When o'er thee all the crowded storms of woe, Roll darkling-mourn not! heaven hath order'd so, That life's swift stream through dreary shores should flow. Olearius. One Arab's steed's worth more than all An over crowded donkey stall.—Olearius. O lovely May! thou art a kiss From heaven to earth, of nuptial bliss ; Who soon shall feel a mother's pride.-Logau. In praise of truth and honesty, Men's busy tongues are never still, Thou addest daily to thy store thy gains, Will a gold fleece give to a sheep more brains?-Paullin. APPEARANCE. Appearance may deceive thee-understand A pure white glove may hide a filthy hand.-C. Gryphius. The world is but an opera show, We come, look round, and then we go.-C. Gryphius. "Tis hard indeed to make a pother, That Eve poor Adam overthrew, He laid him down and slept-and from his side Dazzled and charm'd he called that woman "bride," And his first sleep became his last repose.-Besser. COUNSEL. Friend! do not crouch to those above, Friend! do not tread on those below: Love those-they're worthy of thy love, Love these-and thou wilt make them so.-Wernicke. A BISHOP'S BLESSING. With cover'd head, a country boor Stood, while the Bishop bless'd the poor The mitred prelate lifted high His voice-Take off your hat"-" Not I Your blessing's little worth," he said, "If through the hat 'twont reach the head."-Wernicke. Of all Job lost, his history tells us plain, God gave him doubled portions back again, God did not take his plaguy wife-'tis true, What could the patient man have done with two ?-Wernicke. Ere yet her child has drawn its earliest breath, Bliss is like woman-both alike we see, EPITAPH. What thou art reading o'er my bones, And others soon shall read of thee, What thou art reading now of me.—Flemming. TO AN OLD COQUETTE. "Tis not thy years that frighten me away, But that thy youngest brother's hair is gray!-Gryphius. TO THE SAME. Be not disquieted, fond girl! in truth, They laugh not at thy age, but at thy youth.-Gryphius TO THE SAME. I call her aged? I? What lies fame tells- TO THE SAME. I did not laugh-in spite of Celia's rage, I dared not laugh—I've learnt to reverence age.-Gryphius. B. FACETIE BIBLIOGRAPHICÆ ; OR, The Old English Jesters. No. VI. DRMOCRITUS JUNIOR. VERSATILE INGENIUM, THE WIT- COURT AND UNIVERSITIE. WITH AN ABDERA. By Democritus junior. • IT is no very easy matter to account for an English jest book being FROM CITIE AND COUNTRIE, printed at Amsterdam; yet that our Wittie Companion issued from Dutch press, the type, and in many places the foreign orthography, sufficiently testify. There are indeed several severe passages on the Catholics and their religion, (which were both getting into fashion at the English court about the time of its appearauce,) and it might have been found difficult to procure an imprimatur in the country where the collection was principally intended to circulate, NEAR THE EXCHANGE. ANNO 1679, although nothing prevented its importation. With all our complaints Juv. Sat. -De sapientibus alter AMSTERDAM, PRINTED BY STEPHEN Octavo. * We are unable to state the exact number of pages in this volume, as the only copy we have ever seen or heard of ends at p. 232, but is evidently imperfect. of the days in which we live, and pre To return, however, to our Amsterdam Jester:-Whoever Democritus the younger might be, and there is no clue by which to discover his name, we are indebted to him for one of the most amusing volumes we ever remember to have fallen in with : Such books (says the bookseller to the intelligent reader) are to be esteem'd, not as altogether unprofitable, that doe awaken our reason, subtilize our wits, and marshal our conceptions of things: a wittie conceit being oftentimes a good convoy of truth, which otherwise could not so handsomly be ferried over: and amidst affairs transacted in the world, it is a matter more politic than one would think, smoothly to pass from jeast to earnest, and from earnest to jeast: yet let me advertise you by the by, that certain things there are which ought to be priviledged from jeasts; namely, Religion, Matters of State, Great Persons, any man's present business of importance, and any case that deserveth pittie; tho the present collection, being indeed as a speculum microcosmi, kind of prospect into the manners, humours, and dispositions of men in general, may be, well excus'd, if in some few places it does not in every point so exactly quadrate to the intentions specified; it may suffice that we here see what heretofore have been the subjects of human wit, and that we now know for the future what ought not to be. The life of Democritus, which precedes the collection of jests, is a slight compilation from Diogenes Laertius, Hippocrates, and others, and is signed D. C. It contains little more than the general heads of his character, and his well-known disposition to laugh at the follies of mankind: "he could never consider the many