In the Garrick collection of old Plays and Tracts, was a very scarce black letter quarto, without date, entitled :

“Here Beginneth a merie jeste, of a man that was called Howleglas. And of many marveylous thynges that he dyd in his lyfe, in Eastland and in many other places. Imprynted at London in Tamestrete, at the Vintre on the Three Craned Wharfe by Wyllyam Copland."

In the preface Howleglas, it is said, died in 1450, but, at the end of the book, in 1350. It is supposed to have been a translation from a Dutch MS. in which the hero is termed Ulenspeigle. In the English version, the hero is a worthy who "served at all trades and cheated with great impunity, sometimes for profit, and sometimes for sport." One chapter tells us, "How he begyled a Doctor with his medicines ;" another, "How Howleglas wan a great deale of money with a poynt of foolishnesse;" a third, "How Howleglas, through his subtle disceytes deceyved a wyne drawer in Lubeke;" and his wanton frolics are equally nu

merous. We are told :-

How Howleglas made a woman that solde erthen potts to smyte them all in pieces.

How Howleglas brake the stayres that the munkes shulde come downe on the matyns, and how thei fell downe into the yarde.

How Howleglas bought creme of the women of the countrey, that brought it for to sel at Maryandra. Within a while after or that he wyuld enter y abbey of Maryandra to be a munke, he went a wakyng on the market daye to Bremen, wher he sawe many women standing ther to sel creme. And then went Howleglas to the house where he was lodgd, and borowed a tub of his Hostise, and went againe into ye market; and when he was there, he set downe his tub, and came to a woman of the countrie, and he asked the pryce of her creme; and when they were both agreed, he made her for to put her creme into his tub. And then went he to another, and agreed we her also, and made her to put her creme into his tub; and so went he fro the one to the other, tyll that he had made all the women that had the creme to put it into his tub. And when they had soo done then asked thei poore women theire money of Howleglas, for they woulde departe home. Then sayde Howleglas, to the women, Ye must do so muche for me as to trust me these eight dayes, for I have no money at thys tyme." Than were the women of the countrey angry, and thei ran to the tub for to take every one their creme againe, for thei woulde not trust him. And as thei woulde have taken theyr creme again, than began thei to fal together by the eares and sayde, "Thou takest more than thou sholde have, and the other stode al wepynge, and said to them, shall I

| loose my creme ?" And other twayne were tumbling by the here in the middes of the canel. And thus they pulled and haled on the other, that at the last the tub fell downe, and arrayed the very foule, so that they were all disfygured, and wist not of whome they shoulde be avenged of. And than arose thei, and asked where is this false knave yt hath bought our mylk, and hath deceved us so, for had we hym here amonge us, we shoulde chrysten him here in the creame that is in the cannell, and paint him therwith as wel as we be, for he is a false begyler and a dyscever. But he was gone fro thence, for he cast before yt such a thynge shulde folowe. And when the Burgeys of the towne saw that the cannels ran with creame, than went thei to the market place for to se. And when yt were ther they asked how the creme was spylt, and than it was tolde them, and when that thei knew it, than thei returned home laughynge, and praised greatli yt falsenes and subtilte of Howleglas.

After many adventures, he comes to live with a priest, who makes him his parish-clerk. This priest is described as keeping “a leman or concubine, who had but one eye, to whom Howleglas owed a grudge for revealing his rogueries to his master." The story thus proceeds :

And than in the meane season, while Howleglas was paryshe clarke, at Easter they should play the resurrection of our lorde; and for because than the men wer not learned, nor could not read, the priest took his leman, and put her in the grave for an Aungell; and this seing How leglas, toke to him iij of the simplest persons that were in the towne, that played the inj Maries; and the Person (i. e. Parson or Rector) played Christe, with a baner in his hand. Than saide Howleglas to the simple persons, When the Aungel asketh you, whome you seke, you may saye, The parsons leman with one iye. Than it fortuned that the tyme was come that they must playe, and the Angel asked them whom they sought, and than sayd they, as Howleglas had shewed and lerned them afore, and than answered they, We seke the priests leman with one iye. And than the prieste might heare that he was mocked. And whan the priests leman herd that, she arose out of the grave, and would have smyten with her fist Howleglas upon the cheke, but she missed him, and smote one of the simple persons that played one of the thre Maries; and he gave her another; and than take she him by the heare (hair); and that seing his wyfe came running hastely to smile the priestes leman; and than the priest seeing this, caste down hys baner and went to help his woman, so that the one gave the other sore strokes, and made great noyse in the churche. And than Howleglas seyng them lyinge together by the eares in the bodi of the churche, went his way out of the village, and came no more there.

