more especially the Queen, as an encourager of that amusement, he was prosecuted in the court of the Star-chamber, and visited with this very severe sentence" to be fined £5000 to the King, and expelled the University of Oxford and Lincoln's Inn degraded and disabled from his profession of the law-to stand in the pillory, first, at Palace Yard, Westminster, and three days after in Cheapside-in each place to lose an ear-to have his book called Histrio-Mastix publicly burnt before his face by the hand of the hangman-and remain prisoner during life.' Thus, without mercy, were the follies of a conceited fanatic punished by the envenomed ire of party-spirit; but, in the future day, many of these grievous penalties were remitted. His sentence, as to his ears, was executed with some moderation, they were clipped, rather than cut off; but, by the burning of his noisome book, he was almost suffocated, as the stink thereof did go up his nostrils. The snake was scotched, but not killed. On being consigned to his prison, he, as soon as he could procure pen, ink, and paper, wrote a bitter libel against Archbishop Laud, and for this libel he was again prosecuted in that remorseless Court-the Star-chamber, and sentenced" to be fined £5000 to the King-to lose the remainder of his ears in the pillory-to be branded on both cheeks with the letters S L for a schismatical libeller-and to be perpetually imprisoned in Caernarvon Castle." On this second occasion the sufferings of Prynne, mayhap, were lightened by the consideration, that he had fellow-sufferers, as two other zealots, Bastwick and Burton, were allotted at the same time, and place, to lose their ears those prominent ornaments of the head. Prynne bore the execution of the sentence with great firmness, and we may doubt not, that they comforted each other, and thus softened their mutual sufferings. The pillory failed to bring down the inflexible, and haughty, mind; indeed "Bastwick was very merry, and, among other pleasantries, told the people the Lords had collar-days at Court, but this was his collar, rejoicing much at it. His wife, Dr. Poe's daughter, got a stool set near him, and, standing upon it, as soon as his ears were cut off, she called for them, put them into a clean handkerchief, and carried them away with her."‡ What this good, and exemplary, wife did with the valued, and valuable, ears of her spouse history does not record, but we can • Biographia Britannica. + Ibid.

Ibid.

little doubt, that they were handed down to posterity as-sacred reliques. Think not, however, gentle reader, that I am disposed to treat this subject with undue levity-no! I pity the sufferings of fanaticism, and I abominate the cruelty of the infamous, and arbitrary, Court of the Star-chamber. Prynne was taken to his awarded prison-Caernarvon Castle; Bastwick was confined in St. Mary's Castle, in the Isle of Scilly; and Burton in Castle Cornet, in the Isle of Guernsey. Subsequently, Prynne was removed to Mount Orguiel Castle, in the Isle of Jersey. On the 7th of November, 1640, an order was issued by the "blessed House of Commons (as by the godly party it was called)" for the release of these incarcerated fanatics. Prynne and Burton joined each other, and landed at Dartmouth, from whence they wended their way to that great town, where fanatics or rebels-or knaves will be sure to meet the countenance, and aid, of others. On their passage thither, "divers of the godly party met them at Dartmouth, Exeter, Lime, Dorchester, Salisbury, Andover, Basing, and elsewhere, visited them, blest them, and accompanied them on horseback some part of the way. On the 28th of the same month they triumphantly entered London, being then accompanied by thousands on foot, and Horse-back, and in Coaches with Rosemary and Bays in their Hats, crying, Welcome home, welcome home, God bless you, God be thanked for your return, &c., to the great defiance and contempt of Authority and Justice."* Thus saith Antony à Wood; but, perhaps, it would have been the better policy to have left the fanatics alone, and, at all events, to have prosecuted them with less of vindictive feeling. Fanaticism ever rejoices in the appearance, and is ever ready to raise the cry, of persecution, and thus seeks to impute to the influence of opinion, what is only fairly imputable to sympathy of suffering. Prynne, on his return, was again seated in the House of Commons; but, when "he had fully seen to what great woe, misery, and confusion the godly party had brought the King and the Nation, he did heartily repent, and wished, that, when they cut off his Ears, they had cut off his Head."+ Prynne was a zealous advocate for the Presbyterian Cause; and, when he saw the Independents gain the ascendant, he opposed them, and espoused the interest of the exiled King. He, on that occasion, attacked Cromwell and his Court with great asperity in his

"Athens Oxonienses," (1721,) Vol. ii. p. 436. + Ibid. p. 437.

