that so luring a game as cards would have been omitted in the enumeration, had they been in use.

3dly. In all the ecclesiastical canons prior to the said time, there occurs no mention of cards; although twenty years after that date, card playing was interdicted the clergy, by a Gallican Synod. About the same time is found in the Account Book of the King's Cofferer the following charge, "paid for a pack of painted leaves bought for the King's amusement, three livres." Printing and stamping being then not discovered, the cards were painted, which made them so dear. Thence, in the above synodical canons, they are called pagillæ pictæ, painted little leaves.

4thly. About thirty years after this came a severe edict against cards in France; and another by Emanuel Duke of Savoy; only permitting the ladies this pastime, pro spinulis, for pins and needles.

Of their design. The inventor proposed by the figures of the four suits, or colours, as the French call them, to represent the four states, or classes of men in the kingdom.

By the Caesars (hearts) are meant the Gens de Chaur, choir men, or ecclesiastics; and therefore the Spaniards, who certainly received the use

of cards from the French, have copas

or chalices instead of hearts.

The nobility, or prime military part of the kingdom, are represented by the ends or points of lances, or pikes, and our ignorance of the meaning or resemblance of the figure induced us to call them spades. The Spaniards have espades (swords) in lieu of pikes, which is of similar import.

By diamonds, are designed the order of citizens, merchants, and tradesmen, carreaux (square stone tiles or the like). The Spaniards have a coin dineros, which answers to it, and the Dutch call the French word carreaux, stieneen, stones and diamonds from

times call the cards, is David, Alexander, Cæsar, and Charles (which names were then, and still are on the French cards). These respectable names represent the four celebrated Monarchies of the Jews, Greeks, Romans, and Franks under Charlemagne. By the Queens are intended Argine, Esther, Judith, and Pallas (names retained in the French cards), typical of birth, piety, fortitude, and wisdom, the qualifications residing in each person. Argine is an anagram for Regina, queen by descent.

By the Knaves were designed the servants to knights (for knaves originally meant only servant; and in an old translation of the Bible, St. Paul is called the knave of Christ) but French pages and valets, now indiscriminately used by various orders of persons, were formerly only allowed to persons of quality, esquires (escuiers) shield or armour bearers.

Others fancy that the knights themselves were designed by those cards, because Hogier and Lahire, two names on the French cards, were famous Knights at the time cards were supposed to be invented. W.R.

Mr. URBAN,

Oct. 14.

A SIMILAR enquiry with that of "J. T. M." (p. 194), for parti culars "concerning Joseph, commonly called Joe Miller," was made some years back with very little effect. He appears to have been a favourite low comedian, the Edwin of his day, and the boon companion in every convivial settle in Drury Lane or Clare Market, or the suburbs of that populous neighbourhood. Some of the early editions of the Jests have a print of him as "Mr. Miller in the character of Sir Joseph Wittoll, in the Old Bachelor." Perhaps the best chronicle is his epitaph from the pen of a distinguished genius of the day. He was buried in the East side of St. Clement's Danes, where a stone was

erected, with the following honourable inscription:

"Here lye the remains of honest Joe Miller, who was a tender husband, a sincere friend, a facetious companion, aud an excellent comedian. He departed this life the 15th of August, 1738, aged 54. If humour, wit, and honesty could save The hum'rous, witty, honest from the

grave;

The

The forming that popular work, so universally known as Joe Miller's Jests, has been too interestingly told by the real compiler to be compressed. Col. Mottley, the author of the Life of Peter the Great, and other distinguished works, was that compiler. In his life, believed to be written by himself, and given in a list of Dramatic Authors appended to Scanderbeg, a tragedy by Thomas Whincop, posthumously published, he thus describes his melancholy situation:

"This Gentleman (Mottley) has had very little supplies since but his pen, and how precarious must that dependance be to one, who has frequent fits of gout in his right hand, and is, as we are told, at present almost bed-rid with that distemper, and has not been above twice out of his lodgings these two years past, and sometimes for several months together, not out of his bed! But under these circumstances can maintain a cheerful temper, and among several other pieces he has given the public, the book that bears. the title of Joe Miller's Jests, was a collection made by him from other books, and a great part of it supplied by his memory from original stories recollected in his former conversations."

The earliest copy I have seen of this work was without date, and had "a new edition" in the title. Probably it was first published about 1738, or early in the following year. "The Country Tatler; or, the Daily Pacquet; by Lepidas Wagstaff, a merry Philosopher," which com menced in 1739, concluded the second side of each paper, a half-sheet. foolscap, with a jest, as did also another daily paper of similar size, called "All Alive and Merry; or, the London Daily Post," published about

1741-2.

