pleasure ment.

And howe come you, Ma dame, quoth I, to this deepe knowledge "of pleasure? And what did chieflie allure you "unto it, feeinge not many women, but verie "fewe men have attained thereunto.- -I will tell

you, quoth fhe, and tell you a truth, which "perchance ye will marvell at. One of the great"eft benefites that ever God gave me is, that he "fent me fo fharpe and fevere parentes, and fo jentle a fcholemafter: for when in presence

eyther of father or mother, whether I fpeake, "kepe filence, fit, ftand, or go, eate, drinke, be "merrie or fad, be fowying, playing, dauncing, "or doing anie thing elfe, I must do it, as it were, "in fuch weight, measure, and number, even fo perfitelie as God made the world, or elfe I am

fo fharplie taunted, fo cruellie threatened, yea "prefentlie, fome times with pinches, nippes, and "bobbes, and other waies, which I will not name "for the honor I bear them, fo without measure "miforder'd, that I thincke myfelfe in hell, till "time come that I must go to Mr. Elmer, who "teacheth me fo jentlie, fo pleafantlie, with fuch "fair allurementes to learninge, that I thinke all "the time nothinge whiles I am with him; and "when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, "because whatsoever I do els but learning is full "of grief, trouble, feare, and whole mifliking

❝ unto

" unto me. And thus my booke hath been so much "my pleasure, and bringeth dayly to me more "pleasure and more, that in refpect of it all "other pleasures in very deede be but triffles " and troubles unto me."

"I remember this taulke gladly, both because it "is fo worthie of memorie, and becaufe also it was "the laft taulke that ever I had, and the last વ tyme that ever I faw that noble and worthie

"ladie."

Lady Jane Grey, on paffing the Altar of a Roman Catholic Chapel one day with Lady Wharton, and obferving her to make a low curtfey to it, asked her whether the Lady Mary. was there, or not. "No," replied Lady Wharton, "but I made a curtfey to Him who made us "all." "How can He be there," faid Lady Jane Grey," who made us all, and the Baker made "him?" This anfwer coming to the Lady Mary's (afterwards Queen of England) ears, she did never love her after.

When the Lieutenant of the Tower was leading her to the fcaffold, he requested her to give him fome little thing, which he might keep as a prefent. She gave him her Table-book, where fhe had juft written three fentences on feeing her hufband's headlefs body carried back to the Tower;

one

one in Greek, one in Latin, and another in Eng

lish.

"The Greek," fays Heylin, "was to this ef "fect: That if her husband's executed body "fhould give teftimony against her before men, "his moft blessed foul should give an eternal testi"mony of her innocence in the prefence of God. "The Latin added, that human justice was against "his body, but the Divine Mercy fhould be for "his foul; and then concluded thus in English : "that if her fault deserved punishment, her youth "at least and her imprudence were worthy of “excuse, and that God and posterity would shew her favour."

"She had before," adds Heylin, "received "the offer of the Crown with as even a temper as "if it had been a garland of flowers, and now she #6 lays afide the thought thereof with as much " contentedness as fhe could have thrown away "that garland when the scent was gone. The "time of her glories was fo fhort, but a nine "day's work, that it seemed nothing but a dream, "out of which fhe was not forry to be awak"ened. The Tower had been to her a prison "rather than a court, and interrupted the delights "of her former life by fo many terrors, that no day paffed without fome new alarms to difturb her "quiet. She doth now know the worft that for

< tune

r

tune can do unto her; and having always feared "that there ftood a scaffold secretly behind the "throne, she was as readily prepared to act her "part upon the one as upon the other."

On the wall of the room in which she was imprifoned in the Tower, fhe wrote with a pin these lines:

Non aliena putes homini quæ obtingere poffunt.

Sors bodierna mihi cras erit illa tibi.

To mortals common fate thy mind refign,
My lot to-day, to-morrow may be thine.

SIGISMUND,

EMPEROR OF GERMANY.

"THIS Prince," fays Brotier, "was a man "of fenfe, of nobleness of mind, and of talents. "It was under his reign, and under his aufpices, "that the first dawnings of politics, of fciences,

and of arts, began to appear in Europe."

Being one day afked who was the fitteft perfon to govern a kingdom, he replied, "The Prince "whom neither profperity can inflate, nor adver"fity depress."

VOL. IV.

Being

Being asked one day by the Prince Palatine, why, instead of putting his enemies to death when he had them in his power, he treated them kindly, and loaded them with favours as if they had been his friends: "Thofe enemies that are dead,” replied he," can do no more hurt. You have

reason to say that living enemies ought to "be destroyed *. This is precisely what I do : "when I load them with favours, I deftroy the enemy, and create a friend."

CHARLES THE FIFTH,

EMPEROR OF GERMANY.

IN Sir Richard Móryfon's Dispatch to the Lords of the Council from Spires, dated October 27, 1552, he thus defcribes the audience he had of the Emperor Charles the Fifth :

"I FOUND the Emperor at a bare table, without "a carpet or any thing elfe upon it, faving his "cloak, his brufh, his fpectacles, and his pick

*The learned Abbé, however, appears to forget that Sigifmund, at the Council of Conftance, permitted John Hus to be burnt, in fpite of the fafe-conduct which he had granted him.

"tooth.