writings. Conveying his estate to his relatives he refused the payment of taxes, openly defied Cromwell, and was successively imprisoned in the Castles of Dunster, Taunton, and Pendennis. In 1659 he was restored to his seat in the House of Commons, and "became instrumental in recalling King Charles II., in which he pleaded with so much zeal as to be checked by General Monk;" and thus, from the influence of political feelings, did the puritanic Prynne render himself accessory to the introduction of the succeeding dissoluteness of the times. After the restoration he was appointed Keeper of the Records at the Tower, with a salary of £500 per annum, and, also, one of the six Commissioners for appeals, and regulating the excise. This restless man, however, displeased at some proceedings in the House of Commons, could not remain quiet, and again resorted to his envenomed pen, for which he was obliged to beg pardon of the House in order to escape punishment. Prynne died at his Chambers at Lincoln's Inn on the 24th of October, 1669, and was buried in the chapel of that Society. He gave to its library a copy of all his works, amounting to about 40 vols. in folio and quarto, which, we may well presume, are suffered to rest quietly on their shelves, lest his spirit should be awakened. Antony à Wood says, "He may be well intituled Voluminous Prynne, as Tostatus Albulensis was, 200 years before his time, called Voluminous Tostatus; for I verily believe, that, if rightly computed, he wrote a sheet for every day of his Life, reckoning from the time, when he came to the use of Reason, and the State of Man. His Custom, when he studied, was to put on a long quilted Cap, which came an Inch over his Eyes, serving as an Umbrella to defend them from too much light, and seldom eating a Dinner, would every three hours or more be maunching a Roll of Bread, and now and then refresh his exhausted Spirits with Ale brought to him by his Servant."

Butler, in his Hudibras, (Part i. Canto 1,) invoking the assistance of " some muse," gives the following memento of Prynne's love of ale:

"Thou that with ale, or viler liquors,

Didst inspire Withers, Prynne, and Vicars,
And force them, tho' it were in spite

Of nature, and their stars, to write."

Biographia Britannica.

There can exist no doubt, that this singular, and restless, man possessed learning and abilities. His writings consist of about 200 books, and tracts, principally controversial, and either on politics, or religion, some few historical, and a very few of his own profession-legal! Thus did this busy-body toil himself, and tease others during his stay on earth. Led away by a fanaticism, to which he gave the full rein, he seemed to think, that he was born to reform, and rule, the world; and, in the pursuit of that object, with an inflexible perseverance, he rejoiced in the loss of his ears, or in any evil, that did from thence betide him. Sentenced, on the occasion of his second prosecution in the Star-chamber, to be branded on the cheeks with the letters S L, i. e. "Schismatical Libeller," he bore the execution of this punishment with firmness, and, immediately, on his return to the Tower, wrote the following distich, a memorial, at least, of his wit, and abilities:

"Stigmata maxillis referens, insignia laudis,
Exultans remeo victima grata Deo."

These lines have been thus translated:

"From suffering for my country I return

Exulting in that cause to bleed and burn.”

Here, however, the religious point is lost; and, in lieu of these lines, you may, gentle reader, if you please, accept the following:

My cheeks are mark’d—the marks of praise!
Hosannas to my God I raise.

Prynne, as I said before, seemed to think himself destined to reform the world according to his ideas of right and wrong. During his troublesome life he kept all around him in a state of perpetual turmoil by his eternal dabblings in politics and religion, the latter of which he showed to be little genuine by his vindictive, and unchristian, rancour against Archbishop Laud. His religion was far from being silent and unobtrusive-on the contrary, it was of a noisy, ostentatious, and arbitrary character; and, in the alleged service of his God, he would have willingly sought to have ruled the fashions by the cut of the coat, and

the form of the hair. The gross fanaticism of Prynne may be, at once, clearly evidenced from the following title of one of his quarto volumes: "Health's Sickness, or a compendious and brief discourse, proving the drinking, and pledging of Healths to be sinful, and utterly unlawful unto Christians, &c." Lond. 1628, 4to. Here do I say, "Ohe! jam satis!" Enough of this conceited, and disgusting, Puritan !-of whom, if you wish, gentle reader, to know much more, pray consult the pages of Antony à Wood-the Biographia Britannica,-the works of Clarendon, Whitelock, &c.

NOTE (4) UPON A NOTE IN p. 117.

"Drunken Barnaby's Four Journeys to the North of England." This is a small humorous poem, in jingling Latin Rhyme! written in the early part of the seventeenth century, and accompanied with an English Poetic Translation, in similar metre, on the opposite page. At the bottom of the pages are notes, sometimes containing parallel passages from the Classics, &c. This little work is, evidently, that of a scholar, and it was long a question with the bibliomaniac world-who was the author. That question seems now to be set at rest by Mr. Haslewood. This gentleman, with a soul enwrapped with the love of ancient books, has re-edited many, to the great advantage of those, who, with him, have been, or are, under the influence of Bibliomany; and he has enriched them with the lore of former days. He obliged the literary world with a re-edition of this curious book, in the year 1820, in two vols., very small quarto, of which Dibdin, in his "Library Companion,' p. 689, thus speaks in a note: "A publication, which is as beautiful, and winning, in appearance, as it is curious, and convincing, in reality. Mr. H. has, beyond all doubt, satisfactorily, proved, that Braithwaite was the author of this most singular, and humorous, performance. The edition is, in part, a fac-simile of the first edition; a book, scarcely larger than a professed snuff-taker's snuff-box, but of such rarity, in a perfect state-with the frontispiece by Marshall-as to have been sold for 161."

Braithwaite was a copious author, and no contemptible poet. His" Arcadian Princesse" is a poem lauded by Dibdin, in his