agreed with him we learn from a rare pamphlet, principally written by himself, entitled The English Hermit, or the Wonder of the Age. 'Instead of strong drinks and wines,' says the eccentric Roger, 'I give the old man a cup of water; and instead of roast mutton and rabbit, and other dainty dishes, I give him broth thickened with bran, and pudding made with bran and turnip-leaves chopped together, at which the old man (meaning my body) being moved, would know what he had done, that I used him so hardly. Then I shewed him his transgressions, and so the wars began. The law of the old man in my fleshly members rebelled against the law of my mind, and had a shrewd skirmish; but the mind, being well enlightened, held it so that the old man grew sick and weak with the flux, like to fall to the dust. But the wonderful love of God, well pleased with the battle, raised him up again, and filled him full of love, peace, and content of mind, and he is now become more humble, for now he will eat dock-leaves, mallows, or grass.'

The persecutions the poor man inflicted on himself, caused him to be persecuted by others. Though he states that he was neither a Quaker, a Shaker, nor a Ranter, he was cudgelled and put in the stocks; the wretched sackcloth frock he wore was torn from his back, and he was mercilessly whipped. He was four times arrested on suspicion of being a wizard, and he was sent from prison to prison; yet still he would persist in his course of life, not hesitating to term all those whose opinion differed from his by the most opprobrious names. He published another pamphlet, entitled Dagon's Downfall; or the great Idol digged up Root and Branch; The English Hermit's Spade at the Ground and Root of Idolatry. This work shews that the man was simply insane. We last hear of him residing in Bethnal Green. He died on the 11th of September 1680, and was buried in Stepney Churchyard, where his tombstone exhibits the following quaint epitaph:

'Tread gently, reader, near the dust

Committed to this tomb-stone's trust:
For while 'twas flesh, it held a guest
With universal love possest:
A soul that stemmed opinion's tide,
Did over sects in triumph ride;
Yet separate from the giddy crowd,
And paths tradition had allowed.
Through good and ill reports he past,
Oft censured, yet approved at last.
Wouldst thou his religion know?
In brief 'twas this: to all to do
Just as he would be done unto.
So in kind Nature's law he stood,

A temple, undefiled with blood,

A friend to everything that's good.
The rest angels alone can fitly tell;

Haste then to them and him; and so farewell!'

SEPTEMBER 12.

St Albeus, bishop and confessor, 525. St Eanswide, virgin and abbess, 7th century. St Guy, confessor, 11th century.

Born.-Francis I. of France, 1494; Sir William Dugdale, antiquary, 1605, Shustoke, Warwickshire; Jean-Philippe Rameau, writer of operas, 1683, Dijon. Died.-Pope Innocent VI., 1362; Cinq-Mars, favourite of Louis XIII., executed at Lyon, along with De Thou,

CINQ-MARS.

on charge of conspiracy, 1642; Griffith Jones, miscellaneous writer, 1786, London; Edward, Lord Thurlow, chancellor of England, 1806, Brighton; Lebrecht Von Blücher, field-marshal of Prussia, 1819, Kriblowitz, Silesia, Lord Metcalfe, statesman, 1846, Basingstoke; William Cooke Taylor, miscellaneous writer, 1849, Dublin; James Fillans, sculptor, 1852, Glasgow; Sir James Stephen, historical and miscellaneous writer, 1859, Coblentz.

CINQ-MARS.

Youth and comeliness of person not unfrequently serve as palliations of serious delinquencies, and what in the case of an ordinary criminal would have been looked on as simply a fitting punishment for his misdeeds, is apt to be regarded as harsh and oppressive, when the penalties of the law come to be inflicted on a young and handsome transgressor. A feeling of this sort has thrown a romantic interest around the fate of the Marquis de Cinq-Mars, the favourite of Louis XIII., though it is but justice to his memory to admit that, in putting him to death, the principles both of law and equity were grossly violated.

