butcher and his dog were travelling. The dog having killed the stag, which was so large that the butcher could not carry it the huntsmen and company away, when they came up, expressed great resentment, and endeavoured to incense the Prince against the butcher. But the Prince answered coolly; "What if the butcher's dog killed the stag; how could the butcher help it?" They replied, that if his father had been so served; he would have sworn so, as no man could have endured it. "Away," rejoined the Prince, "all the pleasure in the world is not worth an oath."

SON OF EVELYN OF WOTTON..

EVELYN, of Wotton, in his Diary, gives an inte

resting and pathetic account of a very promising son, whom he lost at the early age of five years, and as the most beautiful feature in this sweet child's history is his piety, I shall give it here.

"January 27th, 1658, died my deare son Richard, to our inexpressible griefe and affliction, five years and three days old onely, but at that tender age a prodigy for wit and understanding; for beauty of body a very angel; for endowment of mind of incredible and rare hopes. To give onely a little taste of some of them,

and thereby glory to God, who out of the mouths of babes and infants does sometimes perfect his praises at two yeares and half old, he could perfectly read any of the English, Latine, French, or Gothic letters, pronouncing the three first languages exactly. He had before the fifth yeare, or in that yeare, not onely skill to reade most written hands, but to decline all the nouns, conjugate the verbs regular, and most of the irregular learned out Puerilis, got by heart almost the entire vocabularie of Latine and French primitives and words, could make congruous syntax, turne English into Latine, and vice versa, construe and prove what he read, and did the government and use of relatives, verbs, substantives, elipses, and many figures and tropes, and made a considerable progress in Comenius's Janua; began himself to write legibly, and had a strong passion for Greeke. The number of verses he could recite was prodigious, and what he remembered of the parts of playes, which he would also act: and when seeing a Plautus in a person's hand, he asked what booke it was, and being told it was comedy, and too difficult for him, he wept for sorrowe. Strange was his apt and ingenious application of fables and morals, for he had read Æsop; he had a wonderful disposition to mathematics, having by heart divers propositions of Euclid that were read to him in play, and he would

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make lines and demonstrate them. As to his piety, astonishing were his applications of Scripture upon occasion, and his sense of God; he had learned all his Catechisme early, and understood the historical part of the Bible and New Testament to a wonder, how Christ came to redeeme mankind, and how, comprehending these necessarys himselfe, his godfathers were discharged of their promise. These and the like illuminations far exceeding his age and experience, considering the prettinesse of his addresse and behaviour, cannot but leave impressions in me at the memory of him. When one told him how many dayes a Quaker had fasted, he replied that was no wonder, for Christ had said man should not live by bread alone, but by the Word of God. He would of himself select the most pathetic psalms, and chapters out of Job, to reade to his maide during his sicknesse, telling her when she pitied him, that all God's children must suffer affliction. He declaimed against the vanities of the world, before he had seen any. How thankfully would he receive admonition, how soon be reconciled! He would give grave advice to his brother John, beare with his impertinencies, and say, he was but a child. If he heard of or saw any thing new, he was unquiet till he was told how it was made; he brought to us all such difficulties as he found in books, to be expounded.

He had learn'd by heart divers sentences in Latin and Greeke, which on occasion he would produce even to wonder. He was all life, all prettinesse, far from morose, sullen, or childish in any thing he said or did. The last time he had been at church, which was at Greenwich, I asked him, according to custome, what he remembered of the sermon; Two good things, father, said he, bonum gratiæ and bonum gloriæ, with a just account of what the preacher said. The day before he died he call'd to me, and in a more serious manner than usual, told me that for all I loved him so dearly, I should give my house, land, and all my fine things, to his brother Jack, he should have none of them; and next morning, when he found himself ill, and that I persuaded him to keepe his hands in bed, he demanded whether he might pray to God, with his hands unjoyn'd; and a little after, whilst in greate agonie, whether he should not offend God by using his holy name so often, calling for ease. What shall I say of his frequent pathetical ejaculations uttered of himselfe; "Sweete Jesus, save me, deliver me, pardon my sinnes, let thine angels receive me!" So early knowledge, so much piety and perfection! But thus God having dress'd up a saint fit for himselfe, would not longer permit him with us, unworthy of the future fruites of this incomparable hopefull blossome. Such a child I never saw! for

such a child I blesse God in whose bosome he is. May I and mine become as this little child, who now follows the child Jesus, that Lamb of God, in a white robe whithersoever he goes. Even so, Lord Jesus, fiat voluntas tua! Thou gavest him to us, Thou hast taken him from us, blessed be the name of the Lord! That I had any thing acceptable to Thee was from thy grace alone, since from me he had nothing but sin, but that Thou hast pardoned! blessed be my God for ever, amen."