fast at Rome, and dine at Naples. "Sire," replied the ambassador, "at this rate your Majesty might also contrive to hear vespers in Sicily."

LIV. BOUTS RIMÉS.

Perhaps the most difficult set of rhymes ever given for a Sonnet in Bouts Rimés, is the following. The occasion of the Sonnet was this:-In the year 1683, a lady, whom we shall call Iris, was lamenting the loss of a cat, which had been stolen from her. To console her, the following Sonnet was composed, the rhymes assigned for which consisted entirely of the names of towns and provinces. The invention was new; but although the difficulty was sufficient to dismay an ordinary sonnetteer, the author of the following seems to have very happily surmounted or eluded it.

Iris, aimable Iris, honneur de la

Vous pleurez votre chat plus que nous
Et fussiez vous, je pense, au fond de la
On entendroit de là vos cris jusqu'à

Sa peau fut à vos yeux fourrure de
Ön eut chassé pour lui Titi + de

Il feroit l'ornement d'un Couvent de

Cologne ;

Mais, quoi, l'on vous l'a pris ? on a bien pris Strasbourg.

D'aller pour une perte, Iris, comme la
Se percer sottement la gorge d'une

Il faudroit que l'on eut la cervelle à l'

Sienne,

Vienne,

Anvers.

Bonne,

Chez moi le plus beau chat, je vous le dis, ma
Vaut moins que ne vaudroit une orange à
Et qu'un verre commun ne se vend a

LV. CARDINAL GRANVELLE.

Narbonne,
Nevers.

Cardinal Granvelle, minister of Philip II. King of Spain, was so exact, that he preserved every

1282.

Alluding to the famous massacre of the French, in

+ Mademoiselle D'Orleans's dog, on whose death the Abbé Cotin composed a madrigal.

letter written to him. He had left in several chests in his residence at Besançon, a prodigious quantity of these letters, in different languages, all noted, quoted, and underlined with his own hand, with copies of many of his answers. After his death, these valuable documents were placed in a gallery exposed to the rats and the rain; the servants, and the children of the neighbourhood, helped themselves to the papers as they pleased; the maître d'hotel sold six of the chests to a confectioner, and in order to get rid of the rest, they were destined at once to the water-closet. The Abbé Brisot, who had met with some of them accidentally, found means to collect the remainder; and to prevent these from sharing the fate of the rest, he had them bound in eighty volumes. This collection consists of original letters of the Emperors Charles V., Ferdinand I., Maximilian II., Philip II. of Spain, Mary, Queen of Hungary, Eleanora, Queen of France, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland, Christiana of Denmark, Duchess of Lorraine, and the two Margarets of Austria, who governed in the Low Countries. The rest is composed of the letters of different ambassadors, with the answers ; and lastly, of two large volumes of private letters of the Cardinal to M. de Bellefontaine, his relation, and intimate friend, where the Cardinal displays his whole heart without disguise.

LVI. LATIN VERSE. GUALTIER DE LILLE.

It has been long disputed who was the author of the celebrated verse which has become proverbial,

"Incidit in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim.”

It has subsequently been discovered, that it is

D

the production of Gualtier de Lille, as had been remarked by Galeotus Martius and Paquier in their Researches. This Gualtier, surnamed Chatillon, flourished in the 13th century. He is the author of a poem in ten books, called the Alexandriad ; and the verse in question is the 301st of the 5th Book, where the poet, apostrophising Darius, who in flying from Alexander, fell into the hands of Bessus, expresses himself thus :

-Quo flectis inertem,

Rex periture, fugam? Nescis, heu, perdite, nescis,
Quem fugias; hostes incurris dum fugis hostem;
Incidis in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim."

LVII. MARY DE MEDICIS.

Fabro Chigi, who was afterwards Pope, under the title of Alexander VII., while Nuncio in France, was present at the death of Mary de Medicis. He asked her if she pardoned all her enemies, and particularly Cardinal Richelieu. She said she did, from her heart. "Madame," said he, as a mark of reconciliation, will you send him the bracelet you wear on your arm?" "Nay," replied she, laying her head on the pillow," that is too much !"

LVIII. LOUIS XIV. AND SPINOLA.

Louis XIV., grave and dignified as he was, could not restrain the joy he felt on the birth of the Duke of Burgundy, on the 6th of August 1682. He refused the attendance of his guards, and every one was allowed to address him. As all were admitted to the honour of kissing his hand, the Marquis Spinola, in the ardour of his zeal, bit his finger in doing so, and that so sharply that the King was forced to call out. "I beg your Majesty's pardon," said the Marquis; " if I had not bit your

finger, you would not have distinguished me from the crowd."

LIX. PROOF OF NOBILITY.

I know some gentlemen extremely proud of their nobility, who are able to produce no better title to it, than a sentence condemning some of their ancestors to be beheaded.

In 1424, a female devotee at Bourg, in Bresse, proclaimed that she had been commissioned by God to liberate souls from hell, and that she had been doing so, for some time, at the rate of three a-day.

LXI. MURETUS.

One

The scholars of Muretus sometimes made a noise, and interrupted him. As his temper was rather violent, he used to reprove them occasionally with violence, and kept them in awe. day during the lecture, one of them rang a bell which he had brought in his pocket. "Truly," said Muretus, "I should have been astonished, if, among such a flock of sheep, there had not been a bell-wether to lead the rest."

LXII. LOUIS XII. GREY HAIRS.

Louis XII. one day looking at himself in his mirror, was astonished to see a number of grey hairs on his head. "Ah!" said he, "these must be owing to the long speeches I have listened to; and it is those of M. le

have ruined my hair."

in particular, that

LXIII. ROLINUS' SERMONS.

The story which is so pleasantly told by Rabelais, chap. vii. of Book III., and the answer of Pantagruel to Panurge, when he consults him on his intended marriage, are copied from a sermon of John Rolinus, Doctor of Paris, and Monk of

Cluny, on widowhood. The passage appears to me singular enough to deserve translation. He tells us, that a certain widow having gone to ask the advice of her Curé, whether she ought to marry again, told him she was without support, and that her servant, for whom she had taken a fancy, was industrious, and well acquainted with her husband's trade. The Curé's answer was, that she ought to marry him. "And yet," said the widow, "I am afraid to do it; for when we marry, we run some risk of finding a master in our servants." "Well, then," said the Curé, "don't take him." "But what shall I do?" said the widow. "I cannot support the labour of my husband's business without assistance." "Marry him, then," said the Curé. "Very well," said the widow; "but if he turns out a worthless fellow, he may get hold of my property and spend it." "Then you need not take him," replied the Curé. In this way the Curé always coincided with the last opinion expressed by the widow; but seeing, at last, that her mind was really made up, and that she would marry the servant, he told her to take the advice of the bells of the church, and that they 'would counsel her best what to do. The bells rang, and the widow distinctly heard them say, "Prends ton valet: Prends ton valet."* She accordingly returned and married him immediately. Some time afterwards, however, he drubbed her heartily, and she found, that, instead of being mistress, she had really become the servant. She returned to the Curé, and cursed the moment when she had been credulous enough to act upon his advice.

Take your servant: Take your servant. This incident will probably remind our readers of Whittington.