came to see me: he seemed much dissatisfied, and inclined to give up his lieutenancy; from which I dissuaded him, and obtained his promise not to do it without speaking to me again of it."

With the ensuing minute it will not be uninteresting to compare Burnet's account of an interview he had in 1673 with James, then Duke of York. Own Time, i. pp. 357-60, &c. folio; ii. 23-29, Routh.

"James Earl of Abingdon's discourse

with King James ye Second November 18th-1687, from his own Memorandum of it.

"I met the king coming from council and kissed his hand in ye gallery, and followed him into his bed-chamber, where I stayed about 3 quarters of an hour, whilst ye Spanish embassador was with him in his closset: after he came out the king called me in, and locked ye door. I told his majesty I was come up in obedience to his com'ands, and should be glad to receive them. Upon which his majesty said, he had them ready, and turning about, took a paper out of his pocket, wherein were three questions (which are well known), which he read to me, with instructions to go down and propose them to ye gentlemen of ye country, either together or apart, and send him ye answer. I asked his majesty if his hand was to ye paper? He said, no. I told him I hoped I should have his own or a secretary's for my own security and justification. He said, for what reason? I answered I did not know but there might be somewhat in it yt might be penal. He said his giving me ye paper with his own hand would secure me for that. I told him I did not doubt his majesty, but he was mortal, and desired something y' might secure me afterwards. He said, It may be I was of another judgment myself, and so had no mind to do it; and therefore he desired to know what my opinion was. Whereupon, I told his majesty, since he was pleased to ask my opinion, I hoped he would not be angry at my declaring of it, and would do it very plainly and freely. Upon which, his majesty replying he would not, I told him I should not make any preface, nor put him off to the meeting of a parliament. That if there was a parliament now sitting, as my opinion now was, I should be against those things, but I was not so settled in yt opinion, or prejudiced, but if I did see reason, or were convinced upon the debate, I might alter it. His majesty said, my answer was like my character, &c. and yt I had done with him like a man of honour and worth, &c. jesty then asked me if I would hear reason to be convinced? I told him I should be willing to hear any thing, and glad to be convinced. And then his majesty said, these tests were against his prerogative, for they debarred him ye use of his subjects. Instancing yt some church of England men had pretended those tests, to excuse ymselves from serving him, &c. Secondly, they were against ye peers, by excluding some from their votes in Parliam', and, 3dly, against ye people,

His ma

by debaring them ye choice of representatives. And, lastly, they declared him an idolater (at which I bowed and shrunk up my shoulders) and then I told his majesty, I was not at ye making of any of those acts, and therefore could not speak much to ye reasons of them, but as to ye excluding of some peers, I did not know but my interest might be concerned therein, as well as my conscience in ye others; and his majesty would find it a hard matter to persuade people against those two. He then fell upon his declaration, and ye sincerity of his desires, yt all persons might live lovingly and quietly, declaring how much he abhorred persecution, and said ye church of England had always been a persecuting church. I told him I did not think so; and however severe those laws might look, they had very rarely been put in execution but upon extraordinary occasions of ye disturbances those persons had given ye government. He said he had delivered twelve hundred quakers' out of prison: I told him I knew not what was done in other countrys, but for my own I would answer, yt all this noise of persecution was like shearing of hogs, a great cry and little wool, for, from ye time of his brother's indulgence, till ye violence they used to exclude his majesty from ye succession, they were all connived at as well as the prosecution afterwards was very gentle: in talking of the severity of ye penal laws, his majesty said, was it not as bad for us to send men to prison, and take away y goods for conscience, as for him to quarter six dragoons upon them, &c.? I told his majesty I looked upon these acts as ye bulwarks of our religion, and whilst I did so, I could not depart from them. And though I did not doubt his majesty's sincerity in what he professed, yet I did not know who might succeed him; and though we were told of a Protestant successor, yet how if it should prove otherwise? Besides, I told his majesty he would find great difficulties in this matter, because yt he knew his neighbour 2 on the other side ye water, had broke through all laws and promises, so yt nobody knew what to trust to. The king said he knew that, but could not tell how to help it: as for his own opinion, it had been always otherwise. He then asked me, if I would go down and propose those questions? but I desired his majesty to consider how unfit any man was to be a sollicitor in a cause that was against his own judgement? His majesty said, he was sorry it was so, for he had made a resolution not to keep any one in his service who would not serve him in all things; to which I replyed that I took it (the commission) for his brother's and his service, and hoped he was satisfyed yt I had managed it so; and when he thought any one could do it better, I should

