever shall owe him a spleen."

212. THE Delightful New ACADEMY OF COMPLIMENTS, being the rarest and most exact art of wooing a maid, or widow, by way of dialogue, or complimental expressions. With passionate loveletters, courtly sentences to express the elegance of love, and posies for gloves and rings. To which is added a choice collection of the newest songs sung at court and city, set by the best wits of the age. 12mo. n.d.

Our ancestors, or at least the uneducated part of the community, appear to have made love by rule; and we may presume not a few love letters took their origin from such examples as the following:

"Dear Madam,-Since I first beheld your bright eyes, they, like two blazing-stars, have influenced wars and tumults in my soul, and banished rest from my abode. I have long stifled my flame, divinest creature, but at last it hath broke out to let you know how much I suffer, and that nothing but your smiles

and condescending goodness can relieve me.

Therefore begging life at your hands I cast myself, in imitation, prostrate at your feet; and in hopes of a favourable sentence, remain, madam, your most passionate and obedient servant, &c." (p. 7.)

213. A BLOODY BATTLE FOR The Breeches, or the WOMAN'S MALICE ABATED, being a full and true account of a desperate battle between Peter Peinter and Dorothy Boldface, his wife: shewing how all poor men may bring a scold and a drunkard into good manners. 12mo. n.d.

A curious tract, but so full of abusive language that it is somewhat difficult to select a quotation. We may, however, venture on a few lines :—

"Pet. Nay, but Dorothy, turn, come about; what, would you fain be gone now? I have another accompt to cast up with you yet before you go."

"Dor. Have you, sirrah? No, no, I would have you to think that I scorn to be counted a coward yet! No, sirrah! Crack me that nut!"

"Pet.

Take thee and thy nut too, if they be all such as these, for they be too hard."

These be

"Dor. No, no, sirrah, you are deceived. but easy ones. I have an almond nut for thee yet. O, but it will melt in thy mouth like a horny book, faith!"

"Pet. Ay, but the devil take thee and thy almond nuts, if these be they. But it is no matter! I will give thee a dish of choak-pears, which will do thee a great deal of good, and as you like these, you shall have more, for I have anew for thee."

214. THE WAndering Jew, OR THE SHOEMAKER OF JERUSALEM, who lived when our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was crucified, and by Him appointed to wander until he comes again. With his travels, method of living, and a discourse with some clergymen about the end of the world. 12mo. Darlington. Printed by W. Appelton, 1790.

"who

This tract, probably, relates to a person, made a very hermit-like appearance," seen by Brand, who professed to be the wandering Jew. The story itself is too well known to need repetition. According to this authority, "some time since he landed at Hull, in Yorkshire, where Dr. Hall, taking him for a cheat, caused him to be locked up in a room all night, but next morning they found the door open, though their prisoner had not attempted to escape. Dr. Hall sent for Dr. Harrison in order to assist him in the examination of so great a personage, that they might be sure whether he was an impostor or no. They asked him concerning the breaking of the locks of the room in which he had been shut up. He told them if they would attempt to confine him with chains, it would avail nothing: human force cannot confine whom the Almighty had sentenced to want a resting-place. They being, like Thomas a-Didimus, hard of belief, sent for a smith to put strong chains on him, but they instantly broke asunder, to the surprise of a thousand spectators. Not being able to doubt any longer, they sent for a painter, and had his picture drawn, in which he neither looked old nor young, but just as he did seventeen hundred and sixty-seven years ago,

G

when he began his journey. The King of France, hearing of this, wrote for his picture, which Dr. Hall accordingly sent him."

215. WIT NEWLY REVIVED; being a book of riddles set forth for the trial of wit, and diversion of all persons, of either sex, to create mirth and merri

This is a lineal descendant of the Book of Riddles lent by Slender to Alice Shortcake, (Merry Wives of Windsor, i, 1). We may, therefore, give a specimen. Quest. There is a steeple standing fair;

'Twas built upon the rocks of care:
Therein a noise both fierce and fell,

Tho' there was neither clock nor bell.

Answ. An old woman scolding in a high-crown'd hat.

216. GOD'S MARVELLOUS WONDERS IN ENGLand, taining divers strange and wonderful relations that have happened since the beginning of June, this present year. 12mo. Printed for P. Brooksby at the Golden-ball in Pye-corner, 1694. Contains:-1. A strange and wonderful shower of wheat that fell in Wiltshire on the 27th of June, 1694, of which people gathered considerable quantities in the fields and roads, &c. 2. The Kentish Wonder, or an account of sundry grass-fields sprouting up with

corn, where none has been known to be sown for four years past, near Maidstone, in Kent, in the grounds of an honest farmer, who was very charitable to the poor in these hard times. 3. An account of a terrible storm of hail near Darlington, in the bishoprick of Durham, on the 2nd of July, 1694, by which divers persons and cattel were hurt, and birds, in their flight, beat down dead with the hailstones of six inches in circumference, in divers forms, as swords, coronets, divers sorts of fruits, &c. 4. An account of a mighty monstrous whale appearing off the mouth of the river Humber of forty feet in length, on the 27th of July last, and the dreadful encounter that happened between it and some fishermen, &c. 5. An account of the discovery of the murthur and robbery committed on the body of one Mrs. Grand, the old miserable rich French woman of Spittle-fields, on the 9th of June, for which John Jewster, and one Butler, were since hang'd. 6. A wonderful discovery of a murther committed on two women in Short's-gardens, in St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, which, being acted about three years since, was discovered the 20th of June, 1694, by one Dre, or Day, a bailiff's follower, on his dying sick-bed, owning himself to be the murtherer, and that he could not dye without revealing it.

217. ROBERT THE THIRD, KING OF SCOTLAND, his answer to a summonds sent by Henry the IV, of England, to do homage for the crown of Scotland. 12mo. Edinburgh, 1711.

During the reign of the royal Robert,
The Second of the good Stewart,

G 2