little concerns of the multitude, or once look into the labyrinth of the busie world, but he presently brake into laughter to see How busily about the streets men run, We will no longer detain our read- The King of France, being at Calais, sent over an Embassador, a verie tall person, upon no other errand but a complement to the King of England. At his authat afterwards the King ask'd Lord-keepdience he appeared in such a light garb, er Bacon," what he thought of the French Embassador ?" He answer'd, "That he was a verie proper man." "I," his Majestie replied, but what think you of his head-piece? is he a proper man for the office of an Embassador?' "Sir," (return'd he)" it appears too often, that tall men are like high houses of four or five stories, wherein commonlie the uppermost room is worst-furnished." A souldier in Ireland, having got his Secretary Walsingham and Secretary image enshrined, the extraction and first 1 be so proud," said he, "for I have known you from a plumb-tree. King Henry the Eighth haveing a months mind to the abbot of Glastenburie's estate (who was one of the richest abbots in England) sent for him to his court, and told him, that without he could resolve him three questions, he should not escape with his life. The abbot willing to get out of his clutches, promised his best endeavours. The King's questions were these: first, Of what compass the world was about? Secondly, How deep the sea was? And, thirdly, What the King thought? The abbot desired some few days' respite, which being granted, he returned home, but with intent never to see the King again, for he thought the questions impossible to be resolved. This his grief coming at last to the ears of his cook, he undertook, upon forfeiture of his life, to resolve these riddles, and to free his master from danger. The abbot willingly condescended. So the cook got on the abbot's cloaths, and at the time appointed went to the court, and being like the abbot in physiognomy, was taken by all the courtiers to be the same man. When he came before the King, (omitting other circumstances) he thus resolved his three questions. First, Of what compass the world was about? He said, "It was but twenty four hours' journey, and if a man went as fast as the sun, he might easily go it in that space." The second, How deep the sea was? He answered, "Only a stone's cast; for throw a stone into the deepest place of it, and in time it will come to the bottom." To the third, "which I conceive," saith he, 66 your Majesty thinks the most difficult to resolve; but indeed it is the easiest, that is, What your Highness thinks? swer, That you think me to be the abbot of Glastenburie, when as indeed I am but Jack his cook." I an A barber going to the court, and being, at his return, asked what he saw? he answered, The King was very neatlie trim'd. A certain nobleman sitting at the table opposite to Scotus (that writ on the sentences) a most learned Englishman, amongst other discourse, merrily asked him what was the difference betwixt Sot and Scot? He answered "Nothing but the table, Sir." One asked, Why men sooner gave to poor people that begged, than to scholars? "Tis,' said one, because they think they may sooner come to be poor, than to be scholars." A valiant captain, when some of his timeorous companions, to hinder the joyning of the battle, told him their enemies were three times as many as they. "Are they so?" said he, no whit dismayed, "then I am very glad, for there are enough to be killed, enough to be taken prisoners, and enough to run away." Count Gundamore, being Embassador for the King of Spain in England, and being jesting with K. James, and speeking in Latine, did many times speak false Latine. "What!" says the King, "how comes it that you break Priscian's head so often, being Embassador to so great a King as you say your master is?" "Oh, Sir,' A prudent gentleman in the beginning of the rebellious times, as he lay on his deathbed, was asked how he would be buried? He answered, "With my face downward; for within a while this England will be turned upside down, and then I shall lie right." (says he,)" your Maiestie must know that I speake Latine like a King; but your Majestie speaks Latine like an Embassador." One said he sung as well as most men in Europe, and thus he proved it: the most men in Europe do not sing well, therefore I sing as well as most men in Europe. A wit at Cambridge in King James his time was ordered to preach at St. Marie's before the vice-chancellour and the heads of the universitie, who formerlie had observed the drowsiness of the vice-chancellour, and thereupon took this place of scripture for his text, What? cannot ye watch one hour? At everie division, he concluded with his text, which by reason of the vice-chancellour's sitting so near the pulpit, often awaked him. This was so noted by the wits, that it was the talk of the whole university, and withal