"Harpool. ...Dost thou know on whom thou servest a process?

Sumner. Yes, marry, do I; on Sir John Oldcastle, Lord Cobham.

Har. I am glad thou knowest him yet. And, sirrah, dost thou not know that the Lord Cobham is a brave lord that keeps good beef and beer in his house, and every day feeds a hundred poor people at his gate, and keeps a hundred tall fellows? Sum. What's that to my process?

Har. Marry this, sir; is this process parchment ?
Sum. Yes, marry is it.

Har. And this seal wax?
Sum. It is so.

Har. If this be parchment and this wax, eat you this parchment and this wax, or I will make parchment of your skin, and beat your brains into wax. Sirrah Sumner, despatch; devour, sirrah, devour.

Sum. I am my lord of Rochester's sumner; I came to do my office, and thou shalt answer it.

Har. Sirrah, no railing, but betake yourself to your teeth. Thou shalt eat no worse than thou bring'st with thee. Thou bring'st it for my lord, and wilt thou bring my lord worse than thou wilt eat thyself?

Sum. Sir, I brought it not my lord to eat.

Har. O, do you sir me now? All's one for that; I'll make you eat it for bringing it.

Sum. I cannot eat it.

Har. Can you not? 'sblood I'll beat you till you have a stomach.

[Beats him. Sum. O hold, hold, good master serving-man; I will eat it.

Har. Be champing, be chewing, sir, or I'll chew you, you rogue. Tough wax is the purest of the honey.

Sum. The purest of the honey!—O, Lord, sir! oh oh! [Eats.

Har. Feed, feed; 'tis wholesome, rogue, wholesome. Cannot you like an honest sumner walk with the devil your brother, to fetch in your bailiff's rents, but you must come to a nobleman's house with process ? If thy seal were as broad as the lead that covers Rochester church thou shouldst eat it.

Sum. O, I am almost choked, I am almost choked. Har. Who's within there? will you shame my lord? is there no beer in the house? Butler, I sayEnter Butler.

But. Here, here.

Har. Give him beer, there; tough old sheepskins be a dry meat. [The Sumner drinks.”1

I know not if the learned keeper of the treasury

1 Ancient British Drama, vol. i. pp. 325, 326..

records of her majesty's exchequer has followed any ancient authority, when he thus tells how the abbot of Oseney received the bearer of an unwelcome writ from the lord chancellor, commanding him to become a member of parliament :-"No obstacle was offered; and the abbot, receiving the parliamentary process with much respect, delivered it to his seneschal, telling him to take care that it was properly returned. The summoning officer was then shown into a parloir,' and kindly requested to take a meal previous to the resumption of his journey. The dish was brought up and placed before him. Well did he augur from the amplitude of the cover;-but when the towering dome was removed, it displayed a mess far more novel than inviting,—the parchment writ fried in the wax of the great seal. Before he could recover from his surprise, the attendants disappeared, the door closed, and the key turned; and, amidst the loud shouts of laughter from without, he heard the voice of the pitanciary declaring, that he should never taste a second course until he had done justice to the first, the dainty dish set before him on the table. And the threat was carried into effect without the slightest mitigation; for of no other food did he partake, neither bite nor sup could he obtain, until after two whole days of solitude and abstinence, the cravings of hunger compelled the

unlucky representative of Chancery to swallow both the affront and the process."

XL.

ALMACK'S.

DAVID MALLET was not the only Scot who, by changing his name, sought to conceal his northern origin. A sturdy Celt from Galloway or Atholl called MacCaul, "well known in the fashionable end of the town by keeping a famous subscriptionhouse in Pall Mall, nearly opposite the palace of St James's, by a slight transposition of his name, gave birth to Almack's."?

XLI.

ORIGIN OF NEWSPAPERS.

MR CHALMERS claims for England the honour of producing the first printed newspaper.3 It appeared in the memorable year 1588, when the dreaded Armada of Spain hung on our shores like a thunder-cloud.

Truths and Fictions of the Middle Ages. The Merchant and the Friar. By Sir Francis Palgrave, K. H., pp. 71, 72.

2 Kerr's Memoirs of Smellie, vol. i. pp. 436, 437. Edinburgh, 1811.

3 Life of Ruddiman, p. 102-121. See also D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, p. 55-57, edit. 1838.

K

The earliest number now known to exist is dated 23d July 1588, and is entitled "The English Mercurie, published by authority, imprinted at London by Christopher Barker, her Highnesse's printer." M. Lally-Tollendal has disputed this claim, and asserts for France the merit of anticipating all other countries by more than half a century in the publication of a political journal. There is preserved, he says, in the Bibliothèque du Roi at Paris, a small quarto bulletin of the Italian campaign of Louis XII. in 1509, printed in the Gothic or black letter, and beginning thus: "Ce'st la tres noble et tres excellente victoire du roy nostre sire Loys douziesme de ce nom qu'il a heue moyennant l'ayde de Dieu sur les Venitiens."

XLII.

PRESBYTERIAN PARITY.

THE name of Master Robert Bruce must be familiar to every reader of Scotish church history. The free manner in which he bearded King James is still occasionally held up to admiration by zealous Presbyterians; and Episcopal writers have been equally busy to show the failings of one who was so great a thorn in the side of the hierarchy. The Jacobite historian of Edinburgh relates with infinite relish this anec

2 Biogr. Univ. t. xiii. p. 56.