Evelyn's Diary, July, 1656: “I had ye curiosity to visit some quakers here [Ipswich] in prison; a new phanatic sect, of dangerous principles, who show no respect to any man, magistrate or other, and seeme a melancholy proud sort of people, and exceedingly ignorant. One of these was said to have fasted 20 daies, but another endeavouring to do ye like, perish'd on the 10th, when he would have eaten, but could not." -i. p. 301. 4to.

2 Evelyn, 3 Nov. 1685, notes that the intelligence of the revocation of the edict of Nantes was only obtained from the refugees and private letters, the gazettes published twice a-week passing it over entirely.

be very willing to part with it. He said he was fully satisfied therewith, and that he always thought me a person of worth and honour, and that I had dealt with him in this business like one.

"I told him I did not know yt I had any enemy in ye country, but on his or his brother's account, and he said he did in his conscience believe so. I told him I did not know whom he intended to put in my place, but I should always be ready to serve him in any capacity there, and all I desired was yt I might have ye favour of his countenance, when I paid my duty to him; to which he said I should as much as ever I had in my life; and when I desired to kiss his hand upon it, he stooped down ready to embrace me."

Anthropometamorphosis: Man transform'd; or, the artificial Changling Historically presented, In the mad and cruell Gallantry, foolish Bravery, ridiculous Beauty, filthy Finenesse, and loathsome Lovelinesse of most Nations, fashioning and altering their Bodies from the Mould intended by Nature; with Figures of those Transfigurations. To which artificiall and affected Deformations are added, all the Native and Nationall Monstrosities that have appeared to disfigure the Human Fabrick; with a Vindication of the regular Beauty and Honesty of Nature, and an Appendix of the Pedigree of the English Gallant. Scripsit J. B. cognomento Chirosophus, M.D. London: printed by William Hunt, Anno Dom. 1653.

OF John Bulwer, the author of this singular volume, but few particulars are now to be recovered. His first appearance in a literary character was in the year 1644, when he published two Tracts, with an equally portentous superscription. "Chirologia, or the natural Language of the Hand, composed of the speaking Motions and discoursing Gestures thereof; whereunto is added, Chironomia, or the Art of Manuall Rhetoricke, consisting of the natural Expression digested by Art in the Hand, as the chiefest Instrument of Eloquence, by Historicall Manifestos exemplified out of the authentique Registers of common Life and civill Conversation, with Types or Chyrograms: a longwished-for Illustration of this Argument. By J. B. Gent. Philochirosophus, 1644.”

These Treatises, as was usual in their days, are heralded by numerous testimonial and commendatory verses, one set of which bears the following most unlatinized address: "Meissimo in deliciis, Chirologiæ Authori, Amanuensi Musarum, Polihymniæ Alumno, Motistarum clarissimo, et manus publicè prehensantium Candidato." The object of the first part of Bulwer's labour on this occasion, is to teach the language of signs and a finger alphabet; for he was engaged in that most praiseworthy and benevolent offset of his profession, which in our own days has so wonder

fully established itself in separate existence, the education of the deaf and dumb. With this circumstance we become acquainted with a volume which appeared in 1648, with a similar profuse expenditure of words to announce it as that which had been lavished on his other publications. "Philocophus, or the Deafe and Dumb Man's Friend, exhibiting the philosophical verity of that Subtile Art, which may inable one with an observant Eie to heare what any Man speaks by the Moving of his Lips. Upon the same Ground, with the Advantage of an historicall Exemplification, apparently proving that a Man born Deaf and Dumb may be taught to heare the Sound of Words with his Eie, and thence learne to speake with his Tongue. By J. B. surnamed the Chirosopher."

