is the enormous and ruinous expence of maintaining a large number of men, without any civil employment for their support; an expence, which neither the land nor trade of this realm can possibly bear much longer, without public failure!

No Englishman, therefore, can be truly loyal, who opposes these essential principles of the English law, whereby the people are required to have "arms of defence and peace," for mutual as well as private defence: for a standing army of regular soldiers is entirely repugnant to the constitution of England, and the genius of its inhabitants.

Standing armies were not unknown, indeed, to our ancestors in very early times, but they were happily opposed by them, and declared illegal. A remarkable instance of this is related by Sir Edward Coke, in his 7th rep. p. 443, (Calvin's case,) but with a very erroneous application of the doctrine, (as there is in many other instances of that particular report,) for which the chancellor or judges, probably, who spoke, and not the reporter, must one day be answerable. "It appeareth, by Bracton, lib. iii. tract 2. c. 15. fol. 134. that Canutus, the Danish king, having settled himself in this kingdom in peace, kept, notwith standing, (for the better continuance thereof) great armies within this realm." [Yet Bracton was more wise and honourable than to conceive or hint that great armies, so kept by the king, were proper instruments" for the better continuance of peace;" for he says no such thing, this being only a disloyal conceit of some modern judge, concerned in the argument of Calvin's case: but to return to the words of the reporter.] "The peers and nobles of England, distasting this government by arms and armies, Codimus accipitrem, quia semper vivit in armis,) wisely and politiquely persuaded the king, that they would provide for the safety of him and his people, and yet his armies, carrying with them many incon veniencies, should be withdrawn," &c.

66

(This would be a proper language and true policy for a free British parliament to adopt.) Hereupon" (says the reporter) "Canutus presently withdrew his armies, and within a while after he lost his crown," &c.

Here again the judge, whoever he was that spoke, betrayed a most disloyal prejudice in favour of "a government by arms and armies," which led him into a notorious falsehood! for, though the former part of the sentence is true, that king Canute " withdrew his armies;" vet the latter part, that, "within a while after, he lost his crown," is totally false; and the judge, by asserting that groundless circumstance, seemed inclined to insinuate, that the withdrawing the armies occasioned the (supposed) loss of the crown, which was far from being the case. The great and noble Canute reaped the benefit of his prudent and generous conformity to the free constitution of this limited monarchy; for he enjoyed a long and glorious reign, after he sent back his Danish soldiers; which, according to Matthew of Westminster, (p. 403,) was in the year 1018; and he held the crown with dignity and glory to the end of his life, in the year 1035, when he was buried at Winchester with royal pomp (regio more, ib. p. 409): and his two sons also, who separately succeeded him, died likewise kings of England, for they lost not the kingdom but by natural deaths, and the want of heirs.

Happy would it have been for England, had all succeeding kings been as wise and truly politic as the great Canute, who feared not to commit the care of his own person, and those of his foreign friends that attended him, to the free laws and limited constitution of this kingdom.

The old English maxim, however, against "a government by arms and ar mies," ought never to be forgotten: "Odimus accipitrem, quia semper vivit in armis."

STIGAND, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

E was infamous in life, altogether

as he would often swear that he had not one penny upon the earth, and yet, by a key,

understanding; sottishly serviceable both to pleasure and sloth; in covetousness beneath the baseness of rusticity, insomuch MONTHLY MAG. No. 209.

treasures of his were found under the ground. And this was a grief and sick. ness to honest minds, that such spurious F

and

and impure creatures should sustain, or rather distrain, the reverence and majesty of religion.

BANKERS.

The chief factors of Italy have been Grisons; and they told me, that as the trade of banking began in Lombardy, so that all over Europe a Lombard and a banker signified the same thing, so the great bankers of Lombardy were Grisons, and to this day the Grisons drive a great trade in money. For a man there of one hundred thousand crowns estate, hath not perhaps a third part of this within the country, but puts it out in the neighbour ing estates.

SUPERSTITION.

I heard a Capuchin preach here; it was the first sermon I heard in Italy. And I was much surprised at many comical expressions and gestures; but most of all with the conclusion, for there being in all the pulpits of Italy a crucifix on the side of the pulpit towards the altar, he, after a long address to it, at last, in a forced transport, took it in his arms and hugged it, and kissed it. But I observed that before he kissed it, he, seeing some dust on it, blew it off very carefully; for I was just under the pulpit. He entertained it with a long and tender caress, and held it out to the people, and would have forced tears, both, from himself and them; yet I saw none shed.

CROMWELL.

Prince Cromwell, who was now wholly out of action, having laid his scene in the counties and boroughs for elections to the ensuing Parliament, gave himself and the town a little recreation. It hap pened on a Friday in July, that, desirous to divert himself with driving of his coach and six horses in Hyde Park, with his secretary Thurlow in it, like Mephistophilus and Doctor Faustus career. ing it in the air, to try how he could govern horses, since rational creatures were so unruly and difficult to be reined; like another Phaeton, he fell, in the experiment, from the coach-box; which was presently posted into the city, and many ominous and true conjectures made of his certain catastrophe; one of the ingenious songs on the occasion, ending in this presagious rhyme:

Every day and hour bath shew'd us his power,
But now he hath shew'd us his art:
His first reproach was a fall from a coach,
His next will be from a cart.

