PETRARCH.

SALMASIUS says, in his Notes upon Pliny, that the Ægyptians made their clothes from the inner bark of the Papyrus. For the same reason, Pliny admires the custom of the Parthians, who used to write upon their clothes, preferring that method of writing to the making use of paper.

This act of respect to antiquity was imitated by Petrarch, who wrote occasionally his thoughts in gilt letters upon a cloak of leather which he wore. This anecdote is mentioned by two authors, who observe, at the same time, that the cloak was not lined, but, according to them, was so contrived, that he might be able to write on both sides of it his verses, which appeared full of corrections and notes.

It is said, that La Casa, Sadolet, and Buccatello, (who was in possession of this precious relique,) when they retired to the country house of the latter, to take refuge from the plague, which, in 1527, was desolating Italy, took this cloak with them, to consider it at their leisure, and to attempt to decipher what it contained.

BENSERADE.

"Diseur des bon mots, mauvais caractère,” says the amiable Pascal. Vanity, and a desire of saying something rather brilliant than solid, constitute the basis of his character. When Benserade, who was a man of great wit, did not find the company sufficiently numerous to stimulate the efforts of his imagination, he used to request that the servants might be called in, to fford him larger scope for his exertions.

Benserade was a priest, and used to dine abroad in company every day. Some one wrote these lines upon him:

"What makes our lively bard to-day

Look in so dull and sad a way?
Does aught portend his fatal doom?

No: he's oblig'd to dine at home."

He had satirized a Knight of the order of St. Michael, in some of his verses, and was well thrashed by the Knight himself. Some witling of the day wrote,—

"Our bard is in a wretched way,
And destin'd to each horrid evil;

St. Michael met him t'other day,

And beat him like the very Devil."

MALHERBE'S OPINION OF POETS.

THIS celebrated French versifier used wittily to observe of poets, that their usefulness in a State was about equivalent to good skittleplayers.

RICHARD FLECKNOE.

FLECKNOE has these excellent lines addressed to a miser:

"Money's like muck, that's profitable while
'T serves for manuring of some fruitful soil;
But on a barren one, like thee, methinks,
"Tis like a dunghill that lies still and stinks."

What was the cause of Dryden's enmity to this poor author? So far from having provoked it, Flecknoe has even written an epigram in his praise. This tribute, and his religion (for he was a Catholic), it might have been thought, would have saved him. Perhaps Dryden was offended at his invectives against the obscenity of the stage, feeling himself more notorious, if not more culpable, than any of his rivals, for this scandalous and unpardonable offence.

Flecknoe is by no means the despicable writer

that we might suppose him to be, from the niche in which his mighty enemy has placed him.

Be the other merits of his verses what they may, he has this rare merit (if the little volume of his Epigrams may be considered as a sample of his other works), that he is never, in the slightest degree, an immoral writer himself, and that he expresses a due abhorrence of the mischievous and disgraceful writings of his contemporaries.

This is from his divine epigrams.

"Do good with pain, the pleasure in't you find,
The pain's soon past, the good remains behind :
Do ill with pleasure, this y'ave for your pains,
The pleasure passes soon, the ill remains."

To a lady, too confident of her innocence, he says,

"Madam, that you are innocent, I know,

But the world wants innocence to think you so."

Here is the germ of a well-known epigram

"Shepherd. Since you are resolv'd, farewell,
Look you lead not apes in hell.

"Nymph. Better lead apes thither, than
Thither to be led by men."

I will add one quotation more: it is from an invocation to Silence :

"Sacred Silence, thou that art

Flood-gate of the deepest heart,

Offspring of a heavenly kind,

Frost of the mouth, and thaw of the mind,
Admiration's readiest tongue."

He says, in the epistle dedicatory to his noble friends, "There is none prints more, nor publishes less than I; for I print only for myself and private friends." This volume, however, he made public, because he thought it more passable than the rest. "I write chiefly to avoid idleness, and print to avoid the imputation; and as others do it to live after they are dead, I do it only not to be thought dead whilst I can live. Epigram, in general, is a quick and short kind of writing, rather a slight than any great force of the spirit; and, therefore, the more fit for me, who love not to take pains in any thing, and rather affect a little negligence than too great curiosity. For these here, they are chiefly in praise of worthy persons, of which, none ever had a more plentiful supply than I, having been always conversant with the best