forced to come to anchor by reason of a great calm. He had not been there half an-hour, when Sir Robert Hamilton (whom you have seen in England) came aboard the yacht to give my lord notice that the governor of the castle intended to make him strike his flag, and, if he refused, to fire forty-six guns at him, with an intention to sink him. To prevent this, he proposed to my Lord three things-to land before he came to the castle, to pass as near as he could on the other side without reach of their guns, or else to go in the night. My Lord Ambassador replied, that he was not ashamed of the King of England's flag, and therefore would not go by in the night, nor one foot out of his way; and that he would rather choose to be sunk a hundred times, than do anything that might reflect upon the King his master's honour. The next morning we set sail, and held as near the castle as we could, being just before it with our flag and topsail up: we saluted, first, as usual, with seven guns. The castle returned with three ; but, seeing we did not strike, they fired another gun ahead, a second astern, and a third over us, all being charged with ball. It was told us before that the shooting thus was the signal (if we refused to strike) of the forty-six guns; but it seems they were better advised, and suffered us to come to anchor with our flag up. My Lord, with most of the gentlemen, went immediately ashore. Thence we came in wicker waggons to Copenhagen. It fell out very happily for us, that the same we day arrived, the late King was buried at Roeschild, twenty-four miles from Copenhagen. The first thing I did was to go to the palace to see him lie in state, which was really very magnificent; but the pomp and solemnity of carrying him through the city was much more. I believe there were above two thousand citizens, all in long mourning, carrying lamps and torches; several troops of horse in mourning cassocks, and twenty-four mourning coaches and six horses. The King, Christian V., himself did follow the hearse. I did not expect to see the half of the magnificence and pomp used on the occasion. The Ambassador did refuse to make his entry, or have audience, until he had satisfaction for the affront done to him in firing guns at his pavilion or flag. This firm and courageous resolution hath startled the court mightily, but it is a bait they must swallow. Accordingly, the governor of the castle of Cronberg has been here, just now to ask pardon of my Lord, and to declare that it was not of design to do any affront to the King of England; nor did they pretend that he should strike his flag; and that he was sorry it was interpreted otherways. Monsieur Guildenlow was present when this declaration was made; I have had the honour to transact the whole business alone, with Guildenlow and the other ministers of state here. I pray you let me know, as soon as possibly you can, what they think of it in England, for I am sure the King will gain more honour and reputation in the world by it, than by anything since he was restored, and my Lord Ambassador will gain no little credit I do believe."

We now give a very remarkable letter of James the Second, communicating to his daughter, the Princess of Orange, what were his reasons for his adoption of the Roman Catholic Faith. dated, Whitehall, Nov. 1687 :

It is

"Monsieur d'Albeville having told me you were desirous to know the chief motives of my conversion, I have sent you as many particulars as my leisure will permit. I must first tell you I was bred a strict Church-ofEngland man by Dr. Stuart, to whom the king, my father, gave particular instruction to do so. And I was so zealous that way, that when the Queen, my mother, designed to bring up my brother, the Duke of Gloucester, a Catholic, I, preserving still the respect due to her, did my part to keep him steady to his first principles; and, as young people often do, I made it a point of honour to stick to what we had been educated in, without examining whether we were right or wrong. Thus I did then, which shews how I stood affected in point of religion; and I can say, that in all the time I was beyond sea no Catholics said anything to me to persuade me to change my religion; and so I continued for the most part I was abroad, without troubling myself about those concerns. The first thought that came into my head of anything of that kind which moved me to a more serious consideration, was the great devotion I found among so many of the Catholics of all sorts whenever I had been among them; the great helps they had towards it; and that I found every day some one or other of my acquaintance, of that persuasion, leave off their loose way of living, and live as good Christians ought to do, though many of these continued still in the world. When I found this, and observed their decent way of serving God, their churches being so well adorned, and the great charities they did, it made me begin to have a better opinion of their religion, and moved me to inquire more narrowly into it; and then I soon found that both they and their religion had been very much misrepresented: which made me begin to compare them and the Reformed churches together. When I had done this, I considered the reasons which were given by the several reformers for their separation, and more particularly by the Church-of-England men. I read over again the histories of those reigns in which it happened, written in the 'Chronicles.' I perused very carefully the History of the Reformation,' written by Dr. Heylin, and the preface of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity.' Which having done, I discoursed with men of that persuasion (I mean of the Church of England) upon the same subject, and found no satisfactory reasons for what they had done. I then begun to enquire into the reasons given by the Catholics for the infallibility of their church, which I found could not be denied them without shaking the very fundamentals of Christianity. And being once satisfied in that point, which is the chief to be considered on, all the rest falls in, of course. Let any ingenious person, without being prepossessed, read what our Saviour said to St. Peter by name, Matthew, xvi. chapter, verses 18 and 19, and to his apostles in general, and it will manifestly appear that he left an Infallible Church, against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. Pursuing this point, I concluded that the apostles, and the whole congregation of the faithful assembled at Jerusalem, were all most manifestly of that opinion, otherwise they would not have used that phrase (Acts, xv. verse 28,) for it seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us,' in the decree they made at that meeting. Next, I enquired what authority there was, even for the Scripture itself, and found, upon strict examination, that it was declared canonical by the Church, some books offered being laid aside as not so, and only those allowed which were approved by the same. Now, none can be thought to be such proper

