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Without distinction of degree,
Condition, age, or quality;
Admits no pow'r of revocation,
Nor valuable consideration,

Nor writ of error, nor reverse

Of judgment past, for bett'r or worse;

620

:

tion of contentious persons: that the young lawyers in our inns of court are continually setting us together by the ears, and think they do us no hurt because they plead for us without a fee: that many of the gentlemen of the robe have no other clients in the world besides us two that when they have nothing else to do, they make us plaintiffs and defendants, though they were never retained by either of us that they traduce, condemn, or acquit us, without any manner of regard to our reputations and good names in the world. Your petitioners therefore humbly pray, that you will put an end to the controversies which have been so long depending between us, and that our enmity may not endure from generation to generation; it being our resolution to live hereafter as becometh men of peaceable dispositions." Spectator, No. 577. See No. 563. (Mr. B.)

Like him that wore the dialogue of clokes,

This shoulder John-a-Stiles, that John-a-Nokes.

Cleveland's Works, p. 43.

v. 627, 628. While nothing else, but rem in re,-Can set the proudest wretches free] We have an instance to the contrary, in the poor Cavalier corporal, (see Tatler, No. 164.) who being condemned to die, wrote this letter to his wife the day before he expected to suffer, thinking it would come to hand the day after his execution.

"Dear Wife,

Hoping you are in good health, as I am at this present writing : this is to let you know, that yesterday, between the hours of eleven and twelve, I was hanged, drawn, and quartered. I died very penitently, and every body thought my case very hard. Remember me kindly to my poor fatherless children.

Your's, until death, W. B.

Will not allow the privileges

That beggars challenge under hedges,

[horses

Who, when they're griev'd, can make dead 625
Their spirtual judges of divorces;

While nothing else but rem in re,

Can set the proudest wretches free:

It so happened, that this honest fellow was relieved by a party of his friends; and had the satisfaction to see all the rebels hanged who had been his enemies. I must not omit a circumstance which exposed him to raillery his whole life after. Before the arrival of the next post, which would have set all things clear, his wife was married to a second husband, who lived in the peaceable possession of her: and the Corporal, who was a man of plain understanding, did not care to stir in the matter, as knowing that she had the news of his death under his own hand, which she might have produced upon occasion."

The Emperor Leo (as my very learned and worthy friend Dr.Dickins, professor of civil law in the University of Cambridge, informs me) allowed a separation in another case, viz. the case of an incurable madness. Per conjugium inquiunt, in corpus coiërunt, oportetque membrum alterum alterius morbos perpeti: et divinum præceptum est, quos Deus junxerit, ne separentur. Præclara quidem hæc et divina, utpote quæ a Deo pronunciata sint: verum non recte, neque secundum divinum propositum hic in medium adferuntur: si enim matrimonium talem statum conservaret, qualem ejus in principio pronuba exhibuisset; quisquis separaret, improbus profecto esset, neque reprehensionem effugeret. Jam vero cum præ furore ne vocem quidem humanam a muliere audias, ne dum aliud quidquam eorum, quæ ad oblectamentum et hilaritatem matrimonium (argitur, ab illa obtineat: quis adeo acerbum horrendumque matrimonium dirimere nolit? Ea propter sancimus, &c. Ut si quando post initum matrimonium, mulier in furorem incidat, ad tres annos infortunium maritus ferat, mæstitiamque tolleret: et nisi inter ea temporis ab isto malo illa liberetur, neque ad mentem redeat; tunc matrimonium divellatur, maritusque ab intolerabili illa calamitate exoneretur. Imp. Leonis Novella CXI.

Per Novellam sequentem: si maritus per matrimonii tempus in furorem incidat intra quinquennium; matrimonium solvi nequeat: eo autem elapso, si furor eum adhuc occupet, solvi possit.

v. 631, 632. As spiders never seek the fly,-But leave him, of himself, t' apply] This is a mistake, if what Moufet says be true. (Insec.

A slavery beyond enduring,

But that 'tis of their own procuring:
As spiders never seek the fly,
But leave him, of himself, t' apply;
So men are by themselves betray'd,
To quit the freedom they enjoy'd,
And run their necks into a noose,
They'd break 'em after, to break loose.
As some whom death would not depart,

Have done the feat themselves, by art:

630

635

tor. Theatr. p. 72.) Aranearum quædam genera muscas venantur, iis denique vescuntur. Which is confirmed by Dr. Lister, Hist. de Araneis in Genere, lib. 1. chap. 5. Hist. Animal. Angliæ, p. 11. De Araneis Octonoculis, part 2. tit. 21. p. 70. Huic Araneo dum in reticuli vestibulo prædæ capiendæ invigilabat; majusculam muscam conjeci, quam celeriter quidem arripuit, atque unico morsu quantum notare potui, occidit.

Inter cæteras muscas omnigeni culices maximè ei arrident; ejus autem venationis modum elegantissimis, verissimisque verbis enarravit Cl. Evelenius noster, apud doctissimum Hookium, Micrographiæ, observ. 48. id. ib. tit. 31. p. 88. See an account of darting spiders catching gnats, Philosophical Transactions, vol. 3. num. 50. p. 1015.

v. 633.

