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there are always a great number of people to be touched. As soon as he was a little recovered, he began to inquire who they were who held him by force from going to the window; and having an account of their names, he banished them the court, took away their employments from some of them, and never saw them again. From some, as Monsieur de Segre, Gilbert de Grassy Lord of Champeroux, he took away nothing, but banished them from his presence. Many wondered at his fancy; condemned his proceedings, and affirmed they had done what in their opinion they thought for the best, and that they were in the right; but the imagination of princes are different, and all those who undertake to give an account of them have not judgment enough to distinguish them. He was jealous of nothing so much as the loss of his regal authority, which was then very great; and he would not suffer his commands to he disobeyed in the most trivial point. On the other hand, he remembered that his father, King Charles, in the last fit of which he died, took a fancy that his courtiers had a mind to poison him, to make way for his son; and it made so deep an impression upon him, that he refused to eat, and by the advice of his physicians, and all the chief of his favourites, it was concluded he should be forced; and so after a great deliberation they forced victuals down his throat, upon which violence he died. King Louis having always condemned that way of proceeding, took it very heinously that they should use any violence with him, and yet he pretended to be more angry than he was; for the great matter that moved him was an apprehension that they would govern him in every thing else, and pretend he was unfit for the administration of public affairs, by reason of the imbecility of his senses.

After this, "The king returned to Tours, and kept himself so close, that very few were admitted to see him; for he was grown jealous of all his courtiers, and afraid they would either depose, or deprive him of some part of his regal authority. He removed from about him all his old favourites, espe

cially if they had any extraordinary familiarity with him; but he took nothing from them, only commanded them to their posts or country-seats: but this lasted not long, for he died a while after. He did many odd things, which made some believe his senses were a little impaired; but they knew not his humours. As to his jealousy, all princes are prone to it, especially those who are wise, have many enemies, and have oppressed many people, as our master had done. Besides, he found he was not beloved by the nobility of the kingdom, nor many of the commons; for he had taxed them more than any of his predecessors, though he now had some thoughts of easing them, as I said before; but he should have begun sooner."

The simplicity and soundness of some of these remarks seem curious in our times; but after all, De Comines was an honest courtier. The follow

ing illustrate the Novel—

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"Among men renowned for devotion and sanctity of life, he sent into Calabria for one friar Robert, whom, for the holiness and purity of conversation, the king called the Holy Man,' and in honour to him our present king erected a monastery at Plessis-du-Parc, in compensation for the chapel near Plessis at the end of the bridge. This hermit, at the age of twelve years, was put into a hole in a rock, where he lived three and forty years and upwards, till the king sent for him by the steward of his household, in the company of the Prince of Tarento, the King of Naples' son. But this hermit would not stir without leave from his holiness, and from his king, which was great discretion in a man so inexperienced in the affairs of the world as he was. He built two churches in the place where he lived; he never eat flesh, fish, eggs, milk, or any thing that was fat, since he undertook that austerity of life; and true I never saw any man living so holy, nor out of whose mouth the Holy Ghost did more manifestly speak; for he was illiterate, and no scholar, and only had his Italian tongue, with which he made himself so much admired. This hermit passed through Naples, where he was

respected, and visited (with as much pomp and ceremony, as if he had been the Pope's legate) both by the King of Naples and his children, with whom he conversed as if he had been all the days of his life a courtier. From thence he went to Rome, where he was visited by the cardinals, had audience three times of the Pope, and was every time alone with him three or four hours; sitting always in a rich chair placed on purpose for him, (which was great honour for a person in his private capacity,) and answering so discreetly to every thing that was asked him, that every body was extremely astonished at it, and his holiness granted him leave to erect a new order, called the Hermits of St. Francis. From Rome he came to our king, who paid him the same adoration as he would have done to the Pope himself, falling down upon his knees before him, and begging him to prolong his life: He replied as a prudent man ought. I have heard him often in discourse with the king that now is, in the presence of all the nobility of the kingdom; and that not above two months ago, and it seemed to me, whatever he said or remonstrated, was done by inspiration; or else it was impossible for him to have spoken of some things he discoursed of. He is still living, and may grow either better or worse, and therefore I will say nothing. There were some of the courtiers that made a jest of the king's sending for this hermit, and called him the Holy Man, by way of banter; but they knew not the thoughts of that wise king, and had not seen what it was that induced him to do it.

