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interred in the chancel of the church at Walton, and his friend and dupe, the learned Elias Ashmole, placed over his remains "a fair black marble stone, which cost him six pounds, four shillings, and sixpence."

The number and extent of our extracts preclude our dwelling at any length on the merits or demerits of the departed Philomath. The simplicity and apparent candour of his narrative, might induce a hasty reader of these Memoirs to believe him a well-meaning but somewhat silly personage, the dupe of his own speculations-the deceiver of himself as well as of others. But an attentive examination of the events of his life, even as recorded by himself, will not warrant so favourable an interpretation. His systematic and successful attention to his own interest-his dexterity in keeping on "the windy side of the law"-his perfect political pliability-and his presence of mind and fertility of resources when entangled in difficulties-indicate an accomplished impostor, not a crazy enthusiast. It is very possible and probable, that, at the outset of his career, he was a real believer in the truth and lawfulness of his art, and that he afterwards felt no inclination to part with so pleasant and so profitable a delusion: like his patron, Cromwell, whose early fanaticism subsided into hypocrisy, he carefully retained his folly as a cloak for his knavery. Of his success in deception, the preceding narrative exhibits abundant proofs. The number of his dupes was not confined to the vulgar and illiterate, but included individuals of real worth and learning, of hostile parties and sects, who courted his acquaintance and respected his predictions. His proceedings were deemed of sufficient importance to be twice made the subject of a parliamentary inquiry; and even after the Restoration—when a little more scepticism, if not more wisdom, might have been expected-we find him examined by a Committee of the House of Commons, respecting his fore-knowledge of the great fire of London. We know not whether it "should more move our anger or our mirth" to see an assemblage of British Senators—the cotemporaries of Hampden and Falkland-of Milton and Clarendon-in an age which roused into action so many and such mighty energies-gravely engaged in ascertaining the causes of a great national calamity, from the prescience of a knavish fortune-teller, and puzzling their wisdoms to interpret the symbolical flames, which blazed in the mis-shapen wood-cuts of his oracular publications.

As a set-off against these honours may be mentioned, the virulent and unceasing attacks of almost all the party scribblers of the day; but their abuse he shared in common with men, whose talents and virtues have outlived the malice of their cotemporaries, and

"Whose honours with increase of ages grow,

As streams roll down, enlarging as they flow."

Butler, whose satire was "as broad and general as the casing air," could not overlook so conspicuous an object of ridicule, as Erra Pater Lilly; and, in his Hudibras, has cursed him with an immortality of derision and contempt. We cannot conclude this article better, than with his witty account of the cunning man, hight SIDROPHEL,

"That deals in destiny's dark counsels,

And sage opinions of the moon sells ;
To whom all people, far and near,
On deep importances repair;
When brass and pewter hap to stray,

And linen slinks out of the

way:
When geese and pullen are seduc'd,
And sows of sucking pigs are chous'd;
When cattle feel indisposition,
And need th' opinion of physician;
When murrain reigns in hogs or sheep,
And chickens languish of the pip;
When yeast and outward means do fail,
And have no power to work on ale;
When butter does refuse to come,
And love proves cross and humoursome;
To him with questions,

* * * *

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He had been long t'wards mathematics,
Opticks, philosophy, and staticks,
Magick, horoscopy, astrology,
And was old dog at physiology:
But, as a dog that turns the spit,
Bestirs himself, and plies his feet
To climb the wheel, but all in vain,
His own weight brings him down again;
And still he's in the self-same place,
Where at his setting out he was:
So, in the circle of the arts,
Did he advance his natʼral parts;
Till falling back still, for retreat,
He fell to juggle, cant, and cheat:
For as those fowls that live in water
Are never wet, he did but smatter:
Whate'er he labour'd to appear,

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Do not our great Reformers use

This SIDROPHEL to forebode news?
To write of victories next year,
And castles taken yet i'th' air?

Of battles fought at sea, and ships
Sunk, two years hence, the last eclipse?
A total o'erthrow giv'n the KING
In Cornwall, horse and foot, next spring?
And has not he point-blank foretold
Whatso'er the Close Committee would?
Made Mars and Saturn for the cause,
The Moon for fundamental laws;
The Ram, the Bull, and Goat, declare
Against the Book of Common Prayer;
The Scorpion take the Protestation,
And Bear engage for Reformation:
Made all the royal stars recant,
Compound, and take the covenant."