Many of these witticisms are to be found in Joe Miller's Jests, and it is fair to conclude, after the above declaration by Col. Mottley, the Diurnals pilfered from his pages, and not him from the Diurnals.

The ninth edition, with large additions: London: printed for T. Read, in Dog well-court, White Fryers, Fleetstreet, MDCCXLVII.;" was in the title "most humbly inscribed to those choice spirits of the age, his Majesty's Poet Laureat; Sir C. H. W. Knight of the Bath; and Job Baker, the Kettle-Drummer.” The Witticisms are numbered, being in the whole 590, then moral sentences and Epigrams, &c. EU. HOOD.

Mr. URBAN,

Sept. 20. Transcribed from the English THE following are three Epitaphs Burying-ground at Leghorn.

core.

Antonio Lefroy, Cantuariensi, Claris orto Majoribus, cujus animus a Natura bene informatus, Juventutem egit in literis: Qui deinde Liburnum 'se contulit, ubi Mercaturam excoluit honeste ac deBonarum Artium Fautor, Ajutor, Statuas, Tabulas pictas, antiqua Numismata sibi studiose comparavit. Vir au tem bonus et prudens, Familiam, Patriam, Sapientes unice amavit, Officia auxit liberalitate: multa passus et gravia æquam semper servavit mentem. Obiit in hac Urbe, A.D. MDCCLXXIX. Prid. Id. Julii Natus Prid. Kalend. Jan. A.D. MDCCIV. Elizabeth Langlois Conjux mœrens Viro digno, carissimo; Antonius et Georgius, Filii memores*, Patri bene merenti, cujus Corpus hic jacet, P. P.”

A

The Right Honourable Francis North, Earl of Guildford, died at Pisa on the 28th of January, 1817."

Francis Horner, Member of the British Parliament, born at Edinburgh, Aug. 12, 1778; died at Pisa, Feb. 8, 1817. In his public life he was distinguished for his splendid talents and spotless integrity: in his private life he was dutiful, affectionate, and sincere. His father erected this monument, and offers this tribute to his memory."+

REVIEW

57. The History and Antiquities of Eynesbury and St. Neot's, in Huntingdonshire; and of St. Neot's, in the County of Cornwall: with some Critical Remarks respecting the two Saxon Saints from whom these places_derived their names. (Illustrated with Fifty Engravings, on Copper and Wood.) By George Cornelius Gorham, M. A. Fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge. 8vo. pp. 340. Lackington and Co.

MR.

R. GORHAM is a new, but zealous candidate for Topographical laurels; and has made his debut with no inconsiderable merit.

"That those persons who dwell in the sight of remarkable Monasteries' should endeavour to rescue the observables of their habitations from the teeth of time and oblivion,' was the judicious advice, happily illustrated by the example, of no mean Historian.-The Writer of the following sheets has been beguiled, almost insensibly, into the spirit and prac tice of this recommendation. Notwithstanding the popular (and occasionally just) ridicule which is directed by the multitude against Antiquarian pursuits,→ he confesses that he is not unsusceptible of that enthusiasm, which impels the mind to cast a retrospect through the ' long. drawn' vista of past ages; to dwell, with a solemn and mysterious interest, on objects which are rapidly fading away in the distant perspective; and to dissipate some little portion of the gathering mist, which mantles between the land of oblivion and the region of authentic record. Under such an influence he commenced his inquiries; but without even a remote intention of submitting them to the public eye. He purposely omits to detail the unimportant train of circumstances, by which his materials have been gradually extended from the private memoranda of a port-folio to their present more enlarged and ostensible form. The publick is rather interested with the nature and result of an Author's pursuit, than with the incidents by which he was originally invited to his undertaking, and the steps by which he has at length been conducted to the termination of his task."

In pursuing this investigation, the Author has travelled along an almost untrodden path: the Monastic History of St. Neot's has received but little illustration from the labours of Dugdale or of Bishop Tanner; its Topography has been altogether unexplored. The information which the following pages present-sustained by perpetual references to the most ancient documents, and confirmed by many original (and hitherto unpublished) Records, dispersed throughout the notes or inserted in the Appendix-is the result of labour and expense with which the size of the Volume is by no means commensurate. In the use which he has made of his materials, he has not merely endeavoured to gratify local curiosity: his aim has been higher, and he has failed in his attempt if his Work be considered as unworthy a place in the Library of the Antiquarian Collector. However limited has been the field of his investigation, he ventures to entertain a hope that his Work will not be altogether an unacceptable offering; when considered as the first-fruits of researches into the Antiquities of a County still without an Historian, although two centuries and a half have elapsed since it gave birth to the most celebrated Collector of our national Records- its brightest ornament'-Sir Robert Bruce Cotton!