"Our king was at Plessis, with little company but his archers, and the jealousies mentioned before, against which he had carefully provided; for he left no person, of whom he had any suspicion, either in town or country; but he sent his archers not only to warn, but to conduct them away. No busi

ness

was communicated to him but what was of great importance, and highly concerned him. To look upon him, one would have thought him rather a dead than a living man. He was grown so lean, it was scarce credible:

his clothes were now richer and more magnificent than they had ever been before; his gowns were all of crimson satin, lined with rich marten's furs, of which he gave to several, without being demanded; for no person durst ask a favour, or scarce speak to him of any thing. He inflicted very severe punishments for fear of losing his authori. ty, as he told me himself. He removed officers, disbanded soldiers, retrenched pensions, and sometimes took them away quite; so that, as he told me not many days before his death, he passed away his time in making and ruining men, which he did in order to be talked of more than any of his predecessors, and that his subjects might take notice he was not yet dead; for few were admitted into his presence, (as I said before,) and when they heard of his vagaries, nobody could easily believe he was sick. He had agents in all foreign courts. In England, their business was to carry on the treaty of marriage, and pay King Edward and his ministers of state their pensions very punctually. In Spain, their instructions were to amuse that court with fair words, and to distribute presents as they found it necessary for the advancement of his affairs. In remoter countries, where he had no mind his indisposition should be known, he caused fine horses or mules to be bought at any rate whatever; but this was not in France. He bad a mighty curiosity for dogs, and sent into foreign countries for them; into Spain for one sort; into Bretagne for another; to Valencia for a third; and bought them dearer than the people asked. He sent into Sicily to buy a mole of a private officer in that country, and paid him double the value. At Naples, he caused all the horses and strange creatures to be bought up that could be found, and a sort of lions in Barbary no bigger than a fox, which he called Adits. He sent into Sweden and Denmark for two sorts of beasts those countries afforded; one of them called an elk, of the shape of a stag, and the bigness of a buffalo, with short and thick horns; the other, called Rengiers,of the shape and colour of a fallow deer, but their heads much larger; for

each of which he gave the merchants four thousand five hundred Dutch florins. Yet, when all these rarities were brought to him, he never valued them, and many times would not so much as see the persons who brought them to court. In short, he behaved himself after so strange and tyrannical a manner, that he was more formidable, both to his neighbours and subjects, than he had ever been before; and indeed that was his design, and the motive which induced him to act so unaccountably....

"His subjects trembled at his nod, and whatever he commanded was executed without the least difficulty or hesitation. Whatever was thought conducible to his health, was sent to him from all corners of the world. Pope Sixtus, who died last, being informed that the king in his devotion desired the corporal, or vest, which the apostle St. Peter used when he sung mass, he sent it immediately, and several relics besides.

"The holy vial at Rheims, which was never stirred before, was brought to his chamber at Plessis, and stood upon his cupboard's head when he died, for he designed to be anointed with it again, as he was at his coronation. Some were of opinion, he designed to anoint himself all over, but that was not likely, for the vial was but small, and no great store of oil in it. I saw it myself at the time I speak of, and also when he died, for he was interred in the church of Notre Dame de Clery. The Great Turk that now is, sent an embassy to him, which came as far as Biez, in Provence; but the king would not hear him, nor permit he should proceed any farther, though he brought him a large roll of relics which had been left at Constantinople, in the bands of the Turk; all which, and a considerable sum of money besides, he offered to deliver into the king's bands, if he would secure a brother of the Turk's who was then in France, in the custody of the knights of Rhodes, and is now at Rome, in the hands of the pope. From all which one may be able to judge of the great esteem and character he bore in the world for wisdom and grandeur, when religious

things, dedicated only to devotion, were employed for the lengthening of his life, as well as things temporal and secular.* But all endeavours to prolong his life proved ineffectual; his time was come, and he must follow his predecessors.

