banker, who was on the point of death. The dying man, after telling him he was perfectly reconciled to the will of God, and recommending himself to his prayers, turned to him as he was leaving his bed-side, and said to him, "Well-any news of specie to-day ?"

CLXXIII. COACHES.

Luxury has never been so universal as at present. The poor attempt to rival the rich; or the rich to disguise obscurity of birth by the splendour of their establishment and the richness of their dress. People were wiser in my younger days. There was then no difficulty in walking the streets, for coaches were rare enough. It is astonishing to see how these vehicles have multiplied. The three first coaches which had been seen in Paris, were those of Catherine de Medicis, of Diana, Duchess of Angouleme, and of De Thou, first President of the Parliament. The last had recourse to it only from necessity, on account of the gout, which incommoded him so much that he could no longer sit upon his mule. All the grandees of the army, and of the long robe, immediately followed his example; and now they have grown so common, that the streets seem paved with them.

CLXXIV. THE RELIGIOUS USURER.

M. F had made a large fortune by lending money at exorbitant interest. He was occasionally haunted, however, by religious scruples, and at the approach of Easter, was accustomed to pay a visit to all those who had borrowed money of him, to know whether they gave him the interest he exacted, freely and voluntarily. This visit he used

M. Valois was born in 1607.

to pay annually to all who dealt with him, during the holy week; and as they became quite accustomed to the call, they used to bawl out to him from a distance, "We give it to you, sir—we give it to you." Having thus appeased his conscience, he performed his religious ceremonies with great complacency and comfort.

CLXXV. M. DE LAUNOI.

M. de Launoi, a celebrated Doctor of Theology, had erased from his calendar St. Catherine, the Virgin Martyr; he maintained that her life was a mere fable, and when other people celebrated the feast of this saint, he used to sing an annual requiem.

MISCELLANEOUS ANA.

CLXXVI. ARABIA.

Perroniana.*-In that part of Tartary which is a dependency of Persia, there is a flourishing university, in which literature is taught by the Arabs. Giovanni Battista Remondi, who was the first person by whom Arabian books were printed in Europe, and who had studied in that university, asserted that it contained a vast variety of Arabian books, translated from Greek authors, which we no longer possess. It is to the Arabians we are indebted for the preservation of one of the books of Archimedes, and of several authors who have written on Mathematics,-Apollonius, Pergæus, and lastly, Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen.

CLXXVII. BIBLES.

There are two Bibles, one the Bible of the return, arranged by Esdras,-and that of the dispersion, which the Jews, scattered over the face of the earth, carried with them. The Books of the Maccabees could not be contained in the first, because the Maccabees did not appear till afterwards; but they are found in the other, which has been translated into Greek, and was used by the Apos

Cardinal de Perron, born in 1556, died at Paris in 1618. The Perroniana is by no means an interesting collection.

tles. Among the Latins, St Jerome was the first who rejected the Maccabees, in his Prologue Galeatus. But this opinion he afterwards retracted, in his Commentary upon Isaiah, and admitted them to be canonical.

CLXXVIII. HOW TO TURN THE BRAIN.

Nothing is so likely to turn the brain as intense application directed to one of six things: the quadrature of the circle; the multiplication of the cube; the perpetual motion; the philosopher's stone; judicial astrology; and magic. In youth, we may exercise our imagination upon them, in order to convince ourselves of their impossibility; but it argues a want of judgment to occupy ourselves with such inquiries at a more advanced age. "Nevertheless," says Fontenelle," the search has its advantages, for we find many things on the way that we never looked for."

CLXXIX. ESDRAS.

It is Esdras who writes the passage at the close of the Books of Moses, which speaks of his death, and which, of course, could not be written by him. Esdras was the person, who, on the return of the tribes from the Babylonish captivity, collected the scriptures together, correcting them, according to the testimony of some ancient authors, in eighteen places where they had been altered. Many of the Books of the Old Testament are lost, and, some say, more have perished than are now in existence.

CLXXX. PETRARCH.

The verses of Petrarch, which are commonly supposed to be levelled against Rome, are directed only against Avignon. They were written under the irritation felt by all the Italians on seeing the Popedom transferred to that city; and he calls the

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change the transmigration of Babylon, because the removal lasted as long as that transmigration, and because Avignon is situated upon the waters like Babylon.*

CLXXXI. JULIUS SCALIGER.

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Scaligeriana.+-Julius Scaliger used to say, that he was ignorant of three things: of the cause of the interval which takes place between the par oxysms of fever; how an idea, once forgotten, may be recalled to the memory; and the cause of the flux and reflux of the sea. Alas! of how many things was he ignorant of which he says nothing.

CLXXXII. CUJAS.

Cujas is the pearl of jurisconsults; he wrote only for himself and for the learned; he has finished what Alciatus began, explaining jurisprudence by itself. When he lectured in public, he did so with his hat on his head. He studied in an odd position, with his belly on the ground, lying on the carpet with his books about him. When Joseph Scaliger left his native place, he was very kindly received at Valentia by Cujas, who re-inspired him with the taste for study.

CLXXXIII. CASTALIO.

Sebastian Castalio, who was originally from Savoy, when at Lyons, in his youth, was called Castalio by mistake, his real name being Castillon. He was well pleased, however, at the change, be

This theory of the Cardinal's, we fear, is irreconci lable with the expressions of Petrarch. For instance, in Sonnet 107 of Part I., "Gia Roma or Babylonia falsa e rea," is plainly applicable to Rome, and not to Avignon.

The Scaligeriana professes to be a report of the con. versations of Joseph Scaliger and his friends, but is altoge ther unworthy of that great man, from its numerous inac

curacies.