In this instance Bulwer dedicated to "the Right Worshipful Sir Edward Gostwicke, of Wellington, in the county of Bedford, Baronet, and Mr. William Gostwicke, his youngest brother;" two young gentlemen of good family, who, having been deaf and dumb from their birth, were placed under his tuition, and, as it appears, successfully. As is his custom, he collects very wondrous facts, and comments upon them with not less wondrous ratiocination. Thus he shows, on good authority, that all those who are born in ships at sea, "by a propriety of their place of birth, are, like fishes, mute." There may be something, doubtless, in this statement; and the deduction is quite as good as the premisses; but what shall be said respecting "the propriety of the place," which is similarly advanced as a reason why all the Barons of Claramont, who have been born within the walls of their own castle, should prove dumb? Few will question that there is a necessity that a child's tongue should be hindered, if Mercury be impedite with Saturn" at its nativity: but we may be permitted to doubt, whether the instance in which surprise is said to have cured this infirmity, may be explained by the effect of "a mixt passion which causeth a miscellaneous motion of the native heat."

Bulwer's fourth tract was physiognomical: "Pathomyotamia, or a Dissection of the Significative Muscles of the Affections of the Minde, being an Essay to a new Method of observing the most important movings of the Muscles of the Head; as they are the nearest and immediate Organs of the voluntarie or impetual Motions of the Mind; with the Proposall of a new Nomenclature of the Muscles. By J. B. surnamed the Chirosopher, 1649."

This treatise is mentioned, but not with much applause, by Mr. Parsons, in his "Crounian Lectures" on Muscular Motion, printed as a supplement to the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1746. He characterizes it as filled with extravagant notions from different authors, a criticism which probably is very just; but which, nevertheless, should be received with some degree

of caution, as proceeding from one engaged in the same trade, and, therefore, proverbially likely to disagree. From the " Pathomyotamia" we learn the only two remaining facts relative to Bulwer's personal history which we have been able to collect; the one, that "his loving father, Mr. Thomas Bulwer," to whom he dedicates, was, like himself, a physician: the other, that his contemporaries passed much the same sentence upon his ingenious discoveries as we apprehend will be passed by those who now become acquainted with them. The following avowal does no small credit to his honesty: "I confess I have met with little encouragement in this design; for all the physicians and anatomists that I have hinted it unto, have held it scarce feasible, Dr. Wright junior onely excepted"—and for the approbation of Dr. Wright junior, a very satisfactory reason is assigned. The critic was returning a gos oa, and paying his friend in the same coin of applause which he had received for a darling hypothesis of his own.

But we pass on to the crowning labour, the opus maximum, of the Chirosophist, of whom, after the appearance of the " Anthropometamorphosis" we wholly lose sight. "The force of nature could no farther go!" It would have been idle to expect any new work from the same brain superior to it; and he whose effigy had been inscribed with the following glowing panegyric, could scarcely look for higher living honours, and might fairly be considered as already exalted to his literary apotheosis. The print, thus underwritten, as might be expected, is often ravished from the volume which it originally accompanied, to gladden some collector's portfolio. "Johannes Bulwer, cognomento chirosophus, alias philosophus: vultispex insignis: utriusque physiognomiæ protomystes: pathomyotomus: naturalis loquelæ primus indagator: anatomus moralis: stagirita novus: motistarum clarissimus: stator augustus et vindex naturæ, M.D. &c." It is hazardous to pronounce upon similarity of style in different languages, otherwise this anonymous Latin in many points so strongly resembles the excellent doctor's avowed English, that we should be inclined to ascribe it, in spite of his blushes to the contrary, to the person most intimately acquainted with his merits, and therefore most qualified to blazon them-himself.

Among the preliminaries to the Anthropometamorphosis will be found, "a list of divines, poets, historians, philosophers, anatomists, physicians, and others, cited to give in evidence, and out of which number was a grand jury impanelled for the triall of the "Artificial Changling," upon the indictment filed by the author about the matter of fact of man's voluntary transformation." If a writer's learning and research is to be measured by such a catalogue as this, few have in these points exceeded Bulwer; the names which he registers amount to two hundred