-betray'd] Betray'd in all editions; but qu. whether employ'd is not a better reading?

v. 637. —whom death would not depart] views of the Common Prayer before the last;

Alluding to the several rewhere it stands, till death

us depart; and then altered, till death us do part.

v. 639, 640. Like Indian widows gone to bed-In flaming curtains, to the dead] The women in England, who murder their husbands, as guilty of petty treason, are burnt. Jacob's Law Dictionary. The Indian custom is mentioned by several travellers. See Purchase his Pilgrims, part 2. p. 1724, 1749, 1750. Gemelli Careri. Churchill's Collections, vol. 4. p. 216. Thevenot's Travels, part 3. chap. 49. p. 85. My friend, the Rev. Mr. W. Smith, of Bedford, informs me, that he was assured by Dr. Paten, a person of veracity, who had enquired thoroughly into this affair in the East Indies, of two or three English merchants, who had been up so far in the country, as to be spectators; that the

Like Indian widows gone to bed,
In flaming curtains, to the dead ;
And men as often dangled for 't,
And yet will never leave the sport.
Nor do the ladies want excuse

640

For all the stratagems they use;

To gain th' advantage of the set,

645

And lurch the am'rous rook and cheat:

cruel scene was as follows:-there was a large pile of wood got ready, and kindled as soon as the corpse was laid thereon; the widow was worked up by spirituous liquors, as well as by the enthusiastic speeches of the Brachmans, till she was mad enough to do any thing. However, if she refused to throw herself in voluntarily, they then made her dead drunk, and threw her in, contrary to her natural inclinations. (See Mr. Marshall's Letter to Dr. Coga, &c. Miscellanea Curiosa, vol. 3. p. 263. 2d edit. See the rise of this custom in the East Indies, Mr. G. Sandys's Notes upon the Tenth Book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, p. 193.) This was anciently practised in some places, according to Diodorus Siculus; (Bibliotheca, lib. 17. p. 419. edit. Basil. 1548.) who makes mention of a people conquered by Alexander the Great, where the wife was burnt with her dead husband; and gives the following reason for it: Transiit ad Catharos, quæ gens lege illud scitum habet, & observat: uti uxor cum marito mortuo incendatur; idque ob fœminæ cujusdam veneficium cum marito patratum, à barbaris institutum ferunt. See the same arcount, Sir John Maundevile's Voyage, &c. edit. 1727. chap. 15. p. 206, 207; and a remarkable story, Acosta's History of the Indies. lib. 5. chap. 7. p. 346. of a Portuguese with one eye, whom the barbarians would have sacrificed to accompany a nobleman that was dead; who said unto them, that those in the other world would make small account of the dead, if they gave him a blind man for his companion; and that they had better give him an attendant with both his eyes. The reason being found good by the barbarians, they let him go."

v.647. For as a Pythagorean soul] Cornelius Agrippa (De Anima Par. Poster. Op. cap. 52. p. 114.) has put together the several opinions of the ancient heathen poets and philosophers upon this subject. (Vide etiam, Pancirolli Rer. Memorab. part 1. tit. 47. p. 221. See Fum Hoam's Transmigrations, Chinese Tales, vol. 1, 2.)

For as a Pythagorean soul

Runs through all beasts, and fish, and fowl,
And has a smack of ev'ry one;

So love does, and has ever done:

And therefore, though 'tis ne'er so fond,
Takes strangely to the vagabond.

650

'Tis but an ague that's reverst,

Whose hot fit takes the patient first,
That after burns with cold as much,
As ir'n in Greenland does the touch:
Melts in the furnace of desire,
Like glass, that's but the ice of fire;
And when his heat of fancy's over,
Becomes as hard and frail a lover;

For when he's with love-powder laden,

655

660

And prim'd and cock'd by Miss, or Madam,
The smallest sparkle of an eye

Gives fire to his artillery;

Mr. Bulstrode has wrote an Essay on Transmigration, in defence of Pythagoras; an abstract of which is published by Mr. Stackhouse, in the appendix to his translation of Chinese Tales, 2d edit. 1740, p. 236. And Mr. Addison has merrily exposed this opinion, in Pug's Letter to his Mistress, Spectator, No. 343.

v. 656. As ir'n in Greenland does the touch] Those persons who have been so unfortunate as to winter in Greenland, and survived it, tell us, that the cold is so extreme, that if they touch a piece of iron it will stick to their fingers, and even bring off the skin. Some sailors left there in King Charles the Second's time confirm the truth of this, as may be seen at large in Harris's Collections and Voyages. (See Moll's Geography, part 2. p. 28. edit. 1701. Lediard's Naval History, vol. 1. p. 121, 122.)

Iron and other metals burn upon the touch in Russia, (see Dr. Giles Fletcher's Account of Russia. Purchase his Pilgrims, part 3. lib. 3. p. 415.) as appears from a story of a liquorish servant, who taking a

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