It is well known that the weak and irresolute Louis XIII. was entirely subject to his prime minister, the crafty and ambitious Cardinal Richelieu. Yet in the opinion of the latter, it was necessary to watch the sovereign closely, lest some stranger should gain such a sway over his heart, as to render nugatory the influence wielded by himself. It was necessary to provide him with some favourite, who might act as a spy on his actions, and duly report all his proceedings. A fitting instrument for such an employment, the cardinal believed he had discovered in M. de CinqMars, a young gentleman of Auvergne, who joined the most unique graces of personal appearance to the most brilliant wit and captivating manners. Having been introduced at court by Richelieu, he rapidly gained the favour of the king, who had him appointed, when only nineteen, to the offices of grand equerry and master of the robes. Never was a favourite's advancement more speedy, nor the sunshine of royal friendship more liberally dispensed. Yet the gay and volatile Cinq-Mars chafed under the restraints to which the constant attention claimed by an invalid monarch subjected him, and he not unfrequently involved himself in disgrace by transgressing the rules of court. A mistress of his, the beautiful Marion de Lorme, occupied a large share of his thoughts to the exclusion of the king; and Louis was often irritated in the mornings, on sending for his equerry, by the announcement, that he had not yet risen, the real fact being, that he had just lain down to sleep after a night spent in visiting Mademoiselle de Lorme. Cinq-Mars was at first gently reprimanded for his indolence, but the truth at last came out, and a most uncourtly altercation ensued between him and the king. High words passed on both sides, and at last Louis ordered him from his presence. After a short absence from court, he made a humble submission to Richelieu, and through his influence was reinstated in royal favour. But the relation between these two men soon assumed a different phase. Cinq-Mars was beginning to insinuate himself too intimately into the king's good graces, and by aiming at freeing himself from dependence on Richelieu, rendered himself an object of suspicion and hatred to the jealous priest.

Then the latter mortally offended the favourite, by interposing to prevent his marriage with the Princess Gonzaga, to whose hand Cinq-Mars had ventured to aspire. The result of all these counteragencies was a rancorous and deadly feud, which nothing but blood could appease. The assassination of Richelieu was meditated by Cinq-Mars, and suggested by him to the king, who certainly did not manifest any decided aversion to a scheme which would have rid him of a minister who exercised over him so thorough a control. But the project was never carried out. In the meantime, some of the leading French nobles, including among others the Duke of Orleans, Louis's brother, and the Duke de Bouillon, had entered into a conspiracy for the overthrow of Cardinal Richelieu, and the securing to the first-named duke the regency of the kingdom, in the event of the king's death, an occurrence which the state of his health rendered probable at no distant date. Into this confederacy Cinq-Mars readily entered along with a friend of his, the councillor De Thou, a son of the celebrated historian. The real mover, however, in the plot was Louis, Duke of Orleans. With the view of strengthening their cause, the conspirators entered into a secret treaty with the Spanish court, and everything was looking favourable for the success of their design. The cardinal, however, had his spies and informers everywhere, and having received intelligence of what was going on, refrained from taking any active steps till he could strike the final blow. At last he contrived to get possession of a copy of the Spanish treaty, and laid it before the king, who thereupon granted a warrant for the arrest of the parties implicated. The real ringleader, Louis of Orleans, a man aged forty-six, had the baseness to throw the entire guilt of the transaction upon Cinq-Mars, a youth of twenty-two, and by burning, as is said, the original treaty, managed to destroy the legal proof of his treason. The Duke de Bouillon escaped by forfeiting his principality of Sedan. But Richelieu was bent on having the lives of Cinq-Mars and De Thou, the demerits of the latter consisting in the circumstance of his father, the historian, having made in his work some unpleasant revelations regarding one of the cardinal's ancestors. The two friends were arrested at Narbonne, conveyed to Perpignan, and from thence up the Rhone towards Lyon. It is said Richelieu preceded them in a triumphal progress as far as Valence, having his two victims placed in a barge, which was attached to the stern of his own as he sailed up the river. On reaching Lyon, the prisoners were brought to trial, and after a mockery of the forms of justice, the evidence against both, more especially De Thou, being very incomplete, they were condemned to lose their heads as traitors. To gratify Richelieu, who dreaded the effect of the intercession of their friends and relatives with the king, the proceedings were hurried through as rapidly as possible, and the execution took place on the same day that sentence was pronounced. Both Cinq-Mars and De Thou behaved with great courage, though the decapitation of the latter was accomplished in a most bungling and repulsive manner, the proper executioner having broken his leg a few days before, and his place being supplied by a novice to the business, who was rewarded with a hundred crowns for his work. Such was the history of