The human mind is destined to advance progressively nearer and nearer to perfection in our Solar System. It passes from the smallest planet to the largest, from that nearest the sun, to the most remote, on which, at length, the coldest reason is attained, and pure from all the influences of the senses. Its planetary life, on Mercury and Venus, though it remembers nothing, or at the most, has but a kind of obscure notion of it, was already over, when it was produced and born on Earth, as a man with a new body. When he dies here, the next station after his death is Mars, then the broken planets Juno, Vesta, Pallas, and Ceres; after these Jupiter, then Saturn, and then the Georgium Sidus. Travelling with the rapidity of a ray of light, the soul, on its separation from this body, reaches the next planet Mars, in four minutes and fifteen seconds. Here it begins a new life, which (calculated analogically according to the maximum on Earth) will extend to two hundred years. After this it again separates, arrives in ten minutes, five seconds, at Pallas, and remains in that and the three other broken planets, five hundred years. Again departs, arrives in twenty minutes, forty-six seconds, at Jupiter; lives there twelve hundred years; reaches Saturn in fifty-six minutes thirty-nine seconds, where it lives no less than three thousand years, and completes its planetary existence, in our system, after a passage of one hour, eighteen minutes, thirty-five seconds, in the Georgium Sidus, with a life of five thousand years.

Grater says in his preface, that the extremely monotonous idea of Eternity in abstracto, is rendered interesting by this hypothesis, and the possibility that the soul, on its separation from this planetary body, may in a few minutes rise to heaven, that is to a more distant star, at least affords one, and perhaps the only positive and clear view, through the gate of death.

The author also justly observes, that the rapidity of lights' propulsion is positively necessary, "considering the prodigious distance of the planets from each other; the swiftness of a cannon ball, which travels only six hundred paces in a second, would be far too slow, since the soul at that rate would require, instead of four minutes, full thirteen years to reach the nearest planet, and such a passive and useless traversing the immensity of space is highly improbable."

It is much to be regretted that the fanciful author was unable to recollect the nature of his doings during his primeval life in Mercury and Venus-perhaps, he may allege that many dreams and floating notions that to us seem perfectly unintelligible, are in point of fact, reminiscences of a previous state of existence.

We extract the following curious Dramatis Persona from a Latin play, by an Italian writer of the seventeenth century, on the exploits of Ignatius Loyola. We suppose the author acted on Don Quixote's recommendation, to act in a plain :

The Church of Rome.

Europe, Asia, Africa, America-represented as per

sons.

The Archangel Michael.

The Good Genii of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Ame

rica. Christ. Lucifer.

Two Military Officers.

Moorish General, with army.

Moorish Officer.

Mendicant in the disguise of Ignatius.
Ignatius, with attendants.

Don Sebastian, captain of the ship Victory.
Messenger.

Oviedo. Patriarch of Abyssinia.

Adamas, Emperor of Abyssinia.
Son of the Emperor.

Evil Genii of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. Evil Genius of Spain, alternately disguised as a soldier and a hermit.

Familiar Spirit of Martin Luther.
Trumpeter of Hell, with horn.
Welfare of the Empire.
Heresy.
Idolatry.
Atheism.
Ghost.

Adrian, Regent of Spain.
Duke of Navarre, with army.
Spanish Officer.

Agebed, with companions.
Soria, Chief of Buccaneers.
General of the Spaniards.
Neptune.

Prince of Castiglione.
Aleisio Gonzaga.
Messenger to the Prince.
Francis Xavier.

King of Travancore, with army.
Son of the King.

King of the Bagadæ.

Chorus of Youths, assembled from the four quarters of the globe.

Do. of Indian Youths.

Do. of Centaurs.

Troops of Nereids, sporting.

ERUBHIM, Or

John Lightfoot, the divine, in his " Miscellanies Christian and Judaical," printed in 1629, relates the following curious anecdote respecting the power of a murderer's conscience :

"Crantzius, the Denmarke Historian, as he hath I could not but coppy out at my reading of it, wherein many delightsome passages of storie, so this especially I see God just, and murder heavy. One was hired for a summe of money to murder an innocent Dane. He does the bloudy fact, and presently receives in a purse his wages of iniquity. A heavy purse of gold for a while makes a light heart; but where the guiltinesse grones heavy too, the gold is worth nothing. At last the murderer's conscience accuseth and condemnes him like both witnesse and judge for his bloudy fact. His heart and eyes are both cast downe, the one as farre as hell, whither the fact had sunke, and the other to the earth, whither the bloud. He is now weary of his own life, as erewhile he was of another's. He ties his purse of gold (which had hired him to kill the other) about his necke, and offers it to every one he meets as his reward, if he would kill him. At last hee is paid in his owne coine, and hires his own murderer with that price wherewith he himself was hired. And so perish all such, whose feet are swift to shed bloud, and he, that strikes, with an unlawful sword, be strucken with a lawful one againe."