it did so nettle the vice-chancellour, that he complained to the archbishop of Canterburie, who willing to redress him, sent for this scholar up to London to defend himself against the crime laid to his charge, where coming, he made so many proofs of his extraordinary wit, that the archbishop enjoyned him to preach before king James; after some excuses he at length condescended, and coming into the pulpit, begins, James the First and the Sixth, waver not-meaning the first king of England, and the sixth of Scotlandat first the king was somewhat amazed at the text, but in the end was so well pleased with his sermon, that he made him one of the chaplains in ordinary. After this advancement, the archbishop sent him down to Cambridge to make his recantation to the vice-chancellour, and to take leave of the university; which he accordingly did, and took the latter part of the verse of his former text, Sleep on nowo, and take your rest. Concluding his sermon, he made his apology to the vice-chancellour, saying, "whereas I said before (which gave offence) what, cannot you watch one hour? I say now, Sleep on, and take your rest, and so left the university. DREAM UPON THE UNIVERSE. BY JOHN PAUL RICHTER. I HAD been reading an excellent dissertation of Krüger's upon the old vulgar error which regards the space from one earth and sun to another as empty. Our sun together with all its planets fills only the 31,419,460,000,000,000th part of the whole space between itself and the next solar body. Gracious Heavens! thought I,-in what an unfathomable abyss of emptiness were this universe swallowed up and lost, if all were void and utter vacuity except the few shining points of dust which we call a planetary system! To conceive of our earthly ocean as the abode of death and essentially incapable of life, and of its populous islands as being no greater than snail-shells, would be a far less error in proportion to the compass of our planet than that which attributes emptiness to the great mundane spaces: and the error would be far less if the marine animals were to ascribe life and fulness exclusively to the sea, and to regard the atmospheric ocean above them as empty and untenanted. According to Herschel, the most remote of the galaxies which the telescope discovers lie at such a distance from us-that their light, which reaches us at this day, must have set out on its journey two millions of years ago; and thus by optical laws it is possible that whole squadrons of the starry hosts may be now reaching us with their beams which have themselves perished ages ago. Upon this scale of computation for the dimensions of the world, what heights and depths and breadths must there be in this universe-in comparison of which the positive universe would be itself a nihility, were it crossed-pierced-and belted about by so illimitable a wilderness of nothing! But is it possible that any man can for a moment overlook those vast forces which must pervade these imaginary deserts with eternal surges of flux and reflux, to make the very paths to those distant starry coasts voyageable to our eyes? Can you lock up in a sun or in its planets their reciprocal forces of attraction? Does not the light stream through the immeasurable spaces between our earth and the nebula which is furthest removed from us? And in this stream of light there is as ample an existence of the positive, and as much a home for the abode of a spiritual world, as there is a dwellingplace for thy own spirit in the substance of the brain. To these and similar reflexions succeeded the following dream : Methought my body sank down in ruins, and my inner form stepped out appareled in light: and by my side there stood another form which resembled my own, except that it did not shine like mine, but lightened unceasingly. "Two thoughts," said the form, " are the wings with which I move; the thought of Here, and the thought of There. And behold! I am yonder;"-pointing to a distant world. "Come then, and wait on me with thy thoughts and with thy flight, that I may show to thee the universe under a veil." And I flew along with the Form.-In a moment our earth fell back, behind our consuming flight, into an abyss of distance; a faint gleam only was reflected from the summits of the Cordilleras; and a few moments more reduced the sun. to a little star; and soon there remained nothing visible of our system except a comet which was traveling from our sun with angelic speed in the direction of Sirius. Our flight now carried us so rapidly through the flocks of solar bodies,-flocks past. counting unless to their heavenly Shepherd,-that scarcely could they expand themselves before us into the magnitude of moons, before they sank behind us into pale nebular gleams; and their planetary earths could not reveal themselves for a moment to the transcendent rapidity of our course. At length Sirius and all the brotherhood of our constella |