The

"From the more immediate subject of local Antiquities, some little digression has been made (in Chap. II. § 1.) to the Biography of the Saxon Saint whose name is perpetuated in that of the town. very obscure and contradictory information, which is to be obtained from either antient or modern Writers, respecting St. Neot, might alone be considered as a sufficient reason for an inquiry into the accuracy or falsehood of preceding statements. Since the time of Camden and of Wood, the simple authority of those truly great names has been a ready passport (with less diligent Writers) for assertions derived from MSS. of suspected authority or from Records of doubtful age. One learned modern Writer has, indeed, pursued a line of independent investigation: but, in his eccentric (however original) volume, fable is perpetually intermingled with fact, and

"A History of the Town of St. Neot's, including the adjoining (and parent) village of Eynesbury, in Huntingdonshire, constitutes the principal subject of this Volume (Ch. I.; Ch. II. § 11.; Ch. III, Ch. IV.). GENT. MAG. October, 1820.

"The remark is still correct, that 'no steps have been taken towards illustrating Huntingdonshire, since Sir Robert Cotton, its brightest ornament, declined the pursuit.' Gough's British Topography, vol. I. pref. p. xi. edit. 1780.”

.for

for modest inquiry. A strict scrutiny into the unsustained positions to which allusion has just been made, necessarily leads to their rejection. The materials for a Biography of Neot thus become reduced to a few simple facts; and we are constrained to awake from the pleasing delusion, by which the events of his life have been closely connected with a remarkable period of British Annals. If the criticisms in pp. 20-26, and in pp. 41-44, be correct, he will no longer appear in the venerable character of the first Theological Professor at Oxford;' dispensing his pious instructions to that infant University: nor will he be encircled with the fictitious glory which imagination has shed around the oldest brother of Alfred the Great ;' renouncing the ambitious bustle and splendid occupations of the Court, for the devotional retirement and self-denying services of the Cloister. What is lost, however, in effect, is gained in accuracy: the threads of a false association having been withdrawn, the tissue of History may possibly have been deprived of some gaudy colours; but her dress exhibits a more becoming (though less ostentatious) texture.

"These criticisms respecting the Life of Neot, naturally led to some notice of the obscure Cornish village (see p. 39.) which was his principal abode ;-the sylvan retreat, where, as a Hermit, he dwelt in his mossy cell;-the secluded valley, where, as an Abbot, he founded his Mo

nastery and erected his Collegiate Chapel. A brief sketch of the Topography of that parish has been added (see Chap. V.); with a more particular view to a description of its beautiful Church, dedicated to St. Neot."

Mr. Gorham then thankfully acknowledges the assistance which he has received during the progress of these inquiries; particularly from the Marquess of Buckingham, the Bishop of Lincoln, the Countess De Grey, Mr. Caley, the late Mr. Lysons, Mr. Petrie, Mr. Bandinel, Mr. Todd, Mr. Simmons, Mr. Lodge, the late Mr. Townsend, Mr. T. F. Forster, Mr. Bean, Dr. O'Conor, the Librarian at Stowe, and many other persons, whose kind offices have not been solicited (nor, he trusts, bestowed) in vain.

The History consists of Five different Chapters.

"1. On the early history of Eynesbury, previous to the foundation of the Priory of St. Neot.-2. On the Religious Houses dedicated to St. Neot, in Cornwall and in Huntingdonshire.-3. Topographical Account of Eynesbury.-4. Topo

graphical Account of St. Neot's, Huntingdonshire.-5. Topographical sketch of St. Neot's, Cornwall."

And concludes with an Appendix of curious original Records.

Eynesbury was originally the Mother Church; and Mr. Gorham tells us, that

"For nearly a century after the Priory had been made Alien, it is probable that Neotsbury had no other places of worship than the Church of (the present) Eynesbury, and the Chapel of the Monastery. These being found insufficient for the population which began to gather around the shrine of St. Neot, may be reasonably considered as the cause of the institution of a separate parish, and of the erection of another sacred Edifice at St. Neot's."

Both Churches are ably described, and Lists given of their Incumbents, with brief Memoirs of emineut natives.

We have room for only one more short extract; which is selected chiefly on account of the note which accompanies it.

"In Jesus Chapel (in St. Neot's Church) a mutilated brass occupies the centre of the pavement, to commemorate the decease of Sir Robert Payne, kut. of Midlow, near St. Neot's. Below is a brass plate with the following inscription, in capitals: (nearly effaced.)