A CURIOSITY DISCOVERED 1665. There was a curiosity discovered at a place called Bald Bath-ford, three

GREATRAKES, THE STROAKER. About this time (1665) the fame of Greatrakes the Stroaker filled the mouths of the people both in city and country. A novelty not unfit to be mentioned, seeing that at that time, many wise men were affected with it. They that knew him, reported him for a civil, frank, and wellhumoured man, born in Munster, of Eng➡ lish extraction; and sometime a lieutenant in Colonel Farr's regiment. He was mas◄ ter of a competent estate, and performed strange cures by stroaking or touching; for which he took neither money nor presents. That which first created the wonder was, that he passed without contradiction; and such multitudes followed him as only they could believe who saw them. He was said to admire himself the gift which he had. Had he stayed among the ignorant Irish, his fame might have continued longer; but the infidelity of the English, made him often fail in his divinity, and his reputation once blemished, his healing mystery soon vanished.

JAMES NAYLOR, THE QUAKER

ENTHUSIAST.

James Naylor, a quaker, who, resembling in his proportions and complexion the picture of Christ, had, in all other things, as the setting of the beard and locks in the same fashion, dared to counterfeit our blessed Lord. To this purpose he had disciples and women ministering to him, whose blasphemous expressions and applications of several parts of scripture relating properly to the loveliness and transcendant excellency of Christ, to this impostor, will (if repeated) move horror and trembling in every christian. His first appearance in this manner was at Bristol, where a man, leading his horse bare-headed, and one Dorcas Erbury, and Martha Symmonds, going up to the knees in mire, by his horse's side, sung aloud, Holy, holy, holy, Hosanna, &c. For

this

this they were seized by the magistrates, and, being complained of to the parliament, were brought up to town, into which (as in all places) they entered sing ing the same blasphemies. At the bar of the House, in December (1656) he was sentenced to be set in the pillory twice, and whipt twice, and his forehead to be stigmatized with the letter B. and bored through the tongue; with which he used to answer to any question, Thou hast said it, and the like. He was likewise whipt at Bristol, and thence returned to Newgate. One Mr. Rich (a merchant of credit) that held him by the band while he was in the pillories, with divers others, licked his wounds, The women were ob served some to lay their head in his lap, lying against his feet, others to lean it upon his shoulders, &c. After three days wilful abstinence, having weakened him self even unto death, he begged some victuals; and then was set to work, which he performed, and came by degrees to himself and to reduction. At the return of the Rump, he got his liberty, but survived it not; his additional pretended divinity having attenuated and wasted his humanity, and that body sublimed and prepared for miracles, went the way of all flesh.

INVESTITURE OF CROMWELL.

Being seated in his chair, on the left hand thereof stood the Lord Mayor Titchbouror, and the Dutch ambassador; the French ambassador, and the Earl of Warwick, on the right; next behind him stood his son Richard, Fleetwood, Claypool, and the privy council; upon a lower descent stood the Lord Viscount Lisle, Lords Montague, and Whitlock, with drawn swords. Then the speaker, (Sir Thomas Whiddrington) in the name of the parliament, presented to him a robe of purple velvet, a bible, a sword, and a sceptre; at the delivery of these things, the speaker made a short comment upon them to the Protector, which he divided into four parts as followeth.

1. The robe or purple: this is an emblem of magistracy, and imports righteousness and justice. When you have put on this vestment, I may say you are a gownman. This robe is of a mixt colour, to shew the mixture of justice and mercy. Indeed, a magistrate must have two hands, to cherish and to punish.

2. The bible is a book that contains the Holy Scriptures, in which you have the happiness to be well versed. This book of life, consists of two testaments, the old and new; the first shews Chris

tum velatum, the second Christum re velatum: Christ veiled, and revealed. It is a book of books, and doth contain both precepts and examples for good govern ment.

3. Here is a sceptre not unlike a staff, for you are to be a staff to the weak and poor; it is of ancient use in this kind. It is said in Scripture, that the sceptre shall not depart from Judah. It was of the like use in other kingdoms. Homer, the Greek poet, calls kings and princes, sceptre-bearers.

4. The last thing is a sword, not a military, but civil sword: it is a sword rather of defence than offence; not to defend yourself only, but your people also. If I might presume to fix a motto upon this sword, as the valiant Lord Talbot had upon his, it should be this, Ego sum Domini Protectoris, ad protegendum po. pulum meum. "I am the Protector's, to

protect my people."

