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the first pens in the world, to write like nobody, yet to judge like nobody, has never yet been esteemed a perfection.

When you have read them, let me see you at my house, or else you are in danger, lame as I am, of seeing me at yours; and the difference in that case is, that whenever you have me there, in my present condition, you cannot easily get rid of me; whereas, if you come hither, you may leave me as soon as you please, and I have no way to help myself, being confined to my chair, just as I was when you saw me last. If this advantage will not tempt you rather to make than receive the visit, nothing will.

Whether I see you, or not, let me at least see something under your hand, that you may tell me how you do, and whether your deafness continues. And if you will flatter me agreeably, let something be said at the end of your letter, which may make me for two minutes believe that you are half as much mine, as I am

Your faithful

Humble servant,

FR. ROFFEN.

ELIZABETH

ELIZABETH OF HARDWICKE,

Countess of Shrewsbury.

IT is a tradition in the family of Cavendish, that a fortune-teller had told her that she should not die while she was building; accordingly she bestowed a great deal of the wealth she had obtained from three husbands in erecting large seats at Hardwicke, Chatsworth, Bolsover, Oldcotes, and at Worksop; and died in a hard frost, when the workmen could not labour.

PURITANIC ZEAL.

The following Votes are extracted from the Journals of the House of Commons, dated July 23, 1645.

ORDERED, that all such pictures and statues there (York House) as are without any superstition, shall be forthwith sold, for the benefit of Ireland and the North.

Ordered, that all such pictures there, as have the representation of the second Person in the Trinity upon them, shall be forthwith burnt.

R. 2

Ordered,

Ordered, that all such pictures there, as have the representation of the Virgin Mary upon them, shall be forthwith burnt.

CHARLES MACKLIN.

Examination of Mr. Macklin, before the Committee on the Westminster Election, April 30, 1789.

I AM now in the eighty-ninth year of my age; I was born two months before the current century; I came to reside in Westminster in 1720; I have always resided there since, chiefly in Covent Garden; sometimes in a house in Wyld Street.

Do you remember most of the elections for Westminster?

I remember them, but many of them, as a chaos; at some of them I have voted; at many, when I could, I would not vote. I did not vote at the election of Trentham and Vandeput; I had a vote, but I would not give it.

Have you conversed with old persons who are now dead, respecting the right of voting for Westminster?

It was a common topic over both beer and

wine.

State

State in what description of persons you collected from those persons the right of voting to reside?

They were generally men of business; sometimes we had a parson amongst us, and sometimes a lawyer. The conversation I mention was sometimes in neighbourly meetings, and sometimes men of estates and fortune were among us. They had a great wrangling among them, and great impertinence in their wrangling, of course; and were I to add partiality, I should do what was right. Upon the whole I collected, that a housekeeper had a right to vote-that was the reigning opinion of all the commonsense men. It was the general opinion notwithstanding. I understood no other requisite to be necessary to have a right to vote, but that a man should be a housekeeper. Many objections were offered, but they were not worth a farthing. Fools and rogues will offer reasons worth nothing, but we marked them as there being an absurdity in them; for we reduced our thinking on that matter to this principle; we thought the vote of a man in this country was his first great blessing in life: we would think of nothing else, and despised any man that suggested or offered any thing else; we hooted them at last.

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The undoubted right was for a man to be a housekeeper, and that was the only requisite. I refused to vote myself, because I thought I had not a full house in my possession, and it was for a man I loved-Mr. Fox. Mr. Erskine came to me twice, and I said I would not vote, for I did not think I was above half a housekeeper.

As far as I know, this was the right acted upon in the several elections I remember.

I never understood that it was necessary a man should be resident any particular time to give him a right to vote. I did not know it, but I always thought there ought to be. I mean that there should be no imposition; no fellow foisted upon you.

I did not understand that the payment of any taxes was necessary to constitute the right-that belonged to the law, and not to the vote; we talked of that, but we thought that nothing should stop the vote. That was our principle; nothing but what stopped life or property; go to law for the taxes; I mean for every demand of that nature.

Did you understand that the payment of parochial rates had any thing to do with the right of election?

Certainly no, and for this reason-they endeavoured to take away a man's vote by giving him

some

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