interpreters of Scripture as those who declared the certainty of it. Besides whether it is not likelier, reasonably speaking, that the church which hath had a constant succession from the very apostles' time to this day, should be in the right; or private men, who, upon pretence of reformation, broached new opinions, and had their heads fuller of temporal than spiritual concerns, as Luther, Calvin, and the reformers here in England? It would be too long for this paper to make this out, though it were easy to do it, and it would satisfy any ingenious person that what they did was not inspired into them by the Holy Ghost. For, instead of endeavouring to reform manners, and to increase devotion, they did quite the contrary, by opening a way to liberty, indulging to men's appetites, lessening the reverence which is due to God in the manner of his worship, and letting Christianity loose, I may say, by encouraging every one to believe he is a competent judge of the Scripture, and, consequently, may interpret it according to his own fancy. 'Tis this that hath very much shaken the foundation of Christianity, and hath let in so many sects and dangerous opinions, and hath made Socinians and Latitudinarians increase so much among us here in England.

Christianity, at first, gained credit by miracles and the powerful preaching of the Apotles. The blood of the Martyrs, the seed of the Church, rendered her most fruitful and glorious, by the wonderful examples of Christian fortitude. Lastly, an humble submission hath preserved it ever since; for, without submission, a man cannot be so much as a Christian. It was that consideration which chiefly made me embrace the communion of the Church of Rome, there being none that do, or can pretend to infallibility, but she. For there must be an infallible Church, or else what our Saviour said is not so, and the gates of hell must prevail. The practice of the Church of England confirmed me in this belief, having acted ever since the Reformation, as if they believed themselves infallible, though they will not own it. Otherwise, why have they been so severe against all dissenters from her ever since the beginning of the Reformation, and made such severe laws against them, which, from time to time, have been more severely put in execution than is generally known, and as well against Protestant as against Popish dissenters? Now, I would willingly know how the Church of England can find fault with those who have fallen from her, when she herself shewed them the way, by quitting the communion of the Catholic Church, of which she herself was a member, having no more right to do it than any one county of England to separate itself from the rest, and govern itself by laws different from those established over the whole kingdom. To say more on this subject would exceed the bounds of a letter; and if to what I have here set down the King my brother's and the late Duchess's papers be added, I think it is sufficient, if not to convince an unbiassed judgment, at least to create a more favourable opinion of the Catholic cause. A true copy of my letter to my daughter, the Princess of Orange, 1687."

"J. R."

A Mr. Gibbon, the great-grand uncle of the celebrated historian, was infected with the superstitious notions of the age; a belief, however, in which Pepys did not participate. The former writes to the Jatter in the following terms :---

"Mr. Gibbon to Pepys.

"27th August, 1675. "Good Sir-I pray pardon me: I am sorry I appeared so abruptly before you, I'll assure you, a paper of the same nature with the enclosed was left for you at the public office some ten days since, as likewise for every one of the Commissioners. But, Sir, I am heartily glad of the miscarriage, for now I have an opportunity to request a favour, by writing, that I could hardly have had confidence by word of mouth to have done; and in that I have much want of my friend Mr. Sir, a gentlewoman of my acquaintance told me she had it for a certainty, from the family of the Montagus, that as you were one night playing late upon some musical instrument, together with your friends, there suddenly appeared a human feminine shape and vanished, and after that continued. Walking in the garden you espied the appearing person, demanded of her if, at such a time, she was not in such a place. She answered no; but she dreamed she was, and heard excellent music. Sir, satisfaction is to you my humble request. And if it be so, it confirms the opinion of the ancient Romans concerning their genii, and confutes those of the Sadducees and Epicures [Epicureans.] "Sir your most humble servant,