This speech being ended, the speaker took the bible, and gave the Protector his oath: afterwards Mr. Manton made a prayer, which being ended, the heralds, by sound of trumpet proclaimed his highness Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dominions thereunto belonging; requiring all persons to yield him due obedience. At the end of all, the Protector, with his train carried up by the Lord Sherard, Warwick's nephew, and the Lord Roberts, his eldest son, returned; the Earl of Warwick sitting at one end of the coach against him; Richard his son, and Whitlock in one; and Lord Lisle, and Montague, in the other boot, with swords drawn; and the Lord Claypool led the horse of honour, in rich caparisons, to Whitehall.

RIDICULOUS SUPERSTITION AND IGNO

RANCE OF DR. FULK:

Who relateth in his book of Meteors, that the river Rhine in Germany will drown all bastard children that are cast into it, but drive to land those that are

lawfully begotten. And also he says, there is a well in Sicily, whereof if thieves drink they presently become blind.

JOHN TAYLOR.

This poet was a native of Gloucestershire, a man of great natural parts, bot little education. He wrote several poems which were dedicated to King James and King Charles the First. For some time he kept a public-house at Long Acre: and upon the murder of King Charles, set up the sign of the Mourning Crown; but this open piece of loyalty, in those days, obliged him to pull it down; upon

which he set up his own instead, with the following lines underit:

Kings' heads are hung up for a sign,
And many a saint's; then why not mine?

WONDERFUL SPRINGS.

Pomponius Mela, in his account of the Canary or Fortunate Isles, gives an account of two wonderful springs, the water of one is of such a quality that it causes those who drink of it to die laughing; whilst the reverse is the nature of the other, which is the only remedy to heal those who have drank of the first; so that the bad qualities of the one are counterbalanced by the virtues of the

other. Pomp. Mela, lib. 3, cap. ii; and also Petrarch, in one of his canzonets;

Ne l'isole famose di Fortuna Due fonti hai; chi di l'una, Bee moi ridendo; e chi de l'altra scampa. Canz. 18. st. 6.

MOCK SUNS.

Languet and Stow relate, in their Chronicles, that in the year 1233, upon the 7th of April, four suns were seen besides the natural sun, (which, in those days of ignorance and superstition, were

ascribed to be the forerunners of war, famine, pestilences, &c. &c.) for as those chronicles testify, there were much strife and dissention stirred up between Henry the Third and the lords of his kingdom; wasted by fire and sword from Wales to for the very next year England was Salisbury, which town was burnt soon after, attended with a great drought and pestilence. Also in the year 1460, three before the three Earls Edward Earl of suns made their appearance but the day the Earl of Wiltshire, fought the great March, with the Earl of Pembroke, and battle at Mortimer's Cross, as Stow af

firmeth, in which the Earl of March put the others to flight, with a great destruction of their soldiers. Two more instances are also chronicled: one by Fulk in his Meteors, who says, that in the year 1526, towards the slaughter of Lewis the Second, King of Hungary, three suns marched forth. The second instance is told by Inemond, who saith, that in the year 1619, were three also seen at Lovain, in the month of May, at sun-rising.

"And scare his fierce crew, for thus daring to yoke,

"The palm of Religion with Liberty's oak." IV.

The yellow-hair'd Andrew then said: "Pr'ythee cease,

"Thou high-priest of the Saints, such vile vociferation.

"Presbyterians in England, 'tis true, you may tease;

to pursue,

stairs.

vation.

There

THOUGHTS ON LIFE.

IN IRREGULAR VERSE. PART II.

SAY'ST thou, short-sighted, sinful maq! In sad complaint, Oh what is life?' "Must Heaven's all-wise, all-gracious plan,

"To calm thy soul's unlawful strife, "Be sent by seraphs from the skies, "And all unveil'd before thy wondring eyes? Vain, impious wish! thy feeble sight "Would shrink before the bright design;

Whelm'd by the dazzling flood of light,
That streams from each refulgent line,

"Bow, humbly bow, before that God "Whose goodness crowns thy fleeting

days,

"Who, when he lifts the chastening rod, "A father's tenderest love displays. "Yet, complaining mortal, say, "Art thou left a hopeless prey,

To sorrow, care, or torturing pain? "What! is every pleasure fled, Every comfort cold, or dead,

"And will they never bloom again ?”

Oh! cease thou faithful monitor within,
Nor rend this weak deluded heart;
Low in the dust I mourn my sin,
And long to see its hated form depart.
Ungrateful wretch! have not mine eyes
Beheld with anguish and surprise

The deathly pallid cheek, the dim sunk eye,
Wildly upraised in speechless agony?

Has not my startled ear shrunk from the groan

That, rushing from the heart, appall'd my

own ;

And listened with unfeign'd distress To the sad tale of human wretchedness? Oh! could I then indulge a murmuring sigh? Did selfish sorrow then suffuse mine eye? Ah no! the tear that trickled down my cheek

Proclaim'd the gratitude no words could speak.

Then stretch thy thoughts abroad, my grovelling mind,

Call up to view the miseries of mankind,
These strong incitements still remain:
Explore the wretched haunts of grief and pain;

And let the ilis thy fellow-men endure,
Be to each murmuring thought a sovereign

cure.