"The Lady Haddington," writes Chamberlain, "hath bestowed a favour upon him that will not easily fall to the ground; for she says the flower and beauty of his embassy (1616) consists in three mignards, three dancers, and three fools, or buffoons. The mignards are himself, Sir Harry Rich [afterwards Earl of Holland], and Sir George Goring [afterwards Earl of Norwich]; the dancers, Sir Gilbert Hoghton, Auchmouty, and Abercromby; the fools or buffoons are Sir Thomas Jermyn, Sir Ralph Sheldon, and Thomas Badger." (Ibid. 177.)

The Earl of Carlisle died on the 25th of April 1636, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. Clarendon has given a long character of him, in the course of which it is stated, that he wholly ran through £400,000 which he had received from the Crown.

NO. XXI.-LORD BACON.

The Lord Verulam used to say, that he loved to have his throate cut with a razour, and not with a saw; intimating the smooth and keene oyly knaverie of some, and the ragged, rough, and rude knaverie of others. L'Estrange, No. 58. Sir Jo. Hobart.

NO. XXII.-ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES ANOTHER.

Sir Martin Stuteville's father riding abroade one day, with him attending on him, he rode by the nurse's house that over-laide his eldest sonne, at which time the nurse stoode at the doore: "Looke you there, Martin," sayde his father, "there stands she that made you an elder brother." "Is that she, Sir," sayes he," marry, God's blessing on her hart for it!" and presently gallopps up to her and gives her a couple of shillings. L'Estrange, No. 60. My Uncle T. Cattline.

The Stutevilles were a Suffolk family, and long resident at Dalham, in that county; one of them, probably the father, mentioned in the above anecdote, "continewed and kept hospitalitye," according to an inscription to his memory in Dalham Church, "in the mannor place here forty years together." Sir Henry Ellis has published, in his Collection of Original Letters, many amusing extracts from various news letters addressed to Sir Martin Stuteville by Mr. Joseph Mead, and extant in the Harleian MSS. 389 and 390.

NO. XXIII.-LIKE CAUSES SHOULD PRODUCE LIKE EFFECTS.

Hacklewitt and another drinking hard at the Miter Taverne, and wanting attendance, when the chamberlaine came up, in a madde

humour tooke him up and coyted him downe to the bottome of the stayres, and almost broke his necke; the fellow complaines, his master comes and expostulates the cause. Why," sayes Hacklewitt, "when

66

we wanted our wine we threw downe a quartt, and presently we had a pottle came up, and I expected a cast of chamberlaines upon the throwing downe of this, for none would come with a call, therefore we thought a knock was the only summons."

L'Estrange, No. 77. Ned Lewkenor.

The only further information which I have to offer, with regard to Hacklewit, is contained in another anecdote from the same Collection, No. 88, where we are told, on the authority of Dr. Stubbe, that "Hacklewitt was Doctor Topham's puple, and his tutor was saying to him one day, (having reproved him for his dissolute courses), Well, th' art a very wretch; for I am sure I am out of £500 for such as thou art, and never drunke for 't.' That's a proper peece of business indeed,' sayes Hacklewit, why I have druncke £500, and never payd for 't.'"

The Doctor Topham here alluded to, is most probably that Anthony Topham, Dean of Lincoln, who is mentioned by Anthony Wood, as having " died in the rebellious times."

NO. XXIV.-A CONCENTRATION OF TALENT.

Sir Rob. Bell, being in company with Sir J. Hobart, Sir Cha. Grosse, &c. in a merry humour would goe make his will, and give every man a legacie; but when he came to Mr. Paston, sayes he, "I know not what to bestow on the: my witt I shall not neede for thou must needs be well stor'd with that, because thou hast the witt of at least three generations," for his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father were all fooles. L'Estrange, No. 79. Unc. Rich. Catline.

