would shew us a pot, or box, which they had in a budget, wherein there was such trumpery as they did use to grease horses' heels with; and others that were coblers and tinkers, they used shoemakers' wax, with the rust of old pans, and made therewithal a noble salve,' as they did term it. In the end, this worthy rabblement was committed to the Marshalsea, and threatened by the Duke's Grace to be hanged for their worthy deeds, except they would declare the truth, what they were, &c. And in the end they did confess as I declared to you before; that some were sowgelders, some horse-gelders, with tinkers and coblers." LADY JANE GREY. THE following curious account of the early years of this unfortunate queen, whose sovereignty began and ended in the short space of nine days, is extracted from the "Schoolmaster" of the learned Roger Ascham, who on visiting her at her father's seat in Leicestershire, found her studying the Phadon of Plato. "After salutation," he writes, "and dewty done, and after some other tauke, I asked her, 'why she wolde loose such pastime in the parke?' [where the rest of the family were pursuing a stag.] Smiling, she answered me, 'I wisse all their sport in the parke is but a shadow to the pleasure that I find in Plato. Alas, good folkes! they never felt what trewe pleasure meant!' 'And how came you, Madam,' quoth I, 'by this knowledge of pleasure? and what did chieflie allure you to it; seeinge not many women, and but very fewe men, have attained thereunto?' 'I will tell you,' quoth she, 'and tell you a truth which perchaunce ye will marvell at: one of the greatest benefites that God gave me is, that he sent me so sharpe and severe parentes, and so jentle a schoolmaster; for when I am in presence eyther of father or mother; whether I speake, keepe silence, sitt, stand, or go; eate, drinke, be merie or sad; be sowying, playing, dauncing, or doing anie thing else, I must do it, as it were, in suche measure, weighte, and number, even so perfectlie as God made the world, or else I am so sharplie taunted, so cruellie threatened, yea, presentlie, sometimes, with pinches, nippes, bobbes, (and other waies which I will not name for the honour I bear them) so without measure misordered, that I thinke myself in hell, till time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer, [afterwards Bishop of London, in Elizabeth's reign;] who teacheth me so pleasantlie, so jentlie, and with such faire allurements to learning, that I thinke alle the times nothing whiles I am with him; and when I am called from him, I fall on weepinge :" The great proficiency in erudition of this ill-fated Lady was singularly exercised, when almost in her last hours, it prompted her to write with a pin, on the walls of her prison in the Tower, the following lines: Non aliena putes, homini quæ obtingere possunt Sors aliena mihi, tunc erit illa tibi. And, Deo juvante, nil nocet livor malus ; Et non juvante, nil juvat labor gravis. ROYAL SOCIETY. THE ensuing particulars of the origin of this society, have been extracted from the memorials of his own life, written by the Rev. Dr. Wallis, in a letter to Dr. Thomas Smith, now preserved in Smith's collection of MSS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Dr. Wallis was born at Ashford in Kent, on the 23d of November, 1616, and dying at Oxford on the 28th October, 1703, when within a few days of eightyseven years of age, he was buried in St. Mary's church in that city. He is well known as one of the first and most eminent of our decypherers and mathematicians. "About the year 1645, while I lived in London, (at a time, when by our Civil wars, academical studies were much interrupted in both our Universities) beside the conversation of divers eminent divines, as to matters theological, I had the opportunity of being acquainted with divers worthy persons, inquisitive into natural philosophy, and other parts of human learning; and particularly of what hath been called the New Philosophy, or Experimental Philosophy. "We did, by agreement, divers of us, meet weekly in London, on a certain day, to treat and discourse of such affairs. Of which number were Dr. John Wilkins, (afterwards Bishop of Chester,) Dr. Jonathan Goddard, Dr. George Ent, Dr. Glisson, Dr. Merrit, (Drs. in Physic) Mr. Samuel Foster, then Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, Mr. Theodore Haak, (a German of the Palatinate, and then resident in London, who I think gave the first occasion, and first suggested those meetings) and many others. « These meetings we held sometimes at Dr. Goddard's lodgings in Wood-street, (or some convenient place near) on occasion of his keeping an operator in his house for grinding glasses for telescopes and microscopes; sometimes at a convenient place in Cheapside, and sometimes at Gresham College, or some place near adjoining. "Our business was, (precluding matters of theology and state affairs) to discourse and consider of philosophical enquiries, or such as related thereto; as physick, anatomy, geometry, astronomy, navigation, staticks, magnetics, chymicks, mechanicks and natural experiments; with the state of those studies, as then cultivated at home and abroad. We there discoursed of the circulation of the blood, the valves in the veins, the vena lactea, the lymphatick vessels, the Copernican hypothesis, the nature of comets and new stars, the satellites of Jupiter, the oval shape (as it then appeared) of Saturn, the spots in the Sun, and its turning on its own axis, the inequalities and selenography of the Moon, the several phases of Venus and Mercury, the improvement of telescopes, and grinding of glasses for that purpose; the weight of air, the possibility or impossibility of vacuities and nature's abhorrence thereof; the Torricellian experiment in quicksilver; the descent of heavy bodies, and the degrees of accelleration therein; and divers other things of like nature. Some of which were then but new discoveries, and others not so generally known and embraced as they now are; with other things appertaining to what hath been called the new philosophy, which from the times of Galileo, at Florence, and Sir Francis Bacon, (Lord Verulam) in England, hath been much cultivated in Italy, France, Germany, and other parts abroad, as well as in England. "About the year 1648-9, some of our company being removed to Oxford, (first Dr. Wilkins, then I, and soon after Dr. Goddard) our company divided. Those in London continued to meet there as before, and we with them when we had occasion to be there; and those of us at Oxford, with Dr. Ward, (since Bishop of Salisbury,) Dr. Ralph Bathurst, (now president of Trinity College in Oxford,) Dr. Petty, (since Sir William Petty,) Dr. Willis, (then an eminent Physician in Oxford,) and divers others continued such meetings at Oxford, and brought such studies into fashion there; meeting first at Dr. Petty's lodgings in an apothecary's house, because of the convenience of inspecting drugs and the like, as there was occasion; and after his removal to Ireland (though not so constantly) at the lodgings of Dr. Wilkins, the Warden of Wadham College; and after his removal to Trinity College in Cambridge, at the lodgings of the Honourable Mr. Robert Boyle, then resident for divers years in Oxford. "Those meetings in London continued, and after the King's return in 1660, were increased by the accession of divers worthy and honourable persons; and were afterwards incorporated by the name of the Royal Society, &c. and so continue to this day." The Charter of Incorporation of the Royal Society, was granted by Charles the Second, in the year 1663. Until the year 1824, when it was raised to four guineas, the yearly payment of each member continued to be fifty-two shillings, at which sum it had been originally fixed. A letter from the great Sir Isaac Newton, is said to be still preserved in the archives of this society, stating that he could nat afford to pay more than one shilling weekly! CHARACTER OF A GULL. THE following Epigrams, characteristic of one branch of the dandyism of Queen Elizabeth's days, are derived from a small octavo volume attributed to Christopher Marlow and Sir John Davis, and containing a |