GRIFFITH JONES.

Cinq-Mars, whose fate has supplied materials both to the romance-writer and dramatist. That he was illegally condemned, is certainly true; but it is no less so, that he had plotted Richelieu's overthrow, and at one period meditated his death, so that he could scarcely complain of being entangled in the same net which he had already spread for another. The cardinal did not long survive the gratification of his vengeance, and, broken down by disease and bodily suffering, followed his victims in a few months to that unseen world where the forgiveness, which he had so inexorably withheld from them, would have to be solicited, it is to be hoped successfully, by himself, from a higher and more merciful Power.

GRIFFITH JONES.

The readers of the Vicar of Wakefield-and who has not read it?-must remember how poor Primrose, when sick and penniless at a little alehouse seventy miles from home, was rescued from his distressing situation by the philanthropic bookseller of St Paul's Churchyard, who has written so many little books for children'-who called himself the friend of children, but was the friend of all mankind'- then engaged in a journey of importance, namely, to gather materials for the history of one Mr Thomas Trip.' The person here meant was Mr John Newbery, who carried on business as a publisher in the last house of Ludgate Hill, adjoining to St Paul's Churchyard, and who was one of the chief bibliopolic patrons of Goldsmith himself. It was, indeed, he to whom Dr Johnson sold for sixty pounds the manuscript of the Vicar of Wakefield, thereby redeeming its author from a position of difficulty with which Boswell has made the public sufficiently familiar.

The little books for children published by Mr Newbery are now entirely unknown. We remember them still in great favour about fifty years ago. Rather plain in respect of paper they were; the embellishments were somewhat rude; and perhaps the variant-hued paper-covers, with a slight gold lackering, would be sneered at by the juveniles of the present age. Nevertheless, we cannot look back upon them without respect. The History of Goody Two-shoes, the History of Giles Gingerbread, and the Travels of Tommy Trip, were all charming

narrations.

If it was worth while to advert to M. Perrault as the author of the Contes des Fées, it seems equally proper, in a book of this kind, to put into some prominence the writers of this English literature for the young. Let it be observed, then, that the chief of these was a Welshman of considerable learning and talent, Mr Griffith Jones, who had been reared as a printer under Mr Bowyer, but advanced to be a journalist of repute, and a notable contributor to periodical works supported by Johnson, Smollett, Goldsmith, and other eminent men. He was many years editor of the Daily Advertiser, the paper in which the letters of Junius appeared. He resided at one time in Bolt Court, Fleet Street, and thus was a near neighbour of Johnson. A small work of his, entitled Great Events from Little Causes, is said to have had an extensive sale. Being, however, a modest man, he was content to publish anonymously, and thus it has happened that his name is hardly known in our literary history. His

jewels and papers to hold in safe-keeping. He placed his library in a tower overlooking the entrance to his court-yard, and there spent his leisure in reading, meditation, and writing. On the central rafter he inscribed: I do not understand; I pause; I examine. He took to writing for want of something to do, and having nothing else to write about, he began to write about himself, jotting down what came into his head when not too lazy. He found paper a patient listener, and excused his egotism by the consideration, that if his grandchildren were of the same mind as himself, they would be glad to know what sort of man he was. 'What should I give to listen to some one who could tell me the ways, the look, the bearing, the commonest words of my ancestors!' If the world should complain that he talked too much about himself, he would answer the world that it talked and thought of everything but itself.

