of the letter in such terms. However, the time and place of rendezvous being appointed, the General, under pretence of reconnoitring, with an escort of an hundred horse, went to the place appointed, and in the night had a very long conference with the person appointed by the Duke; after which he returned back. This (though not with the knowledge, it may be imagined, of the Duke) was imparted to the Emperor, then King of Spain; and Brigadier Wade (now Marshal) was pitched on by General Stanhope and the Duke, to be the person to convey these propositions to England. He set out accordingly with the letter in cipher, which contained these proposals, and he had, beside, an order in his pocket, signed by the Duke of Orleans himself, to the governors of the seaport towns, in case he should be taken at sea, to let him have means of going through the heart of France to Calais, in order to get to England, upon his own private affairs, which were very urgent, as the passport expressed. The Brigadier in fourteen days got to London, and went to Lord Godolphin's levee, who, little suspecting what he was charged with, talked to him about indifferent things. As soon as the levee was over, the Brigadier desired a private conference with Lord Godolphin, in which he disclosed to him the affair by word of mouth, giving him at the same time the letter. The strangeness of the proposition amazed Lord Godolphin; but the letter being written in a beak cipher, took so much time in picking out, that he desired the Brigadier would carry it to Lord Sunderland, which he did, and they there made out the cipher. This project was afterwards laid before the Qucen, and one or two of the Cabinet Council, one of which was Lord Somers. The Queen in answer to it said, she could not break her most solemn engagements with her old ally the Emperor but she proposed to erect a kingdom for him out of Languedoc and Navarre, and to give him Sardinia, or one of the islands in the Mediterranean, to make him maritime. But before the courier could get back to Spain with this answer, the Duke, upon some suspicion conceived of him at the court of France, was recalled out of Spain, and obliged to fall at old Louis's feet, who, though he had some intimation of this affair, never got to the bottom of it. The gentleman who met General Stanhope in the mountains was clapt up in prison, and when our army had reached Madrid, he was by us set at liberty. This anecdote was told me in all its circum stances by Marshal Wade, at Chateau d'Ar- SIR THOMAS MORE. SIR John Danvers's house at Chelsea stands in the very place where was that of the Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More, who had but one marble chimney-piece, and that plain. Where the gate then stood there was in Sir Thomas More's time a gatehouse, according to the old fashion. From the top of this gatehouse was a most pleasant and delightful prospect as is to be seen. His Lordship was wont to recreate himself in this place to apricate and contemplate, and his little dog with him. It so happened, that a Tom o'Bedlam got up the stairs when his Lordship was there, and came to him and cried, "Leap Tom, leap!" offering his Lordship violence to have thrown him over the battlements. His Lordship was a little old man, and, in his gown, not able to make resistance; but having presentness of wit, said, "Let us first throw this little dog over." The Tom o'Bedlam threw the dog down: "Pretty sport!" said the Lord Chancellor : " go down and bring him up again, and try again." Whilst the madman went down for the dog, his Lordship made fast the door of the stairs, and called for help : otherwise he had lost his life. Note of Mr. Aubrey's on Tom O'Bedlams. Till the breaking out of the civil wars, Tom o'Bedlams did travel about the country. They were poor distracted men, that had been put into Bedlam, where, recovering some soberness, they were licentiated to go a-begging: i. e. they had on their left arm an armilla of tin, printed in some works about four inches long. They could not get it off. They wore about their necks a great horn of an ox, in a string or bawdry, which, when they came to a house, they did wind, and they did put the drink given them into this horn, whereto they had a stopple. Since the wars I do not remember to have seen any one of them. PRIOR. Mr. Henry Villiers at the Election at Westminster, 1719. DAN Prior, ut cecinit Joannes atque Joanna Felix sponsa, viro felix, uxore maritus, Cœnat uterque simul, dormit uterque simul, Non speciosa nimis, non est nimis, arcta supellex, Mollia securæ peragebant otia vitæ, ADDRESS TO AN OLD BLACK COAT, ON PARTING WITH IT. WELL, it's in vain to moralize, There's nothing new beneath the skies I bought you from a hoarse-lung'd Jew- When I reflect on all I owe you, For thousands I should not bestow you; By beaux and belles, and by the proud too: And, what was more, my precious time, Back to the tailor or the hatter; 14 } For, |