Ainsi que les Taupinembous-
En un mot, je fais voir à tout
Que ce que nait dans la nature,

Doit prendre de moy tablature!"

The perpetual employments of Death display copious invention with a facility of humour.

"Egalement je vay rengeant,

Le counseiller et le sergeant,
Le gentilhomme et le berger,
Le bourgeois et le boulanger,
Et la maistresse et la servante
Et la niepce comme la tante;
Monsieur l'abbé, monsieur son moine,
Le petit clerc et le chanoine;
Sans choix je mets dans mon butin
Maistre Claude, maistre Martin,

Dame Luce, dame Perrette, &c.

J'en prends un dans le temps qu'il pleure
A quélque autre, au contraire à l'heure
Que demisurement il rit

Je donne le coup qui le frit.

J'en prends un, pendant qu'il se leve;
En se couchant l'autre j'enlève.
Je prends la malade et le sain

L'un aujourd'hui, l'autre le demain.
J'en surprends un dedans son lict
L'autre à l'estude quand i lit.

* Tablaturé d'un luth, Cotgrave says, is the belly of a luté, meaning "all in nature must dance to my music!"

J'en surprends un le ventre plein
Je menè l'autre par le faim.
J'attrape l'un pendant qu'il prie,
Et l'autre pendant qu'il renie,
J'en saisis un au cabaret

Entre le blanc et le clairet,
L'autre qui dans son oratoire
A son Dieu rend honneur et gloire :
J'en surprends un lors qu'il se pasme
Le jour qu'il epouse sa femme,
L'autre le jour que plein du deuil
La sienne il voit dans le cercueil;
Un à pied et l'autre à cheval
Dans le jeu l'un, et l'autre au bal;
Un qui mange et l'autre qui boit,
Un qui paye et l'autre qui doit.
L'un en été lorsqu'il moissonne
L'autre en vendanges dans l'automne,
L'un criant almanachs nouveaux-
Un qui demande son aumosne
L'autre dans le temps qu'il la donne.
Je prends le bon maistre Clement,
Au temps qu'il rend un lauement,
Et prends la dame Catherine

Le jour qu'elle prend medecine."

This veil of gaiety in the old canon of Ambrun covers deeper and more philosophical thoughts than the singular mode of treating so solemn a theme. He has introduced many scenes of human life, which still interest, and he addresses

the "Teste à triple couronne," as well as the "forsat de galere," who exclaims, "Laissez moi vivre dans mes fers," "le gueu," the "bourgeois,"

66

the chanoine," the "pauvre soldat," the "medecin," in a word, all ranks in life are exhibited, as in all the "dances of death." But our object of noticing these burlesque paintings and poems is to show, that after the monkish Goths had opened one general scene of melancholy and tribulation over Europe, and given birth to that dismal skeleton of death, which still terrifies the imagination of many, a re-action of feeling was experienced by the populace, who at length came to laugh at the gloomy spectre which had so long terrified them!

316

THE RIVAL BIOGRAPHERS OF HEYLIN.

PETER HEYLIN was one of the popular writers of his times, like FULLER and HOWELL, who, devoting their amusing pens to subjects which deeply interested their own busy age, will not be slighted by the curious. We have nearly outlived their divinity, but not their politics. Metaphysical absurdities are luxuriant weeds which must be cut down by the scythe of Time; but the great passions branching from the tree of life are still "growing with our growth."

There are two biographies of our HEYLIN, which led to a literary quarrel of an extraordinary nature; and, in the progress of its secret history, all the feelings of rival authorship were called

out.

HEYLIN died in 1662. Dr. Barnard, his sonin-law, and a scholar, communicated a sketch of the author's life to be prefixed to a posthumous folio, of which Heylin's son was the editor. This life was given by the son, but anonymously, which may not have gratified the author, the son-in-law.

Twenty years had elapsed when, in 1682, appeared "The Life of Dr. Peter Heylin, by George Vernon." The writer, alluding to the prior life prefixed to the posthumous folio, asserts, that in borrowing something from Barnard, Barnard had also "Excerpted passages out of my papers, the very words as well as matter, when he had them in his custody, as any reader may discern who will be at the pains of comparing the life now published with what is extant before the Keimalea Ecclesiastica," the quaint, pedantic title, after the fashion of the day, of the posthumous folio.

This strong accusation seemed countenanced by a dedication to the son and the nephew of Heylin. Roused now into action, the indignant Barnard soon produced a more complete Life, to which he prefixed A necessary Vindication." This is an unsparing castigation of Vernon, the literary pet whom the Heylins had fondled in preference to their learned relative. The long smothered family grudge, the suppressed mortifications of literary pride, after the subterraneous grumblings of twenty years, now burst out, and the volcanic particles flew about in