A volume of these egotistic gossips he published at Bordeaux in 1580, and the book quickly passed into circulation. About this time he was attacked with stone, a disease he had held in dread from childhood, and the pleasure of the remainder of his life was broken with paroxysms of severe pain. 'When they suppose me to be most cast down,' he writes, and spare me, I often try my strength, and start subjects of conversation quite foreign to my state. I can do everything by a sudden effort, but, oh! take away duration. I am tried severely, for I have suddenly passed from a very sweet and happy condition of life, to the most painful that can be imagined.' Abhorring doctors and drugs, he sought diversion and relief in a journey through Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. At Rome he was kindly received by the pope and cardinals, and invested with the freedom of the city, an honour of which he was very proud. He kept a journal of this tour, which, after lying concealed in an old chest in his chateau for nearly two hundred years, was brought to light and published in 1774; and, as may be supposed, it contains a stock of curious and original information. While he was travelling, he was elected mayor of Bordeaux, an office for which he had no inclination, but Henri III. insisted that he should accept it, and at the end of two years he was re-elected for the same period. During a visit to Paris, he became acquainted with Mademoiselle de Gournay, a young lady who had conceived an ardent friendship for him through reading his Essays. She visited him, accompanied by her mother, and he reciprocated her attachment by treating her as his daughter. Meanwhile, his health grew worse, and feeling his end was drawing near, and sick of the intolerance and bloodshed which devastated France, he kept at home, correcting and retouching his writings. A quinsy terminated his life. He gathered his friends round his bedside, and bade them farewell. A priest said mass, and at the elevation of the host he raised himself in bed, and with hands clasped in prayer, expired. Mademoiselle de Gournay and her mother crossed half France, risking the perils of the roads, that they might condole with his widow and daughter.

It is superfluous to praise Montaigne's Essays; they have long passed the ordeal of time into assured immortality. He was one of the earliest discoverers of the power and genius of the French language, and may be said to have been the

ANCIENT BOOKS.

inventor of that charming form of literature-the essay. At a time when authorship was stiff, solemn, and exhaustive, confined to Latin and the learned, he broke into the vernacular, and wrote for everybody with the ease and nonchalance of conversation. The Essays furnish a rambling autobiography of their author, and not even Rousseau turned himself inside out with more completeness. He gives, with inimitable candour, an account of his likes and dislikes, his habits, foibles, and virtues. He pretends to most of the vices; and if there be any goodness in him, he says he got it by stealth. In his opinion, there is no man who has not deserved hanging five or six times, and he claims no exception in his own behalf. Five or six as ridiculous stories,' he says, ' may be told of me as of any man living.' This very frankness has caused some to question his sincerity, but his dissection of his own inconsistent self is too consistent with flesh and blood to be anything but natural. Bit by bit the reader of the Essays grows familiar with Montaigne; and he must have a dull imagination indeed who fails to conceive a distinct picture of the thick-set, square-built, clumsy little man, so undersized that he did not like walking, because the mud of the streets bespattered him to the middle, and the rude crowd jostled and elbowed him. He disliked Protestantism, but his mind was wholly averse to bigotry and persecution. Gibbon, indeed, reckons Montaigne and Henri IV. as the only two men of liberality in the France of the sixteenth century. Nothing more distinguishes Montaigne than his deep sense of the uncertainty and provisional character of human knowledge and Mr Emerson has well chosen him for a type of the sceptic. Montaigne's device-a pair of scales evenly balanced, with the motto, Que scais-je? (What do I know?)-perfectly symbolises the man.

The only book we have which we certainly know was handled by Shakspeare, is a copy of Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays. It contains the poet's autograph, and was purchased by the British Museum for one hundred and twenty guineas. A second copy of the same translation in the Museum has Ben Jonson's name on the fly-leaf.

ANCIENT BOOKS.

