that the man who was a chief instigator of this persecution, and had enriched himself by the spoil of his neighbour's goods, though he flourished for a while, bought a field and built a fine house, came to poverty at last, and died in prison, having for some time received his daily food there from the table of one of this very vicar's sons. It was well remembered, also, that, in a parish of the adjoining county palatine, the Puritanical party had set fire in the night to the rector's barns, stable, and parsonage; and that he and his wife and children had only as it were by miracle escaped from the flames.

William Dove had also among his traditional stores some stories of a stranger kind concerning the Quakers, these parts of the North having been a great scene of their vagaries in their early days. He used to relate how one of them went into the church at Brough, during the reign of the Puritans, with a white sheet about his body, and a rope about his neck, to prophesy before the people and their whig priest (as he called him) that the surplice, which was then prohibited, should again come into use, and that the gallows should have its due! And how when their ringleader, George Fox, was put in prison at Carlisle, the wife of Justice Benson would eat no meat unless she partook it with him at the bars of his dungeon, declaring she was moved to do this; wherefore it was supposed he had bewitched her. And not without reason; for when this old George went, as he often did, into the church to disturb the people, and they thrust him out, and fell upon him and beat him, sparing neither sticks nor stones if they came to hand, he was presently, for all that they had done to him, as sound and as fresh as if nothing had touched him; and when they tried to kill him, they could not take away his life! And how this old George rode a great black horse, upon which he was seen, in the course of the same hour, at two places three score miles distant from each other! And how some of the women who followed this old George, used to strip off all their clothes, and in that plight go into the church at service time on the Sunday, to bear testimony against the pomps and vanities of the world; "and to be sure," said William, "they must have been witched, or they never would have done this." "Lord deliver us!" said Dinah; "to be sure they must!" sure they must-Lord bless us all !” said Haggy.

"To be

CHAPTER XXVII. P. I.

A PASSAGE IN PROCOPIUS IMPROVED-A STORY CONCERNING URIM AND THUMMIM; AND THE ELDER DANIEL'S OPINION OF THE PROFESSION OF THE LAW.

Here is Domine Picklock,

My man of law, solicits all my causes,

Follows my business, makes and compounds my quarrels
Between my tenants and me; sows all my strifes,

And reaps them too, troubles the country for me,

And vexes any neighbour that I please.

BEN JONSON.

AMONG the people who were converted to the Christian faith during the sixth century, were two tribes or nations called the Lazi and the Zani. Methinks it had been better if they had been left unconverted; for they have multiplied prodigiously among us, so that between the Lazy Christians and the Zany ones, Christianity has grievously suffered.

It was one of the Zany tribe whom Guy once heard explaining to his congregation what was meant by Urim and Thummim, and in technical phrase improving the text. Urim and Thummim, he said, were two precious stones, or rather stones above all price, the Hebrew names of which have been interpreted to signify light and perfection, or doctrine and judgment, (which Luther prefers in his Bible, and in which some of the Northern versions have followed him,) or the shining and the perfect, or manifestation and truth, the words in the original being capable of any or all of these significations. They were set in the high priest's breastplate of judgment; and when he consulted them upon any special occasion to discover the will of God, they displayed an extraordinary brilliancy if the matter which was referred to this trial were pleasing to the Lord Jehovah, but they gave no lustre if it were disapproved. "My brethren," said the preacher, "this is what learned expositors, Jewish and Christian, tell me concerning these two precious stones. The stones themselves are lost. But, my Christian brethren, we need them not, for we have a surer means of consulting and discovering the will of God; and still it is by Urim and Thummim, if we alter only a single letter in one of those mysterious words. Take your Bible, my brethern; use him and thumb him-use him and thumb him well, and you will discover the will of God as surely as ever the high priest did by the stones in his breastplate!"

What Daniel saw of the Lazi, and what he heard of the Zani, prevented him from ever forming a wish to educate his son for a north-country cure, which would have been all the preferment that lay within his view. And yet if any person to whose judgment he deferred had reminded him that Bishop Latimer had risen from as humble an origin, it might have awakened in him a feeling of ambition for the boy, not inconsistent with his own philosophy.

