comrades. Antonius Mizaldus thinks this must be ascribed to the smoke of the ash-wood." Had the burghers of Hamel known this secret, they might have escaped the catastrophe of the Pied Piper !2 1 J. J. Weckeri De Secretis, lib. vi. cap. xvii. pp. 236, 237, edit. Basil. 1629. 2"There came into the towne of Hamel, in the country of Brunswicke, an old kind of companion, who, for the fantasticall coate which he wore being wrought with sundry colours, was called the Pied Piper. This fellow forsooth offered the townsmen, for a certaine somme of money, to rid the towne of all the rats that were in it (for at that time the burgers were with that vermine greatly annoyed). The accord, in fine, being made, the Pied Piper, with a shrill pipe, went piping thorow all the streets, and forthwith the rats came all running out of the houses in great numbers after him; all which hee led into the river of Weaser, and therein drowned them. This done, and no one rat more perceived to be left in the towne, hee afterward came to demand his reward according to his bargaine, but being told that the bargaine was not made with him in good earnest, to wit, with an opinion that ever he could be able to doe such a feat, they cared not what they accorded unto, when they imagined it could never be deserved, and so never to be demanded; but neverthelesse, seeing hee had done such an unlikely thing indeed, they were content to give him a good reward; and so offered him farre lesse than he lookt for: but hee therewith discontented, said he would have his full recompence according to his bargain; but they utterly denyed to give it him. He threatened them with revenge; they bade him doe his worst, whereupon he betakes him againe to his pipe, and going thorow the streets as before, was followed of a number of boyes LVII. PRAEFERVIDUM SCOTORUM INGENIUM. THIS is one of those phrases which are in every one's mouth, although few “know where to have them." If Sir Thomas Urquhart or the Episcopal doctors of Aberdeen be deemed worthy evidence, its paternity is ascertained. "These books," says the former, "I will in some things no otherways commend than Andraeas Rivetus, professor of Leyden, did the doctrine of Buchanan and Knox; whose rashness he ascribed praefervido Scotorum ingenio, et ad audendum prompto." "1 "Thus," say the latter," that out at one of the gates of the city, and comming to a little hill, there opened in the side thereof a wide hole, into the which himselfe and all the children, being in number one hundreth and thirty, did enter; and being entred, the hill closed up againe, and became as before. A boy that being lame, and came somewhat lagging behind the rest, seeing this that hapned, returned presently backe and told what he had seene: forthwith began great lamentation among the parents for their children, and men were sent out with all diligence, both by land and by water, to enquire if ought could be heard of them, but with all the enquiry they could possibly use, nothing more than is aforesaid could of them be understood. And this great wonder hapned on the 22d day of July, in the yeere of our Lord 1376."-Verstegan's Restitvtion of Decayed Intelligence, chap. iii. pp. 85, 86, edit. Lond. 1634. 1 Sir T. Urquhart's Tracts, p. 134. Edinb. 1774. famous and most learned Doctor Rivetus wryteth, in the 13th chap. of a late treatise called Jesuita Vapulans, pp. 274 and 275, answering to the recrimination of a Jesuit, who had affirmed that Buchannan, Knox, and Goodman, had written as boldlie for the Rebellion of Subjects against Princes as any of their order at any time had done.”1 LVIII. A PHILOSOPHER'S EPITAPH. PAUL PATER, professor of mathematics at Dantzic, died on the 7th December 1724, in his 68th year, leaving this epitaph for his tomb: "Hic situs est Paulus Pater, mathematum professor, qui nescivit in vita quid sit cum morbis conflictari, ira moveri, cupiditate aduri. Decessit vita cœlebs." In English it may run, "Here lies Paul Pater, professor of mathematics, who knew not in this life what it was to be afflicted with disease, to be moved by anger, or inflamed by avarice. He lived and died a bachelor." L'epitaphe est celle d'un véritable philosophe, says his biographer; and perhaps truly, if the French academy be the true school of philosophy. I think that he was a better and a wiser man, who, conceal 1 Demands concerning the Covenant, 1638. ing his name, caused his grave to be inscribed, "Vixi, Peccavi, Poenitui, Naturae Cessi." sinned, repented, and died." "I lived, This epitaph was, in Camden's time, to be seen "in the cloister on the north side of Saint Paules, now ruinated."1 LIX. DRUMMONDIANA. Ar the head of the very few Scotish and among the earliest English compilers of Ana, must be placed William Drummond of Hawthornden. He was born in 1585, and died in 1649. His "Informations be Ben Jonson to W. D. when he came to Scotland upon foot, 1619," was perhaps the first attempt in Britain to record the conversation of a distinguished man of letters, and still remains one of the most pleasing. It is hardly necessary to allude to the ridiculous charges against Drummond which the querulous Gifford and others have raised up from these notes. They have been triumphantly refuted by Sir Walter Scott,2 Mr Campbell,3 Mr David 1 Camden's Remaines concerning Britaine, p. 335. 2 Scott's Prose Works, vol. vii. p. 374-382. 3 Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, art. Jonson. 1 Laing, and Professor Wilson.2 "The furious in vective of Gifford," says the judicious Hallam, "is absurd. Any one else would have been thankful for so much literary anecdote." "3 These "Informations" were not Drummond's only contribution to the class of Ana. He left, like them, in manuscript, a volume, on the title-page of which he inscribed, "DEMOCRITIE, a Labyrinth of Delight, or Worke preparative for the Apologie of Democritus; containing the Pasquills, Apotheames, Impresas, Anagrames, Epitaphes, Epigrames, in French, Italiane, Spanishe, Latine, of this and the late age before." Specimens of this collection have been printed in the Archaeologia Scotica: a great portion of the work is, from its licentiousness, unfit for publication; but the following extracts will, I hope, be found not wholly uninteresting. Some are selected on account of the persons to whom they relate, others as examples of the witticisms of the age, and a few are inserted as carrying the genealogy of certain familiar jests a hundred years beyond the work of Mr Joseph Miller. 1. Two friars coming to an inn where certain 1 Archaeologia Scotica, vol. iv. • Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 1818 and 1839. N |