Before the invention of printing, the labour requisite for the production of a manuscript volume was so great, that such volume, when completed, became a treasured heir-loom. Half-a-dozen such books made a remarkable library for a nobleman to possess; and a score of them would furnish a monastery. Many years must have been occupied in writing the large folio volumes that are still the most valued books in the great public libraries of Europe; vast as is the labour of the literary portion, the artistic decoration of these elaborate pages of elegantly-formed letters, is equally wonderful. Richly-painted and gilt letters are at the head of chapters and paragraphs, from which vignette decoration flows down the sides, and about the margins, often enclosing grotesque figures of men and animals, exhibiting the fertile fancies of these old artists. Miniature drawings, frequently of the greatest beauty, illustrating the subject of each page, are sometimes spread with a lavish hand through these old volumes, and often furnish us with the only contemporary pictures we possess

ANCIENT BOOKS.

volume. Thus the volume of romances, known as The Shrewsbury Book, in the British Museum, has upon its first page an elaborate drawing, representing the famed Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, presenting this book to King Henry VI., seated on his throne, and surrounded by his courtiers. Many instances might readily be cited of similar scenes in other manuscripts preserved in the same collection.

Smaller and less ambitious volumes, intended for the use of the student, or for church-services, were more simply bound; but they frequently were enriched by an ivory carving let into the covera practice that seems to have ceased in the sixteenth century, when leather of different kinds was used, generally enriched by ornament stamped in relief. A quaint fancy was sometimes indulged

ANTIQUE BOOKBINDING.

specimens of antique bookbinding in the national collection, Paris. It is a work of the eleventh century, and encases a book of prayers in a mass of gold, jewels, and enamels. The central subject is sunk like a framed picture, and represents the Crucifixion, the Virgin and St John on each side the cross, and above it the veiled busts of Apollo and Diana; thus exhibiting the influence of the older Byzantine school, which is, indeed, visible throughout the entire design. This subject is executed on a thin sheet of gold, beaten up from behind into high relief, and chased upon its surface. A rich frame of jewelled ornament surrounds this subject, portions of the decoration being further enriched with coloured enamels; the angles are filled with enamelled emblems of the evangelists; the ground of the whole design enriched by threads and foliations of delicate gold wire.

Such books were jealously guarded. They represented a considerable sum of money in a merely mercantile sense; but they often had additional value impressed by some individual skill. Loans of such volumes, even to royalty, were rare, and never accorded without the strictest regard to their safety and sure return. Gifts of such books were the noblest presents a monastery could offer to a prince; and such gifts were often made the subject of the first picture on the opening page of the

ANCIENT BOOK.

in the form of books, such as is seen in the first figure of the cut just given. The original occurs in a portrait of a nobleman of that era, engaged in devotion, his book of prayers taking the conventional form of a heart, when the volume is opened. For the use of the religious, books of prayers were bound, in the fifteenth century, in a very peculiar way, which will be best understood by a glance at the second figure in our cut. The leathern covering of the volume was lengthened beyond the margin of the boards, and then gathered (a loose flap of skin) into a large knot at the end. When the book was closed and secured by the clasp, this leathern flap was passed under the owner's girdle, and the knot brought over it, to prevent its slipping. Thus a volume of prayers might be conveniently carried, and such books were very constantly seen at a monk's girdle.

There is another class of books for which great durability, during rough usage, was desired. These were volumes of accounts, registers, and law records. Strong boards sometimes formed their only covering, or the boards were covered with hog-skins, and strengthened by bosses of metal. The town of Southampton still possesses a volume containing a complete code of naval legislation, written in Norman-French, on vellum, in a hand apparently of the earlier half of the fourteenth century. It is preserved in its original binding, consisting of two oak boards, about half an inch thick, one of them being much longer than the other, the latter having a square hole in the lower part, to put the hand through, in order to hold it up while citing the laws in court. These boards are held together by the strong cords upon which the back of the book is stitched, and which pass through holes in the wooden covers. These are again secured by