"He was still attended by his physician, Doctor James Coctier, to whom in five months' time he had given fiftyfour thousand crowns, in ready money, besides the bishopric of Amiens for his nephew, and other great offices and estates to him and his friends; yet this doctor used him so scurvily, one would not have given such unbecoming language to one's servants, as he gave the king, who stood in such awe of him, he durst not forbid him his presence. It is true he complained of his impudence afterwards, but he durst not change him, as he had done all the rest of his servants; because he had told him af ter a very audacious manner one day, 'I know some time or other you will remove me from court, as you have done the rest; but be sure (and he confirmed it with an oath,) you shall not live eight days after it.' With which expression he was so terrified, that ever after he did nothing but flatter and present him, which must needs be a great mortification to a prince, who had been obeyed all along by so many brave men much above the doctor's quality.

"The king had ordered several cruel prisons to be made, some of iron, and some of wood, but covered with iron plates both within and without, with terrible cages about eight foot wide and seven high; the first contriver of them was the Bishop of Verdun, who was the first that hanseled them, being immediately put in one of them, where he continued fourteen years. Many bitter curses he has had since, for his invention, and some from me, having lain in one of them eight months together, in the minority of our present king. He also ordered heavy and terrible fetters to be made in Germany, and particularly a certain ring for the feet, which was extreme hard to be opened, and like an iron collar, with a thick weighty chain, and a great globe

* Some say he drank children's blood for the recovery of his health

of iron at the end of it, most unreasonably heavy; which engines were called the King's Nets. However, I have seen many eminent and deserving persons in these prisons, with these nets about their legs, who have afterwards been advanced to places of trust and honour, and received great rewards from the king. --

"After so many fears, sorrows, and suspicions, God, by a kind of miracle, restored him both in body and mind, as is His divine method in such kind of wonders. He took him out of the world in perfect ease, understanding, and memory; having called for all the sacraments himself, discoursing with out the least twinge, or expression of pain, to the very last moment of his life. He gave directions for his own burial, appointed who should attend his corpse to the grave, and declared that he desired to die on a Saturday of all days in the week; and that he hoped Our Lady would procure him that favour, in whom he had always placed great part of his trust, and served her devoutly. And so it happened; for he died on Saturday, the 30th of August, 1483, about eight at night, in the castle of Plessis, where his fit took him on the Monday before. His soul, 1 hope, is with God, and enjoys an everlasting rest in the kingdom of Paradise."

So ended this powerful prince, for the age in which he lived, and which he greatly troubled. His exit is also thus summed up in the Scandalous Chronicle added to these volumes :

"On Monday, the 25th of August, the king fell very ill at Montils, near Tours, and in two hours time lost his speech and his senses, and the news of his death came to Paris on Wednesday, the 27th of the same month; upon which the mayor and aldermen ordered the city gates to be shut up, and a strong guard to be placed at each of them that none might go out or in without being examined, which made the common people cry out that the king was dead; but it was a false alarm, for his majesty was only in a fit, out of which he presently recover

ed, and lived till Saturday, the 30th of August, and then died about six or seven in the evening of the same day.