The point of this somewhat unfeeling jest has been already explained in the note to No. vii. Sir Robert Bell was of Beaupré hall, co. Norfolk, and died in 1639. (See Hist. of Norfolk, 1807, vii. 460.) He was cousin to the writer of these anecdotes, and to Sir John Hobart, Knt. and Bart. who was the son and heir of Sir Henry Hobart, Lord Chief Justice, by Dorothy, daughter of Sir Robert Bell, Lord Chief Baron, before-mentioned under No. 11. Sir Charles Grosse, or Le Gross, was of Crostwick, in the same county. (Ibid. xi. 10.)

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NO. XXV. PEDANTRY AND PUNS.

Dr. Collins and Dr. Field, being to dispute before King James, had promised one another to lay aside all extravagancie of witt, and to buckle to a serious argumentation; but they soone violated their owne lawe, for Field beganne thus: "Sic disputas, Colendissime Collins," and Collins againe to him afterward, "Sic disputas, Ager Colende." L'Estrange, No. 82. Mr. Greene.

The superlatives of this anecdote were evidently formed in the same school as one which created much merriment on King James's visit to Cambridge in 1614-15; when the University Orator, Sir Francis Nethersole, on complimenting the Prince of Wales, addressed him as Jacobissime Carole; " and some (adds Mr. Chamberlain) will needs add, that he called him Jacobule too; which neither pleased the King nor any body else." Bishop Corbet, in his "Grave Poem " written on this occasion, thus versified the Orator's exordium :

"I wonder what your Grace doth here,
Who have expected been twelve yeare;

And this your son fair Carolus,
That is so Jacobissimus."

(Progr. of James I. ii. 59, 69.)

Dr. Richard Field, Prebendary of Windsor and Dean of Gloucester, who wrote, " Of the Church, Four Books," (Lond. 1606, fol.) was at one time, says Anthony Wood, "esteemed one of the best disputants in Oxon; and so eminently the best that most scholars did acknowledge him to be so." In 1598 he was made Chaplain, and afterwards Chaplain in Ordinary to Queen Elizabeth; and in the beginning of King James's reign received the same appointments to that Sovereign, and by his Majesty's own appointment, was sent for to be at Hampton Court. In 1604 he became Canon of Windsor, and in 1609 Dean of Gloucester. When King James I. heard him preach for the first time, he said, "This is a Field for God to dwell in," an expression, remarks Wood, not much unlike to that in the book called "The Holy War," where, in lib. iv. cap. 5, the author (Thomas Fuller), citing something out of the third book of The Church, written by our author Field, he stileth him," that learned divine, whose memory smelleth like a field the Lord hath blessed." This worthy man, who was one of the first Fellows nominated by King James I. for the intended foundation of Chelsea College, died 15 Nov. 1616. (See Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ii. 183, ed. Bliss.)

Dr. Field was a disputant before the King at Oxford in 1605 (Nichols's Progresses, &c. of King James I. i. 533); but there was no Dr. Collins engaged in the disputation. In 1612-13, Mr. Samuel Collins (afterwards Regius Professor of Divinity and Provost of King's), was a disputant before Prince Charles at Cambridge. (Ibid. iii. 1086.) Both these learned men, therefore, though they were members of different Universities, were eminent in these scholastic exercises; which is perhaps a sufficient foundation for this story. The latter will be noticed more fully hereafter under No. LXXI.

means bound to him, and knowing him very well), yet the day will come, when both they and we shall be known as we are." Wood says, he was reported to be "a man of a facetious nature, yet a great Mecænas of learning." He was a liberal benefactor to his college. In the latter part of his life he was much at Lambeth Palace, and dying there April 26, 1589, was buried in Lambeth Church. (Vide Wood's Fasti Oxon. i. 141, Bliss's edition; and Bentham's Ely, 228.)

