exorcism. "I exorcise thee, unclean spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ. Tremble, O Satan! thou enemy of the faith, thou foe of mankind, who hast brought death into the world, who hast deprived men of life, and hast rebelled against justice; thou seducer of mankind, thou root of evil, thou source of avarice, discord, and envy!"

The Catholics likewise exorcise houses and other places supposed to be haunted by unclean spirits; and the ceremony is much the same with that for persons possessed.

The same estate in mortgage twice.] There was in those days a remarkable case of this kind, that of Mr. Sherfield, the recorder, and famous breaker of glass-windows in a church at Sarum; of whom Mr. Garrard, in a letter to the Earl of Strafford, gives the following account. Sherfield," says he, "died some thousands in debt, and most wickedly cheated those that dealt with him for what little land he had, a manor near Marlborough. When, as your lordship knows, he was fined 500/. in the starchamber, he then mortgaged his manor to Mr. Ayres, a bencher in Lincoln's Inn, who lent him upon it 2,500l. Upon his death, he challenging it, Audely, of the court of wards, shows a former mortgage to him; Sir Thomas Jarvis one more ancient than that; his wife before him challengeth it as her jointure; his eldest brother shows a conveyance before all these: in conclusion, on his death-bed, he commanded a servant to carry a letter with a key sealed up in it to Mr. Noy, where was assigned in what box of his study at Lincoln's Inn lay the conveyance of his estate; when it was found, that by a deed bearing date before all those formerly mentioned, he had given all his estate to pious uses.”

V. 1521. When to a legal utlegation.] A writ of outlawry. Dr. Grey says, these saints proceeded in a more formidable and vigorous manner in their outlawries, than Mr. Selden did in the fol lowing instance, as he relates in his Table Talk. "The King of Spain," says he, was outlawed in Westminster Hall, I being of counsel against him. A merchant had recovered costs against him in a suit, which, because he could not get, we advised him to have him outlawed for not appearing, and so he was. As soon as Gondimer heard that, he presently sent the money; by reason,

if his master had been outlawed, he could not have had the benefit of the law, which would have been very prejudicial, there being many suits then depending between the King of Spain and our English merchants."

V. 1523-4. And for a groat unpaid that's due,

Distrain on soul and body too.] A sneer upon the abuse of excommunications by the Presbyterians, which were as rigorous as those in the Roman Catholic church.

V. 1553. The cock crows, and the morn draws on.] An allusion to the vulgar notion that ghosts withdraw to their graves at the crowing of the cock, which is a sign of the approach of morn. In Hamlet, Laertes, describing the ghost, says,

"But even when the morning cock grew loud,

And at the sound it sunk in haste away,

And vanished from our sight."

And so the Ghost says,

"But soft, methinks I scent the morning air,

Brief let me be."

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Casaubon, in his Preface to Dee's Book of Spirits, says, one tells us, that when the cock croweth, the solemn meetings of witches are dissolved; and he thinks a reason may be, because of the crowing of the cock in the gospel, when St. Peter denied Christ." To this opinion, Prior, in his poem entitled Fontaine's Hans Carvel imitated, alludes:

"All's well-But prithee, honest Hans,

Says Satan, leave your complaisance.
The truth is this, I cannot stay,
Flaring in sun-shine all the day:
For, entre nous, we hellish sprites
Love more the fresco of the nights;
And oft'ner our receipts convey
In dreams, than any other way."

V. 1564. Like Gresham carts, with legs for wheels.] Dr. Grey has the following explanation of this passage. "Mr. Ward, the learned professor of rhetoric in Gresham College, communicated the following note by the worthy Dr. Ducarel.-March 4, 1662-3. A scheme of a cart with legs that moved instead of wheels, was brought before the Royal Society, and referred to the consideration

of Mr. Hooke, who made a report of it at their next meeting; and, upon the 18th of the same month, that report, with some alterations, was ordered to be sent to the author of that invention, Mr. Potter; and Mr. Hooke was ordered to draw up a full description of this cart, which, together with the scheme, and animadversions upon it, were to be entered in their books." There is, however, no traces of the subject in the early volumes of the Philosophical Transactions.

V. 1602. Or padders.] Highway robbers, who were as likely as jockies to use their utmost speed to avoid the gallows.

THE learned write an insect breeze
Is but a mongrel prince of bees,
That falls before a storm on cows,
And stings the founders of his house,
From whose corrupted flesh that breed
Of vermin did at first proceed.
So, ere the storm of war broke out,
Religion spawn'd a various rout

5.

Of petulant, capricious sects,

The maggots of corrupted texts,
That first run all religion down,

And after ev'ry swarm its own :
For as the Persian Magi once

Upon their mothers got their sons,

That were incapable t' enjoy

That empire any other way;

begot

So Presbyter begot the other

Upon the Good Old Cause, his mother,
Then bore them like the devil's dam,
Whose son and husband are the same;
And yet no nat'ral tie of blood,

Nor int'rest for the common good,

Could, when their profits interfer'd,

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15

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Rebellion now began, for lack
Of zeal and plunder, to grow slack,