Crusca. He gave out that Leo Allatius, librarian of the Vatican, in examining carefully the мss, of Petrarch preserved there, had found two pages slightly glued, which having separated, he had discovered this ode. The fact was not at first easily credited; but afterwards the similarity of style and manner rendered it highly probable. When Strozzi undeceived the public, it procured the Abbé Regnier a place in the academy, as an honourable testimony of his ingenuity.

Pere Commire, when Louis the XIVth resolved on the conquest of Holland, composed a Latin fable, entitled "The Sun and the Frogs," in which he assumed with such felicity the style and character of Phædrus, that the learned German critic Wolfius was deceived, and innocently inserted it in his edition of that fabulist.

Faminius Strada would have deceived most of the critics of his age, if he had given as the remains of antiquity the different pieces of history and poetry which he composed on the model of the ancients, in his Prolusiones Academica, To preserve probability he might have given out that he had drawn them from some old and neglected library; he had then only to have added a good commentary, tending to display the conformity of the style and manner of these fragments with the works of those authors to whom he ascribed them.

Sigonius was a great master of the style of Cicero, and ventured to publish a treatise de consolatione, as a composition of Cicero recently discovered; many were deceived by the counterfeit, which was performed with great dexterity, and was long received as genuine; but he could not deceive Lipsius, who, after reading only ten lines, threw it away, exclaiming, "Vah! non est Ciceronis!" The late Mr. Burke succeeded more skilfully in his "Vindication of Natural Society," which for a long time passed as the composition of Lord Bolingbroke: so perfect is this ingenious imposture of the spirit, manner, and course of thinking, of the noble author. I believe it was written for a wager, and fairly won.

EDWARD THE FOURTH.

OUR Edward the Fourth was a gay and voluptuous prince; and probably owed his crown to his handsomeness, his enormous debts, and passion for the fair sex. He had many Jane Shores. Honest Philip de Comines, his contemporary, says, "That what greatly contributed to his entering London as soon as he appeared at its gates was the great debts this prince had contracted, which made his creditors gladly assist him; and the high favour in which he was held by the Bourgeoises, into whose good graces he

had frequently glided, and who gained over to him their husbands, who, I suppose, for the tranquillity of their lives, were glad to depose, or to raise monarchs.-Many ladies and rich citizens' wives, of whom formerly he had great privacies and familiar acquaintance, gained over to him their husbands and relations."

This is the description of his voluptuous life; we must recollect that the writer had been an eye-witness, and was an honest man; while modern historians only view objects through the colouring medium of their imagination.

"He had been during the last twelve years more accustomed to his ease and pleasure than any other prince who lived in his time. He had nothing in his thoughts but les dames, and of them more than was reasonable; and hunting-matches, good eating, and great care of his person. When he went in their seasons to these hunting-matches, he always had carried with him great pavilions for les dames, and at the same time gave splendid entertainments; so that it is not surprising that his person was as jolly as any one I ever saw. He was then young, and as handsome as any man of his age; but he has since become enormously fat."

Since I have got old Philip in my hand, the reader will not, perhaps, be displeased, if he attends to a little more of his naïveté, which will appear in the form of a conversazione of the

times. He relates what passed between Edward and the king of France.

"When the ceremony of the oath was concluded, our king, who was desirous of being friendly, began to say to the king of England, in a laughing way, that he must come to Paris, and be jovial amongst our ladies; and that he would give him the Cardinal de Bourbon for his confessor, who would very willingly absolve him of any sin which perchance he might commit. The king of England seemed well pleased at the invitation, and laughed heartily; for he knew that the said cardinal was un fort bon compagnon. When the king was returning, he spoke on the road to me; and said, that he did not like to find the king of England so much inclined to come to Paris. He is,' said he, a very handsome king; he likes the women too much. He may, probably, find one at Paris that may make him like to come too often, or stay too long. His predecessors have already been too much at Paris and in Normandy;' and that his company was not agreeable this side of the sea; but that, beyond the sea, he wished to be bon frère et amy,'"

I have called Philip de Comines honest. The old writers, from the simplicity of their style, usually receive this honourable epithet; but sometimes they deserve it as little as most modern memoir-writers. No enemy is indeed so

terrible as a man of genius. Comines's violent enmity to the Duke of Burgundy, which appears in these Memoirs, has been traced by the minute researchers of anecdotes; and the cause is not honourable to the memoir-writer, whose resentment was implacable. De Comines was born a subject of the Duke of Burgundy, and for seven years had been a favourite; but one day returning from hunting with the Duke, then Count de Charolois, in familiar jocularity he sat himself down before the prince, ordering the prince to pull off his boots. The count laughed, and did this, but in return for Comines's princely amusement, dashed the boot in his face, and gave Comines a bloody nose. From that time he was mortified in the court of Burgundy by the nickname of the booted head. Comines long felt a rankling wound in his mind; and after this family quarrel, for it was nothing more, he went over to the king of France, and wrote off his bile against the Duke of Burgundy in those "Memoirs," which give posterity a caricature likeness of that prince, whom he is ever censuring for presumption, obstinacy, pride, and cruelty. This Duke of Burgundy, however, it is said, with many virtues, had but one great vice, the vice of sovereigns, that of ambition!

The impertinence of Comines had not been chastised with great severity; but the nickname was never forgiven: unfortunately for the duke,