peace, whereupon a pleasant fellow said, that he had been crush'd, but that he saved himself upon his horns.

When the archduke did raise his siege from the Grave, the then secretary came to Queen Elizabeth. The queen (having first intelligence thereof) said to the secretary, "Wote you that the archduke is risen from the Grave?' He answered: 66 What, without the trumpet of the archangel?" The queen replied, "Yes; without sound cf trumpet."

The council did make remonstrance unto Queen Elizabeth, of the continual conspiracies against her life; and namely, that a man was lately taken, who stood ready in a very dangerous and suspicious manner to do the deed: and they showed her the weapon wherewith he thought to have acted it. And therefore they advised her, that she should go less abroad to take the air, weakly attended, as she used. But the queen answered, that she had rather be dead, than put in custody.

Henry the Fourth of France his queen was young with child; Count Soissons, that had his expectation upon the crown, when it was twice or thrice thought that the queen was with child before, said to some of his friends, that it was but with a pillow. This had some ways-come to the king's ear; who kept it till such time as the queen waxed great: then he called the count of Soissons to him, and said, laying his hand upon the queen's belly, "Come, cousin, is this a pillow?" The count of Soissons answered, "Yes, sir, it is a pillow for all France to sleep upon."

Queen Elizabeth was wont to say, upon the commission of sales, that the commissioners used her like strawberry-wives, that layed two or three great strawberries at the mouth of their pot, and all the rest were little ones: so they made her two or three good prizes of the first particulars, but fell straightways.

Queen Elizabeth used to say of her instructions to great officers, that they were like to garments, strait at the first putting on, but did by-and-by wear easy enough.

A great officer at court, when my lord of Essex was first in trouble; and that he, and those that dealt for him, would

talk much of any lord's friends, and of his enemies, answered to one of them: "I will tell you, I know but one friend and one enemy my lord hath; and that one friend is the queen, and that one enemy is himself."

The book of deposing King Richard the Second, and the coming in of Henry the Fourth, supposed to be written by Doctor Hayward, who was committed to the Tower for it, had much incensed Queen Elizabeth; and she asked Mr. Bacon, being then of her counsel learned, whether there were any treason contained in it? Who intending to do him a pleasure, and to take off the queen's bitterness with a merry conceit, answered, "No, madam, for treason I cannot deliver opinion that there is any, but very much felony:" the queen apprehending it gladly, asked, how; and wherein? Mr. Bacon answered, “Because he had stolen many of his sentences and conceits out of Cornelius Tacitus."

Queen Elizabeth was dilatory enough in suits, of her own nature; and the lord treasurer Burleigh being a wise man, and willing therein to feed her humour, would say to her, Madam, you do well to let suiters stay; for I shall tell you, bis dat, qui cito dat; if you grant them speedily, they will come again the sooner."

Sir Nicholas Bacon, who was keeper of the great seal of England, when Queen Elizabeth, in her progress, came to his house at Gorhambury, and said to him, "My lord, what a little house have you gotten!" answered her, "Madam, my house is well; but it is you that have made me too great for my house."

The lord-keeper Sir Nicholas Bacon was asked his opinion by Queen Elizabeth, of one of these monopoly licenses? And he answered, "Madam, will you have me speak the truth? Licentia omnes deteriores sumus:"'-we are all the worse for licenses.

My lord of Essex, at the succour of Rouen, made twentyfour knights, which at that time was a great number. Divers of those gentlemen were of weak and small means; which, when Queen Elizabeth heard, she said, "My lord might have done well to have built his almshouse, before he made his knights."

The deputies of the reformed religion, after the massacre which was at Paris upon Saint Bartholomew's day, treated with the king and queen-mother, and some other of the council, for a peace. Both sides were agreed upon the articles. The question was, upon the security for the performance. After some particulars propounded and rejected, the queenmother said, "Why, is not the word of a king sufficient secu. rity?" One of the deputies answered, "No, by St. Bartholomew, madam."

When peace was renewed with the French in England, divers of the great counsellors were presented from the French with jewels: the Lord Henry Howard, being then earl of Northampton, and a counsellor, was omitted. Whereupon the king said to him, "My lord, how happens it that have not a jewel as well as the rest?" My lord answered, according to the fable in Æsop, "Non sum gallus, itaque non reperi gemmam."

