69. The Earl of Southampton told that my Lord Carlisle answered when asked the cause of his me

But, passing so, the people then

Did much the old man blame,

And told him, Churle, thy limbs bee tough,

The boye should ride; for shame!'

The fault thus found, both man and boye
Did backe the asse and ride;

Then that the asse was over-charged,
Each man that met them criede.

Now both a-light, and goe on foote,
And leade the emptie beast;
But then the people laugh and say,
That one might ride at least.

With it they both did undershore
The asse on either side;
But then the wondring people did
The witles pranke deride.

The old man seeing by no waies

He could the people please,

Not blameles then, did drive the asse,

And drowne him in the seas."

Warner's Albion's England, b. iii. ch. xvii.

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1 James Hay, the celebrated favourite of James VI., the Brummel and D'Orsay of his age. He was created Lord Hay (but without voice or seat in parliament) in 1606, Lord Hay of Sawley in 1615, Viscount Doncaster in 1617, and Earl of Carlisle in 1622. He died in 1636. "He was," says Clarendon, surely a man of the greatest expense in his own person of any in the age he lived, and introduced more of that expense in the excess of clothes and diet than any other man, and was indeed the original of all these inventions from which others did but transcribe copies." Anecdotes of him will be found in Bucke's

lancholy, "How can I be but melancholy, my lord? they have spoiled the fashion of my band!"

70. Henry IV. having heard that one of his physicians had turned Catholic, said, “Les Huguenots sont en mauvais état, puisque les médecins les ont quitte."

71. Erasmus having asked a friend why he had built so magnificent a house, was answered, "To show his equals that he wanted not silver." " Nay,” replied Erasmus, "rather by this means you will show them that your purse is emptied."

72. The Earl of Morton' who was beheaded, used to say, he wished no greater reason than a twentyfour hours' lie to bring a courtier in disgrace.

73. After Sir George Heron was killed at the Red Swire, the Regent James, earl of Morton, sent

2

Book of Table-Talk, vol. ii. p. 204-211; Lond. 1836, and in Thoms' Anecdotes and Traditions, p. 10. And see Sir James Balfour's Annales, vol. iv. p. 374.

1 James, fourth earl of Morton, succeeded to that title in 1553, and was beheaded on the 2d June 1581.

2 The Raid of the Red Swire happened on the 7th June 1575; a contemporary ballad on the subject will be found in the Border Minstrelsy, vol. ii. p. 18-31.

many falcons of the Scotish kind for a present to the courtiers of England; whereupon one made a jest, saying, "That he dealt very nobly and bountifully in that he gave them live hawks for dead herons," alluding to Sir George Heron who was slain.

74. Epitaph on a coat :

Here lies a coat, the patient overcomer
Of two sharp winters and a burning summer.

75. Lines on Dean Corbet :- 1

A reverend Dean,

With a band starched clean,
Did preach before the king;
A ring was espied

To his band to be tied,
O that was a pretty thing!
It was that, no doubt,
Which first put him out,
That he knew not what was next,
For to all who were there,

It did plainly appear,

He handled it more than his text.

1 Richard Corbet, Dean of Christ Church, elected Bishop of Oxford in 1628; translated to Norwich in 1632; died in 1635, aged 52 years.

76. The Lord Herbert of Cherbury died half mad after his book "De Veritate." 1

1 This anecdote can scarcely be trusted; the De Veritate appears to have been published at least as early as 1638, and it is stated in the inscription on his lordship's tomb that he died on the 28th August, 1648.-Collins' Peerage, vol. v. p. 195. But perhaps his well-known vision shows that his wits were partially distempered before he published his treatise. "One fair day in the summer," he writes, "my casement being open towards the south, the sun shining clear, and no wind stirring, I took my book De Veritate in my hand, and kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these words: "O thou Eternal God, author of the light which now shines upon me, and giver of all inward illuminations, I do beseech thee, of thy infinite goodness, to pardon a greater request than a sinner ought to make. I am not satisfied enough whether I shall publish this book, De Veritate; if it be for thy glory, I beseech thee give me some sign from heaven; if not, I shall suppress it.' I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud yet gentle noise came from the heavens (for it was like nothing on earth), which did so comfort and cheer me, that I took my petition as granted, and that I had the sign I demanded; whereupon also I resolved to print my book. This, how strange soever it may seem, I protest, before the Eternal God, is true; neither am I any way superstitiously deceived therein, since I did not only clearly hear the noise, but in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being without all cloud, did, to my thinking, see the place from whence it came."

LX.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER, AND NICOLAS DE PÉCHANTRÉ

THERE is a well-known anecdote of Beaumont and Fletcher, that having concerted the rough draught of a tragedy over a bottle of wine in a tavern, Fletcher said he would undertake to kill the king. “These words being overheard by a waiter who had not happened to have been a witness to the context of their conversation, he lodged an information of treason against them. But on their explanation, that the expression meant only the murder of a stage monarch, and their loyalty being unquestioned, the affair ended in a jest."

A similar tale is told of a French dramatist, Nicolas de Péchantré, who died in 1708, at the age of seventy. The composition of his tragedy La Mort du Néron occupied him during nine years. He one day left in a small inn, where he had been drinking, a piece of paper, on which several cyphers were scrawled, and the words Ici le roi sera tué, “ Here let the king be slain!" It is found by the innkeeper; he carries it to the commissary of the quarter, who desires to be informed when the person who dropped it again

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1 Biographia Dramatica, vol. i. pp. 17, 18.