JOHN GIBBON." Let the manufacturers of Manchester and Glasgow read the following letter:

"Sir-In order to your desire, I present your honour with this small narrative concerning staining calicoes in India. They take the pieces and put them into milk, mixed with conge, which is size boiled in water and strained, which is like our water-starch; and allum a good quantity, wetting and drying it two or three times, laying it smooth. When dry, they sleek it with smooth shells, and roll it up, being fitted for use. Then, their patterns being drawn on paper, they prick them, and pounce them with charcoal. They have a root called chay, (the best comes from Persia, and is like our small licorice,) which they beat, and steep in water with allum. They have a small iron pen with a slit at the end, much like a butcher's skewer, with cotton yarn rolled within an inch of the drawing end, the bigness of a walnut, which they dip in liquor, squeezing it so gently between their three fingers and thumb, so running along the pounced work, where it turns black in a trice, no ink blacker, though looking like fair water. So, in like sort, they colour birds, beasts, flowers, fruit. When they have done one colour with these pens, they run it about the edges with hot wax, that it may not mix with other colours. Then they boil the cloth to fetch out the wax. And every colour they lay on, they wax and boil till finished. great quantities of a sort which is not completed in eight or ten months' time ; so that the cloth is half worn when finished. "Sir, I am your faithful humble servant,

They make

CHARLES WYLDE."

We conclude with a letter from Evelyn to Pepys, which will have charms for the whole literary world. It is dated Deptford, October 4, 1689. He begins with saying that he had been reading Aristotle's book on divination by dreams, and that

"The very night after, methought Mr. Pepys and I were discoursing in his library, among other things, about the ceremonious part of conversation, and visits of form, between well-bred persons; and I distinctly remember that I told him (what was true and no dream) that the late Earl of St. Alban's, uncle to Henry Jermyn, took extraordinary care at Paris that his young nephew should learn by heart all the forms of encounter and court address; such as the Latins would express by verba honestatis, and the French, who, if I mistake not, are masters to excess in these civilities, by l'entre-gent; as on occasions of giving or taking the wall, sitting down, entering in at, or going out of, the door, taking leave, l'entrétien de la ruelle, and other encounters à la cavalière, among ladies, &c.; in all which, never was person more adroit than my late neighbour the Marquis de Ruvigne. The Italians, and indeed Spaniards, exceed us infinitely in this point of good-breeding. Nay, I observe generally, that our women of quality often put us to ‘O Lord, madam!' when we have nothing else to fill up and reply. But quorsum hæc? (a little patience,) I was never in my life subject to night-visions, till of late, I seldom pass without some reverie; which verifies that of St. Peter, cited from the Prophet, Your old men shall dream dreams;' and so you will shortly give me over for a dotard, should I continue to interrupt you with my impertinences. I will only tell you that my wife, of a much sedater temper, yet often dreaming, has now and then diverted me with stories, that hung as orderly together as studied narratives. Some I had formerly made her write down for their prettiness, very seldom broken or inconsistent, such as mine commonly are, but such as the Peripatetic means when he says, 'quieto sanguine fiunt pura somnia,' comparing those other evtravagant and confused dreams to resemblances the circles of disturbed and agitated waters reflect, that blend and confound the species, and present centaurs and terrible spectres; whilst the calmer fountain gives the entire image (as it did of Narcissus in the fable) and entertains us with our waking thoughts. What could be more explicit than the above, of the cause of this variety of dreams, which he as well as Hippocrates, and others from them, attribute to the crasis and constitution of the body, and complexions co-operating with other perturbations affecting the fancy. But, leaving these to the Oneirocriticks, I shall use them no further than to let you see how often you are in my best and serenest thoughts: Amici de amicis certa sæpe somniant;'-And if the subject of my wild phantasm (which was a dialogue with you, about forms of speaking on ceremonious occasions) naturally leading me to something I lately mentioned, where I spake of academies and refining our language, have not already quite worn out your patience, I would entertain you here with a copy of what I sent our chairman some years since, as an appendix to my former letter, and as you enjoined me. I conceive the reason both of additions to and corruptions of the English language, as of moɛt other tongues, has proceeded from the same causes; namely, from victories, plantations and colonies, frontiers, staples of commerce, pedantry of schools, affectation of travellers, fancy style of court, vernility and mincing of citizens, pulpits, the bar, politicians, remonstrations, theatres, shops, &c. The parts affected with it may be found to proceed from the accent, analogy, direct interpretation, tropes, phrases, and the like. I did therefore humbly VOL. I. (1841) NO. I

D