The Right Honey (ownell of State,

47

That, Wheres opon & his Change of Goverment, devolution of Interest from kingly power to a Comon Wealth they may happen som question touching the primiture & Inalienable • Right that Great Britam daymes to the Souverainty of her own pas as hath allready apprend by the late clash that broke out 4 wixt is & Holland (which may well be sayed to be a Coman pralth of Englands (reation) It were Expedient, humbly under froor, that a new Treatise, be. compits for the vindication, and contmuance of this Right not withstanding this (Change, And if the Stake be please to impose to honemble a comand open 7 Subscriber, He will employ his best abilities to perform it; In which Trebis not only all the learned Reason & Authorities of Mr Letsen shatte produced, but the truth of the thing thatte rimfored and asserted by further arguments, Examples, & Evideners: And it were requisit that the sayed Treative shold go published in French, as well as English, French being the most comunicable language of Comever among those Nations whom the knowledy her of doth most concern, d/o may must avough to disperse the truth, Dratisfer the World in the pant

Jam Mowill.

Petition of James Howell to the Council of State, offering to compose a fresh Treatise on Great Britain's Sovereignty of the Seas

genuine contributions to current history, and were read with extreme avidity. They marked the rise of a new class of literature in England, the elaborately-composed essay-letter, of which Balzac had set the type in France. When Howell emerged from prison, he devoted himself to the flattery of Cromwell, yet contrived to recover favour when the king came back. Charles II. created and amply endowed the post

of Historiographer Royal for Howell in

1661, so that the close of his fugitive and harassed life was comfortable. He died early in November 1666, and was buried in the Temple Church. His miscellaneous and occasional effusions in prose and verse, and his translations, are extremely numerous; he was always hovering on the borders of what we now call journalism.

In a long and curious letter, addressed to Lord Cliffe on the 7th of October 1634, Howell discusses at large the drinks of the world. In the course of it, he tells such stories as these :

The countries that are freest from excess of drinking are Spain and Italy. If a woman can prove her husband

to have been thrice drunk, by the ancient laws of Spain she may plead for a divorce from him. Nor, indeed, can the Spaniard, being hot-brained, bear much drink, yet I have heard that Gondamar was once too hard for the King of Denmark, when he was here in England. But the Spanish soldiers that have been in the wars of Flanders will take their cups freely, and the Italians also. When I lived t'other side the Alps, a gentleman told me a merry tale of a Ligurian soldier, who had got drunk in Genoa ; and Prince Doria going a-horseback to walk the round one night, the soldier took his horse by the bridle, and asked what the price of him was, for he

wanted a horse. The Prince, seeing in what humour he was, caused him to be taken into a house and put to sleep. In the morning he sent for him, and asked him what he would give for his horse. "Sir," said the recovered soldier, "the merchant that would have bought him last night of your Highness went away betimes in the morning." . . . I have heard of a company of Low Dutchmen that had drunk so deep, that beginning to stagger, and their heads turning round, they thought verily that they were at sea, and that the upper chamber where they were was a ship, insomuch that, it being foul windy weather, they fell to throw the stools and other things out of the window, to lighten the vessel, for fear of suffering shipwreck.

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) was the son of the Rev. Thomas Fuller, of Fuller Aldwinckle St. Peter's, in Northamptonshire, where he was baptized, June 19, 1608.

He was taught at home, by his father, until June 1621, when he was sent up to Queen's College, Cambridge. He was disappointed of a fellowship at Queen's, and at Sidney Sussex, to which he migrated; and in 1630 he had to content himself with the perpetual curacy of St. Benet's, Cambridge. He presently secured other pieces of preferment, and from 1634 to 1641 he was rector of Broadwindsor in Dorset ; but during all this time he did not wholly break off his connection with Cambridge. He married in 1638, and in 1639 published his first important book, The History of the Holy War. He was elected proctor to Convocation in the next year, and presently removed to London, where his wit in the pulpit became widely celebrated; he was elected lecturer to the Savoy Chapel. He was prominent in his loyalty, however, and with other royalist divines he was driven out of London in 1643; he took refuge in Oxford. He had recently published The Holy State and

the Profane Stale, a treatise on the conduct of the Christian life, in five books; this is perhaps more densely crowded with the peculiar beauties of Fuller's style than any other work of his. Fuller was not very happy at Oxford, and early in 1644 he was glad

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Browne

to proceed to Exeter as chaplain to the Princess Henrietta, and when the queen fled, Fuller placed himself under the protection of Lord Montague at Boughton. During these uneasy years, he chiefly supported himself by the activity of his pen. In 1650 he brought out his picturesque geography of Palestine, called A Fisgah-sight, a folio richly illustrated; and in 1656 his most celebrated work, the huge Church History of Britain. This was greatly praised and widely read, but its accuracy was impugned by the historian, Dr. Peter Heylin (1600-1662). Fuller retorted in a very lively Appeal of Injured Innocence, in 1659. This was his last publication of importance. In 1660 Fuller went over to The Hague with Lord Berkeley to present himself to Charles II. At the king's return, he recovered his various ecclesiastical offices, and was looking forward to a bishopric, when he was attacked by typhoid fever. He insisted upon preaching on the 13th of August 1661, although he was so weak that he had to be lifted out of the pulpit, and three days later he died in his lodgings in Covent Garden. He was buried in the church of Cranford, of which he had been rector since 1658. His famous History of the Worthies of England appeared posthumously in 1662. He described this as an inventory of the rooms-that is to say shires-into which the "not very great house" of England is divided, with the portraits of great men hung on the walls of those rooms. Fuller was never held pre-eminent as a divine, and as an historian he was too rapid and careless to inspire confidence, but his wit and skill as a manipulator of language were unsurpassed. Nor should his extraordinary acquaintance with the face and form of England be neglected. "England was to him as an open book, whose leaves he was always turning over," and he was for ever riding hither and thither, in his geographical curiosity, till hardly a corner of the country was unknown to him.

FULLER ON HIS OWN VOICE.

Lord, my voice by nature is harsh and untunable, and it is vain to lavish any art to better it. Can my singing of psalms be pleasing to Thy ears, which is unpleasant to my own? Yet though I cannot chant with the nightingale, or chirp with the blackbird, I had rather chatter with the swallow, yea, rather croak with the raven, than be altogether silent. Hadst Thou given me a better voice, I would have praised Thee with a better voice. Now what my music wants in sweetness let it have in sense, singing praises with understanding. Yea, Lord, create in me a new heart (therein to make melody), and I will be contented with my old voice until in Thy due time, being admitted into the choir of heaven, I have another, more harmonious, bestowed upon me.

FEMALE EDUCATION.

Nunneries were good she-schools, wherein the girls and maids of the neighbourhood were taught to read and work; and sometimes a little Latin was taught them therein. Yea, give me leave to say, if such feminine foundations had still continued, provided no vow were obtruded upon them (virginity is least kept where it is most constrained), haply the weaker sex (beside the avoiding modern inconveniences) might be heightened to a higher perfection than hitherto hath been attained. The sharpness of their wits, and suddenness of their conceits, which their enemies must allow unto them, might by education be improved into a judicious solidity, and that adorned with arts, which now they want, not because they cannot learn, but are not taught them. I say, if such feminine foundations were extant now-of-days, haply some virgins of highest birth would be glad of such places; and, I am sure, their fathers and elder brothers would not be sorry for the same.

We have been speaking of prose-writers who were eager to liberate themselves from the shackles of the Renaissance. But in Sir THOMAS BROWNE