"As soon as he was dead his body was embalmed, and buried in the church of Notre Dame de Clery, at Montils, having, in his life-time, ordered it should be so, and positively commanded the dauphin not to bury him in the church of St. Dennis, where three kings of France (his illustrious predecessors) were interred. He never gave any reason for it, but some people were of opinion it was for the sake of the church, which he had libe rally endowed, and out of a singular veneration for the blessed Virgin, who was worshipped there after a more solemn manner than in any other place in the kingdom. The king had during his whole reign, by the evil advice of Mr. Oliver, his barber, M. John de Doyac, and several other wicked counsellors that were about his person, committed great injustice in his kingdom, and so miserably oppressed and harassed his people, that the very reflection of his tyrannical usage of them stung him to the heart, and almost drove him to despair; so that when he lay upon his death-bed he sincerely repented of all his sins, and gave prodigious sums of money to the clergy to pray for his soul, and rewarded them for their prayers with what he had by violence and extortion gotten of his subjects. It must be owned that his was a very busy reign, and full of many great and important actions, yet he managed his affairs so wel', that he forced all his enemies to submit to his mercy, and was equally dreaded both abroad and at home. He lay for a long time before his death under very sharp and severe illnesses, which forced his physicians to make use of violent and painful applications, which though they were not so successful as to recover his health and save his life, yet, doubtless, they were very beneficial to his soul, and, perhaps, the chief means of saving it from eternal damnation, and fixing it in paradise, through His tender mercy who liveth and reigneth world without end. Amen.”

Miller Redivivus.

(Lond. Mag.)

DEAR ED. Do you want any rattle-brained work to make a variety. People say you are too serious-or rather (for there is a great difference in the meaning of the phrases), they say you are not sufficiently merry. Do you think your readers would like an old Joe Miller done up now and then for them in the following style? If so,-they are of course soon done, and you might command one for every number. Of serious Poetry you will always get enough and good too, for every body writes now as well as the elect did fifty years ago; but there is a class of readers, not few in number, I believe, who care little for real Poetry, but relish a joke in rhyme, Certain it is, that comic versification is little attempted; so if you will set me down as your JESTER, I shall have an easy task, and an office without a crowd of competitors.-Yours very truly.

MRS. ROSE GROB.

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Now as she was a truly loving wife,

As well as provident in all her dealings,
She made her German spouse insure his life,

Just as a little hedge against her feelings-
So that when Siegmund died, in her distress,
She call'd upon the Phoenix for redress.
Two thousand pounds besides her savings,
Was quite enough all care to drown,
No wonder then she soon felt cravings
To quit the melancholy city,
And take a cottage out of town,
And live genteel and pretty.

Accordingly in Mile End-Road,

She quickly chose a snug retreat, 'Twas quite a pastoral abode, Its situation truly sweet!

Although it stood in Prospect Row,

'Twas luckily the corner house,

With a side-window and a bow:

Next to it was the Milk-man's yard, whose cows 49 ATHENEUM VOL. 14.

When there were neither grains, nor chaff to
browse,

Under the very casement stood to low,
That was a pleasant window altogether,
It raked the road a mile or more,
And when there was no dust or foggy weather,
The Monument you might explore,

And see, without a glass, the people
Walking round and round its steeple.

Across the road, half down a street,

You caught a field, with hoofs well beaten,

For cattle there were put to eat,

Till they were wanted to be eaten.
Then as for shops, want what you will,
You hadn't twenty steps to go,
There was a Butcher's in the row,
A Tallow Chandler's nearer still;
And as to stages by the door,

Besides the Patent Coach, or Dandy,
There were the Mile-End, Stratford, Bow,
A dozen in an hour or more,

One dust was never gone before

Another came :-'twas monstrous handy!
Behind, a strip of garden teem'd

With cabbages and kitchen shrubs,
'Twas a good crop when she redeem'd

Half from the worms, and slugs, and grubs.
Beyond these was a brick-kiln, small

But always smoking; she must needs
Confess she liked the smell, and all

Agreed 'twas good for invalids.
In town she always had a teasing
Tightness on her chest and weezing;

Here she was quite a different creature :--
Well, let the worldly waste their health
Toiling in dirt and smoke for wealth,

Give her the country air, and nature!

Her cottage front was stuccoed white;
Before it two fine Poplars grew,
Which nearly reach'd the roof, or quite,
And in one corner, painted blue,
Stood a large water tub with wooden spout→→→
(She never put a rag of washing out):

Upon the house-top, on a plaster shell,

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