ART. IV. Hawkins's Origin of the English Drama, 3 vols. 8vo. Oxford, 1773.

Dodsley's select Collection of Old Plays, 12 vols. 12mo. 1744. The Honorable Historie of frier Bacon, and frier Bongay, as it was plaid by her Majesties servants. Made by Robert Greene, Maister of Arts. London, Printed for Edward White, and are to be sold at his shop, at the little North dore of Poules, at the signe of the Gun: 1594.

A Looking Glasse for London and England. Made by Thomas Lodge, Gentleman, and Robert Greene, in artibus magister. London, imprinted by Bernard Alsop, 1617.

In undertaking to give a series of articles on the English Drama, as stated in our last number, it never entered into our contemplation to mention every name, or give an account of every production which appeared in our dramatic horizon, but merely to give so much as we conceived necessary, in a short space, to enable the reader to command a view of the gradual progress of this species of literature. They must not, there

fore, be surprised to find we have omitted to notice some authors and their productions; we have not, for instance, given any specimen of the moralities indited by our early poet laureat, John Skelton, whose moral interlude of the Nigramansir was printed so early as 1504, by Wynkin de Worde; although the learned Erasmus, in his letter to King Henry the 8th, calls him, "Britannicarum Literarum lumen et decus." In this interlude the Devil is one of the principal dramatis personæ, and the audience (consisting of " the king and other estatys,") were treated with a view of hell, and a dance between the devil and the Nigramansir. Of John Heywood, the epigrammatist, however, the favorite of Henry the 8th and Queen Mary, and the friend of Sir Thomas More, for the reasons stated in our last number, we propose to say a few words. He was the author of several interludes, the whole of which, except the Four P's, were printed in 1533; and that play, which is without date, was probably printed about the same time. The author entitles the last mentioned production a very merry interlude of a Palmer, a Pardoner, a Poticary, and a Pedler; it contains no plot or story, but the incidents are as follow:-the three first-named personages fall into a controversy as to the comparative worthiness of their respective callings, a proposal is made that he who can tell the best lie shall " be waited on" by the others, and the Pedler is constituted judge of this whimsical exhibition of talent. Each of the polemics produces something appropriate to his profession.

The Pardoner says,

"Nay, sirs, beholde, heer may ye see The great toe of the Trinitie.

Who to this toe any money vowth,

And once may role it in his mouth,

All his life after, I undertake,

He shall never be vext with the tooth-ake.
Poticary. I pray you turn that relique about:
Either the Trinity had the gout,

Or els, because it is three toes in one,
God made it asmuche as three toes alone."

The Poticary is anxious to try his skill:

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Poticary. Now if I wist this wishe no sin;
I would to God I might begin.

Pardoner. I am content that thou lie first.

* Henry 7th.

Palmer. Even so am I; now say thy wurst.
Now let us hear of all thy lyes,

The greatest lie thou maist devise.
And in the fewest woords thou can.

Poticary. Forsooth, you are an honest man.
Palmer. There said he muche, but yet no lie.
Pardoner. Now lie ye bothe, by our Lady.
Thou liest in boste of his honestie;
And he hath lyed in affirming thee.

Poticary. If we bothe lie, and you say true,
Then of these lies, your part adue.
And if you win, make none advaunt;
For you are sure of one il servant.

You may perceive by the woords he gave,
He taketh your maship but for a knave.
But who tolde truthe or lyed in deed,
That wil I knowe ere we proceed.
Sir, after that I first began
To praise you for an honest man,

Then you affirm'd it for no lie:

Now, by your faith, speak even truly;
Thought you your affirmation true?

Palmer. Yea, mary, for I would you knew,

I think my self an honest man.

Poticary. What thought you in the contrary than?

Pardoner. In that I said the contrary,

I think from trouth I did not vary.

Poticary. And what of my woords?

Pardoner. I thought you lyed.

Poticary. And so thought I, by God that dyed.

Now have you twain eche for him self laid,

That one hath lyed, but bothe true said.

And of you twain none have denyed,
But both affirmed that I have lyed.
Now sith bothe ye the truthe confesse,
How that I lyed, doo, bear witnes,
That twain of us may soon agree,

And that the lyer the winner must be."

Finding, at length, that this wordy war would, at the rate the disputants were going on, have no end, the Pedler proposes that each of the three rivals in lying should tell a tale, on which he will in due form of law pronounce his judgment. The Poticary commences with a professional story of no very decent description-the Pardoner tells an infernal lie of his fetching

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