charge from which, and his advanced period of life proved too severe for his enfeebled constitution.

WILLIAM OF WICKHAM.

William of Wickham, had it in his power to be the Maecenas of his day, and so have many others now, who have not the inclination. Literary men must find their own price, like a barrel of herrings, or a bushel of salt. But to return to William, he held vast offices and preferments, being bishop of Winchester, rector of Saint Martin's le Grand, holding twelve prebends in commendum, lord privy seal, chancellor and treasurer of England, besides other places of meaner consequence.

AWFUL APPEAL.

Mezeray states, that the Grand Master of the Templars, who was burned at Paris, in the midst of his torments, cited the Pope to appear before the tribunal of God in forty days, and the king in a year. The event at any rate verified the prophesy, if it were made at all.

EXTREME UNCTION.

Upon the Romish ceremony of extreme unction we find the following account in the Beehive of

VOL. I.

the Romish Church, book 3, chap. 2, page 232. "Whensoever any body lies a passing, so that "there is no more hope of life in him, the prieste "shal anoynt him with holy oil, bless him with "crosses, and conjure him with certain wordes, "and then hee can never come in hell; for all "the devills will runne away from before the "crosses, lyke a dogge before a flitche of bacon, "and therefore must hee take up his lodging "eyther in the suburbes of hell, or in purgatory, "where hee shal have his house-hyre and fire "wood free, till such time as hee (with soule "masses and pope's pardons) have gotten a

plotte of ground in heaven, to builde a house "thereuppon of merit and good workes."

REVEREND MR. MADAN.

This worthy gentleman advocated the cause of polygamy, in his Thelypthone, 3 vols. 8vo. published in 1780; he resolving all marriage to consist in the actus coitus. He unaccountably states, as the law of God, that there is no audltery in a man's defiling himself with a score of unmarried women; but if a wife have an intrigue with any other man beside her husband, although he had as many wives as Solomon, she is an adulteress, and ought with her gallant to be put to death. One Langford took the Rev. Mr. Ma

dan's advice, and married no less than seven wives; however, he, as it is not the custom of this country, was tried at the Old Bailey for this offence and transported for seven years, a year for each wife.

SAINT LAWRENCE.

In the South aisle of the church at Tuxford, beneath a flowery arch, is a very rude relief of St. Lawrence placed on the gridiron. By him is a fellow with a pair of bellows, blowing the fire, and the executioner going to turn him. The zealous Fox, in his Martyrology, has this very thought, and makes the martyr say, in the midst of his sufferings, This side is now roasted; turn me, O tyrant dear.

TERTULLIAN.

Tertullian, has two books on the ornament and attire of wives. In the second, he labours to prove that a christian wife, cannot, in con science, endeavour to please by her beauty, which she knows to be naturally liable to raise loose desires: and that she ought not only to avoid all affected beauty, but even to conceal and cover her natural beauty! Women are better judges of these things than saints.

i

CURIOUS EPITAPHS.

In Grantham Church yard,

John Palfryman, which lieth here,
Was aged twenty four year;

And near this place his brother lies,

Also his father, when he dies.

On William Lawes a musician killed at the

siege of Chester.

Concord is conquer'd; in this urn there lies,

The master of great music's mysteries;

And in't a riddle is, just like the cause,

Will Lawes was slain by those whose wills are laws.

PURGATORY.

Dr. Smollett relates the case of a poor gentleman of Nice, whose great grandmother had founded a perpetual mass for his soul, at the rate of fifteen sols (about ninepence English) per diem, which at length was all that remained of the family estate. This gentleman remarked the greatness of the hardship, by observing "that as she had been dead upwards of fifty "years, her soul had in all probability, been re"leased from purgatory long before; and that "the continuance of the mass was become an "unnecessary expence, though it would be im