Content I live, this is my staye; I seek no more than may suffice: I presse to beare no haughtie sway; Look! what I lack my minde supplies. Loe! thus I triumph like a king, Content with what my minde doth bring. I see how plenty surfets oft, And hastie clymbers soonest fall; I see that such as sit aloft Mishap doth threaten most of all; These get with toile, and keep with feare Such cares my mind could never beare. No princely pompe, nor welthie store, No wylie wit to salve a sore, No shape to winne a lover's eye; Some have too much, yet still they crave, They poore, I rich; they beg, I give; I laugh not at another's losse, I grudge not at another's gaine; I joy not in no earthly blisse; I weigh not Cresus' welthe a straw; For care, I feare not fortune's fatall law: My minde is such as may not move For beautie bright or force of love. I wish but what I have at will; I wander not to seek for more; I like the plaine, I clime no hill, In greatest stormes I sitte on shore, And laugh at them that toile in vaine To get what must be lost againe. I kisse not when I wish to kill, I feigne not love where most I hate, I wayte not at the mightie's gate; The court, ne cart, I like, ne loath, Extreames are counted worst of all; My welthe is health and perfect ease, My conscience cleare my chiefe defence; I never seeke by brybes to please, Curious Books. ODD TITLES OF OLD BOOKS, Mostly Published in the time of Cromwell. A Fan to drive away Flies: a theological treatise on Purgatory. A most Delectable Sweet Perfumed Nosegay for God's Saints to Smell at. A Pair of Bellows to blow off the Dust cast upon John Fry. A Proper Project to Startle Fools: Printed in a Land where Self's cry'd up and Zeal's cry'd down. A Reaping-Hook, well tempered, for the Stubborn Ears of the coming Crop; or, Biscuit baked in the Oven of Charity, carefully conserved for the Chickens of the Church, the Sparrows of the Spirit, and the sweet Swallows of Salvation. A Sigh of Sorrow for the Sinners of Zion, breathed out of a Hole in the Wall of an Earthly Vessel, known among Men by the Name of Samuel Fish (a Quaker who had been imprisoned). A Shot aimed at the Devil's Head- Quarters through the Tube of the Cannon of the Covenant. Crumbs of Comfort for the Chickens of the Covenant. Eggs of Charity, layed by the Chickens of the Covenant, and boiled with the Water of Divine Love. Take Ye and eat. High-heeled Shoes for Dwarfs in Holiness. Seven Sobs of a Sorrowful Soul for Sin, or the Seven Penitential Psalms of the Princely Prophet David; whereunto are also added, William Humius' Handful of Honeysuckles, and Divers Godly and Pithy Ditties, now newly augmented. Spiritual Milk for Babes, drawn out of the Breasts of both Testaments for their Souls' Nourishment: a catechism. The Bank of Faith. The Christian Sodality; or, Catholic Hive of Bees, sucking the Honey of the Churches' Prayer from the Blossoms of the Word of God, blowne out of the Epistles and Gospels of the Divine Service throughout the yeare. Collected by the Puny Bee of all the Hive not worthy to be named otherwise than by these Elements of his Name, F. P. The Gun of Penitence. The Innocent Love; or, the Holy Knight: a description of the ardors of a saint for the Virgin. The Shop of the Spiritual Apothecary; or a collection of passages from the fathers. The Sixpennyworth of Divine Spirit. The Sound of the Trumpet: a work on the day of judgment. The Spiritual Mustard Pot, to make the Soul Sneeze with Devotion. The Three Daughters of Job: a treatise on patience, fortitude, and pain. Tobacco battered, and the Pipes shattered about their Ears that idly idolize so loathsome a Vanity, by a Volley of holy shot thundered from Mount Helicon: a poem against the use of tobacco, by Joshua Sylvester. Vox Cœlis; or, Newes from Heaven: being imaginary conversations there between Henry VIII., Edward VI., Prince Henrie, and others. THE MOST CURIOUS BOOK IN THE WORLD. The most singular bibliographic curiosity is that which belonged to the family of the Prince de Ligne, and is now in France. It is entitled Liber Passionis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, cum Characteribus Nulla Materia Compositis. This book is neither written nor printed! The whole letters of the text are cut out of each folio upon the finest vellum; and, being interleaved with blue paper, it is read as easily as the best print. The labor and patience bestowed in its completion must have been excessive, especially when the precision and minuteness of the letters are considered. The general execution, in every respect, is indeed admirable; and the vellum is of the most delicate and costly kind. Rodolphus II. of Germany offered for it, in 1640, eleven thousand ducats, which was probably equal to sixty thousand at this day. The most remarkable circumstance connected with this literary treasure is, that it bears the royal arms of England, but it cannot be traced to have ever been in that country. SILVER BOOK. In the Library of Upsal, in Sweden, there is preserved a translation of the Four Gospels, printed with metal types upon violet-colored vellum. The letters are silver, and hence it has received the name of Codex Argenteus. The initial letters are in gold. It is supposed that the whole was printed in the same manner as bookbinders letter the title of books on the back. It was a very near approach to the discovery of the art of printing; but it is not known how old it is. BOOK AMATEURS. It was the Abbé Rive, librarian to the Duke de la Vallière, who made the following classification : A Bibliognoste is one knowing in title-pages and colophons, and in editions; when and where printed; the presses whence issued; and all the minutiae of a book. A Bibliographe is a describer of books and other literary arrangements. A Bibliomane is an indiscriminate accumulator, who blunders faster than he buys, cock-brained and purse-heavy. A Bibliophile, the lover of books, is the only one in the class who appears to read them for his own pleasure. A Bibliotaphe buries his books, by keeping them under lock, or framing them in glass cases. Literaria. THE LETTERS OF JUNIUS. "JUNIUS" was the name or signature of a writer who published, at intervals between 1769 and 1772, a series of political papers on the leading questions and men of that day. They appeared in the newspaper called the Public Advertiser, and attracted immense attention, partly from the high position of the characters assailed, (among whom was George III. himself,) and still more from their brilliancy of style, their boldness of tone, and the tremendous severity of the invectives employed in them. The letters are still models of that species of writing, -though it has since risen to such a point of excellence generally as would greatly weaken the force of any similar phenomena if appearing in our day. However, from the monarch to the meanest of his subjects, all men were impressed deeply at the time by the letters of Junius, the mystery attending their authorship adding largely to their influence. It was a mystery at the moment, and remains a puzzle still. Not even the publisher, Woodfall, knew who his correspondent was, or, at least, not certainly. Yet all the world felt the letters to be the work of no common man. Their most remarkable feature, |