The task imposed upon this facetious divine, who, as Fuller relates in his Worthies, was himself killed by a jest, reminds us of what Granger (iv. 219), tells respecting Mother Creswell, a famous procuress of Charles the Second's time, who left by will ten pounds for any clergyman that should preach a funeral sermon, and say nothing but what was well of her. A preacher was with some difficulty found, who undertook the task; and concluded a sermon, on the general subject of morality, with saying, "By the will of the deceased, it is expected that I should mention her, and say nothing but what was well of her; all that I shall say of her, therefore, is this, she was born well, she lived well, and she died well, for she was born with the name of Creswell, she lived in Clerkenwell, and she died in Bridewell."

NO. VI.—WITHIN AN ACE ON'T.

A Falconer of Sir Robert Mordant's, not knowing his dogges names, called one of them Cinque whose name was Sice, and my cozen Harry Mordant telling him his error, "Faith, Sir," sayes he, "'t was well I came so neare: I am sure I was within an Ace on 't."

L'Estrange, No. 15. Phil. Calth.

Sir Robert Mordaunt, of Massingham, in the county of Norfolk, received the honour of knighthood during the lifetime of his father Sir L'Estrange Mordaunt, who having signalised himself in the reign of Elizabeth, as a military commander in the wars of the Low Countries, and in Ireland, was among the first raised to a baronetcy, being so created 29 June 1611, soon after the institution of the order. He succeeded his father as second baronet in 1627. "My cousin Harry Mordaunt" was no doubt Henry, second son of Henry Mordaunt, the brother of Sir Robert.

NO. VII. A THOROUGH-BRED FOOL.

Jack Paston began one time to jeast upon Capon (who sat very silent and reply'd nothing), and told him merrily he never met with such a dull clay-pated Foole, that could not answere a word, and bade him remember he out-fool'd him once. "No, faith," sayes Capon, " I were a very Foole indeede, to deak with you at that weapon: I know

the straine of the Pastons too well, and you must needs be right-bredd for't, for I am sure your Race has not beene witho't a good Foole these fifty yeares and upward." L'Estrange, No. 19. Mr. Rob. Wallpoole.

The bitterness of this jest against the Paston family, some of the earlier members of whom evince, in the well-known Collection of Letters, both talent and a fondness for literature, is to be found in the fact, that at an inquisition taken at Norwich Castle, Sept. 3, in the 9th year of James I. the jurors found that Sir Christopher Paston appeared before them personally, and that he was Fatuus et Idiota, and had been so for twenty-four years past, &c. (See Blomefield's Norfolk, iii. 698.)

NO. VIII.—A SON-BURNT wooer.

Sir Henry Yelverton's lady us'd to say of any one that was a widdower, and had a sonne to inheritt his estate, and desir'd a second wife, that nobody would have him he was so sonne-burnt.

L'Estrange, No. 21. My Mother.

If this lady was the wife of the celebrated Sir H. Yelverton, who was, in the reign of James I. Solicitor and Attorney-general, and eventually one of the Justices of the Court of Common Pleas, she was the daughter of Robert Beale, Esq. Clerk of the Council, the bearer of the warrant for the execution of the Queen of Scots to Fotheringay.

NO. IX.-DOD THE DECALogist.

One Dod, who was nephew to the minister who wrote upon the Commandments, went up and down Paule's Churchyard amongst the Stationers, enquiring for his unkle upon the Commandements.

L'Estrange, No. 26. Mr. Donne.

The uncle of this simple gentleman, who was unquestionably the party recorded in Joe Miller as having inquired at the Post Office for a letter from his father in the country,' was the celebrated Hebrew scholar John Dod, of Jesus College, Cambridge. He was an eminent puritan divine; and from his Exposition of the Ten Commandments here alluded to, and which he wrote in conjunction with Robert Cleaver, he was commonly called the Decalogist.

Granger, in his Biographical History (i. 370, ed. 1779), tells us, “ His Sayings have been printed in various forms; many of them, on two sheets of paper, are still to be seen pasted on the walls of cottages. An old woman in my neighbourhood told me,' that she should have gone distracted for the loss of her husband, if she had been without Mr. Dod's Sayings in the house.""