But no suggestions could ever have induced Daniel to choose for hin the profession of the law. The very name of lawyer was to him a word of evil acceptation. Montaigne has a pleasant story of a little boy, who when his mother had lost a lawsuit which he had always heard her speak of as a perpetual cause of trouble, ran up to him in great glee, to tell him of the loss as a matter for congratulation and joy; the poor child thought it was like losing a cough, or any other bodily ailment. Daniel entertained the same sort of opinion concerning all legal proceedings. He knew that laws were necessary evils; but he thought they were much greater evils than there was any necessity that they should be; and believing this to be occasioned by those who were engaged in the trade of administering them, he looked upon lawyers as the greatest pests in the country

Because, their end being merely avarice,

Winds up their wits to such a nimble strain

As helps to blind the judge, not give him eyes.*

He had once been in the courts at Lancaster, having been called upon as a witness in a civil suit, and the manner in which he was cross-examined there by one of those " young spruce lawyers," whom Donne has so happily characterized as being

"all impudence and tongue,"

had confirmed him in this prejudice. What he saw of the proceedings that day induced him to agree with Beaumont and Fletcher, that

Justice was a cheesemonger, a mere cheesemonger,
Weighed nothing to the world but mites and maggots
And a main stink; law, like a horse courser,

Her rules and precepts hung with gauds and ribands,
And pampered up to cozen him that bought her,

When she herself was hackney, lame, and founder'd.*

His was too simple and sincere an understanding to admire in any other sense than that of wondering at them.

Men of that large profession that can speak
To every cause, and things mere contraries,

Lord Brooke.

* Woman Pleased,

Till they are hoarse again, yet all be law!
That with most quick agility can turn

And re-return; can make knots and undo them,
Give forked counsel, take provoking gold

On either hand, and put it up. These men
He knew would thrive ;*

but far was he from wishing that a son of his should thrive by such a perversion of his intellectual powers, and such a corruption of his moral nature.

On the other hand, he felt a degree of respect amounting almost to reverence for the healing art, which is connected with so many mysteries of art and nature. And, therefore, when an opportunity offered of placing his son with a respectable practitioner, who he had every reason for believing would behave towards him with careful and prudent kindness, his entire approbation was given to the youth's own choice.

CHAPTER XXVIII. P. I.

PETER HOPKINS-EFFECTS OF TIME AND CHANGE-DESCRIPTION OF HIS DWELLINGHOUSE.

Combien de changemens depuis que suis au monde,
Qui n'est qu' un point du tems!

PASQUIER.

PETER HOPKINS was a person who might have suffered death by the laws of Solon, if that code had been established in this country; for though he lived in the reigns of George 1. and George II., he was neither whig nor tory, Hanoverian nor Jacobite. When he drank the king's health with any of his neighbours, he never troubled himself with considering which king was intended, nor to which side of the water their good wishes were directed. Under George or Charles he would have been the same quiet subject, never busying himself with a thought about political matters, and having no other wish concerning them than that they might remain' as they were; so far he was a Hanoverian, and no farther. There was something of the same temper in his religion; he was a sincere Christian; and had he been born to attendance at the mass or the meetinghouse, would have been equally sincere in his attachment to either of those extremes; for his whole mind was in his profession. He was learned in its

* Ben Jonson.

history, fond of its theories, and skilful in its practice, in which he trusted little to theory and much to experience.

Both he and his wife were at this time well stricken in years; they had no children, and no near kindred on either side, and being both kindhearted people, the liking which they soon entertained towards Daniel for his docility, his simplicity of heart, his obliging temper, his original cast of mind, and his never-failing good humour, ripened into a settled affection.

Hopkins lived next door to the Mansionhouse, which edifice was begun a few years after Daniel went to live with him. There is a view of the Mansionhouse in Dr. Miller's History of Doncaster, and in that print the dwelling in question is included. It had undergone no other alteration at the time this view was taken than that of having had its casements replaced by sash windows, an improvement which had been made by our doctor, when the framework of the casements had become incapable of repair. The gilt pestle and mortar also had been removed from their place before the door. Internally the change had been greater; for the same business not being continued there after the doctor's decease, the shop had been converted into a sittingroom, and the very odour of medicine had passed away. But I will not allow myself to dwell upon this melancholy subject. The world is full of mutations, and there is hardly any that does not bring with it some regret at the time-and alas! more in the retrospect! I have lived to see the American colonies separated from Great Britain, the kingdom of Poland extinguished, the republic of Venice destroyed, its territory seized by one usurper, delivered over in exchange to another, and the transfer sanctioned and confirmed by all the powers of Europe in congress assembled! I have seen Heaven knows how many little principalities and states, proud of their independence, and happy in the privileges connected with it, swallowed up by the Austrian or the Prussian eagle, or thrown to the Belgic lion, as his share in the division of the spoils. I have seen constitutions spring up like mushrooms, and kicked down as easily. I have seen the rise and fall of Napoleon.

I have seen cedars fall,

And in their room a mushroom grow;
I have seen comets, threatening all,
Vanish themselves ;*

wherefore then should I lament over what time and mutability have done to a private dwellinghouse in Doncaster?

It was an old house, which when it was built had been one of the best in Doncaster; and even after the great improvements, which have changed the appearance of the town, had

* Habington.