confirmed by Act of Parliament, giving bim leave to put on his cap, in the presence of the King, or his heirs, or any Lord spiritual or temporal in the land, and not to put it off but for his own ease and pleasure. This is a strange story, and though Henry VIII. made some of the strangest laws that ever entered into the head of a capricious and wanton tyrant, it seems very unlikely that he, of all our Kings, should have granted such a privilege to a man of whom nothing else is remembered. But Fuller says he had seen the charter; he was used to examine records, and therefore not liable to be deceived in them, and there seems no imaginable reason why such a charter should have been forged.

Few things occasioned more torment to the Quakers than the unlucky discovery of George Fox, that "the Lord forbad him to put off his hat to any man, high or low." "For though," says

their faithful historian, "it was pretended that this putting off of the hat was but a small thing, which none ought to scruple; yet it was a wonderful thing to see what great disturbance this pretended small matter caused among people of all sorts; so that even such that would be looked upon as those that practised humility and meekness, soon shewed what spirit they were of, when this worldly honour was denied them. It is almost unspeakable," he says elsewhere," what rage and fury arose, what blows, pinchings, beatings, and imprisonments they underwent, besides the danger they were sometimes in of losing their lives for these matters."

A Frenchman attached to the embassy in Spain in the year 1659, who published an account of his travels in that country ten years afterwards, says that at the Queen's levee, every lady might have two gallants attending her, who were permitted, or rather expected, to

remain covered before her Majesty, on the presumption that they were tan embevecidos, that they forgot every thing but their mistress.

215. Ship Bottoms preserved by charring.

The Japanese preserve their ships from the worm (the teredo navalis, by charring them,..a process which has also the advantage of preserving them from rotting.

216. Odour of heresy.

The Jesuit P. Francisco de Fonseca has a curious story concerning relics in his account of the Embassy of the Conde de Villarmayor, Fernando Telles da Sylva, from Lisbon to Vienna, to bring home an Austrian princess for Joam V. "As we are upon the subject of the miracles which have been wrought by relics in Vienna," says he, "I will relate another prodigy that occurred in the same city, and which will serve

not a little to confirm us in the faith with which we devoutly reverence these things The Count of Harrach, who was greatly favoured by the Duke of Saxony, besought him that he would be pleased to bestow upon him some of the very many relics in his treasury, which he preserved rather for curiosity than for devotion. The Duke with much benig nity ordered that various glasses should be given him, full of precious relics of Christ, of the most holy Virgin, the Apostles, the Innocents, and other various Saints, and desired two Lutheran ministers to pack them with all decency in a valuable box, which the Duke himself locked, and sealed with his own seal, to prevent any fraud, and then sent it to Vienna. The box arrived at Vienna, and was deposited in the Count's chapel, which is in Preiner Street; the Count sent word to the Bishop that he might come to see, open and authenticate the relics; the Bishop came, and upon his

opening the box there issued out a stench so abominable that it was not to be borne, and the whole Chapel was infected with it. The bishop ordered that the relicaries should be taken out in order that he might carefully examine the cause of so strange an accident; this was done, and they soon discovered the mystery, for they found a case from which this pestilential odour proceeded; there was in it a piece of cloth with this inscription, "Relics of

Martin Luther's Breeches," .. which the Lutheran preachers in mockery of our piety, had placed among the sacred relics. These abominable remains of the Heresiarch were burnt by command of the bishop, and then not only did the stink cease, but there issued from the sacred relics a most sweet perfume, which filled the whole chapel."

This story is certainly ben trovato. If the authenticity of the relic had not been established beyond all controversy