"Here lies interred the body of Sir Robert Payne, kn'. deceased the 18th day of June, anno d'ni 1631, aged 58 years: who marryed Elizabeth the daughter of George Rotheram, of Someris in Com."' Bedford, esq.; by whome he had issue 5 sonns and 6 daughters.

"This mourning vault of death, that must retayne

As pledge awhile the dust of honoured
Payne,

Is but his tombe, nor can it styled be
A monument of him; his memorie,
Aud fame on earth, with those good deeds

he sent

To heaven before him, are his monument. The Country's tears, farr better than this stone,

Will tell the Reader noble Payne is gone; Ask them, not mee; they feel the loss of him,

And will for ever keep his just esteem.

"In the centre of the stone, inlaid in brass, was the figure of a knight in a kneeling posture, and of a lady by his side."

This was remaining about 1732, but has since been removed. The transcript was made from a collection of monumental inscriptions in Huntingdonshire,

tingdonshire, 1740-1750, by the Rev. Robert Smyth, of Woodstone.

"This MS. is in the possession of J. Simmons, Esq. of Paddington - house, containing valuable Collections for a County History. It probably contains the unpublished Collections of J. Clements of Allwalton, begun in 1732. A singular mistake has been made, by Mr. Noble, respecting this person: misled by the word "Visitation" (which he understood in the Heraldic sense), he thus comments on Gough Mr. Gough says, Mr. Ashby has a printed undated receipt 5s. for a Visitation by J. Clements'; as there is no such Herald as J. C., we must suppose he was only a riding Painter to some Clarenceux, or else to one of the Marshals, or other agent of theirs.' [Noble's History of the College of Arms, Appendix, p. xxvii.] Mr. C. was merely a private Collector who issued a prospectus for publishing Notitia Ecclesiastica, or A Visitation of all the Churches in Huntingdonshire,' which prospectus (enclosed in a letter to Browne Willis) is preserved in the Bodleian Library, MSS. Willis, vol. XXXIX.: the abovementioned reIceipt is nothing more than an acknowledgment for a subscription to his proposed work!"

The embellishments both on cop. per and wood are numerous. The Copper-plates, in particular, are uniformly elegant, but on a scale some what smaller than the size of the let ter-press demanded, and for this an apology is made.

"They were executed after large drawings, from the pencil of Mr. Harraden, in the possession of the Author; the di minutive scale of the Engravings is, doubtless, much to be regretted; this has been the unavoidable consequence of an arrangement essential to their introduction, and the result of considerations which would have fully justified their total suppression."

The reliefs on wood (chiefly outlines) are by Mr. Branston and Mr. Hughes,

"

We take leave of this handsomelyprinted volume, with an approbation of all which it contains, except the unpleasant leaf which follows p. xii. of the Preface.

58. History of Verulam and St. Alban's. 12mo. pp. 239. Shaw, St. Albans. THERE is a nicety in publications of this kind, which few country topographers attain; for without sufficient investigation a work is dry and uninteresting, while with too much

(if such a thing exists) it becomes finical and particularizing: the compilation now before us is a specimen of each advantage and defect; for while much information is brought forward, the Editor has neglected that extensive research and arrangement which stamp a lasting value on the Chronicles of towns.-Much of this is owing to the frequent practice of compiling topographical works from treatises of the like nature; by which, although ostensible investigation is shewn in quotations and references, no new matter is procured, and an inequality of information and expression is the necessary consequence. Where the ground has been already trodden by Matthew Paris, Chauncey, and Newcome, it was no difficult matter for the local historian to extract the substance relating thereto, and present to the publick a faithful historical account of Verulam and St. Alban's. Had this publication possessed no interest in itself, its claim to notice would be strong as the prototype of the "History of Woburn," which we reviewed in p.

From the materials which have been amassed by former topogra phers, we might reasonably have expected a fair octavo volume of sterling merit, but in spite of so great advantages, the work bears stronger marks of what is technically called book-making, than many other compilations of this kind which have come before us: this, however, we suspect to be not totally owing to the Editor.

Had the Editor extended his researches to Burton's "Commentary on Antoninus," he would have met with several particulars concerning the antient Verulam, which have escaped his notice, and would have assisted him in his statistical description of that city. Still great praise is due to his exertions; he has collected the legends of St. Alban and Amphibalus, with an industry worthy of Matthew Paris or d'Amersham; but there is a fiction which seems to bave been unknown to him, and which, as every particular relating to the history of our protomartyr must be interesting, we will lay before our Readers. In the British Museum [Bibl. Cotton. Faust. c. 3. fol. 81.] is a paper entitled, "Catalogus

summorum