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There was a minister deprived for nonconformity, who said to some of his friends, that if they deprived him, it should cost an hundred men's lives. The party understood it, as if being a turbulent fellow, he would have moved sedition, and complained of him; whereupon being convented and opposed upon that speech, he said his meaning was, that if he lost his benefice, he would practise physic, and then he thought he should kill an hundred men in time.

Secretary Bourn's son kept a gentleman's wife in Shropshire, who lived from her husband with him; when he was weary of her, he caused her husband to be dealt with to take her home, and offered him five hundred pounds for reparation ; the gentleman went to Sir H. Sidney, to take his advice upon this offer, telling him, that his wife promised now a new life; and to tell him truth, five hundred pounds would come well with him. "By my truth," said Sir Henry Sidney "take her home, and take the money: then whereas other cuckolds wear their horns plain, you may wear yours gilt."

When Rabelais, the great jester of France, lay on his death-bed, and they gave him the extreme unction, a familiar friend of his came to him afterwards, and asked him how he

did? Rabelais answered, "Even going my journey, they have greased my boots already."

Thales, as he looked upon the stars, fell into the water; whereupon it was after said, that if he had looked into the water, he might have seen the stars; but looking up to the stars, he could not see the water.

Master Mason, of Trinity College, sent his pupil to another of the fellows, to borrow a book of him, who told him, “I am loth to lend my books out of my chamber; but if it please thy tutor to come and road it here, he shall as long as he will." It was winter, and some days after the same fellow sent to Mr. Mason to borrow his bellows; but Mr. Mason said, "I am loth to lend my bellows out of my chamber; but if thy tutor would come and use it here, he shall as long as he will.”

In Flanders, by accident, a Flemish tiler fell from the top of a house upon a Spaniard, and killed him, though he escaped himself: the next of the blood prosecuted his death with geat violence, and when he was offered pecuniary recompense, nothing would serve him but lex talionis; whereupon the judge said to him, that if he did urge that sentence, it must be, that he should go up to the top of the house, and then fall down upon the tiler.

There was a young man in Rome, that was very like Augustus Cæsar; Augustus took knowledge of him, and sent for the man, and asked him, "Was your mother never at Rome?" He answered, "No, sir, but my father was.”

Agesilaus, when one told him there was one did excellently counterfeit a nightingale, and would have had him heard him, said, "Why, I have heard the nightingale herself."

There was a captain sent to an exploit by his general with forces that were not likely to achieve the enterprise; the captain said to him, "Sir, appoint but half so many." "Why?" saith the general. The captain answered, "Because it is better few die than more."

There was a harbinger who had lodged a gentleman in a very ill room, who expostulated with him somewhat rudely ;

but the harbinger carelessly said, "You will reap pleasure from it when you are out of it."

There is a Spanish adage, “Love without end hath no end;' meaning, that if it were begun not upon particular ends it would last.

A company of scholars going together to catch conies, carried one scholar with them, which had not much more wit than he was born with; and to him they gave in charge, that if he saw any, he should be silent, for fear of scaring them. But he no sooner espied a company of rabbits before the rest, but he cried aloud," Ecce multi cuniculi,” which in English signifies, behold many conies; which he had no sooner said, but the conies ran to their burrows: and he being checked by them for it, answered, "Who the devil would have thought that the rabbits understood Latin ?"

Solon compared the people unto the sea, and orators and counsellors to the winds; for that the sea would be calm and quiet, if the winds did not trouble it.

A man being very jealous of his wife, insomuch that which way soever she went, he would be prying at her heels; and she being so grieved thereat, in plain terms told him, that if he did not for the future leave off his proceedings in that nature, she would graft such a pair of horns upon his head, that should hinder him from coming out of any door in the house.

A tinker passing Cheapside with his usual tone, "Have you any work for a tinker?" An apprentice standing at a door opposite to a pillory there set up, called the tinker, with an intent to put a jest upon him, and told him, that he should do very well if he would stop those two holes in the pillory; to which the tinker answered, that if he would put in his head and ears a while in that pillory, he would bestow both brass and nails upon him to hold him in, and give him his abour into the bargain.

Whitehead, a grave divine, was much esteemed by Queen Elizabeth, but not preferred, because he was against the government of bishops: he was of a blunt stoical nature; he came one day to the queen, and the queen happened to say to him, "I like thee the better Whitehead, because thou livest