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the knight,) I will not have it said of me that I have combated thee with that advantage;" so he throws away his sword, grapples with the dog, and gives him bite for bite till he kills him. And then the King went out with the Judges, and they said unto Tirante, that because they had seen the combat between him and the dog, which had been fought with equal arms, inasmuch as he had thrown away his sword, they gave him the same meed and honour for that bat tle as if he had conquered a knight in the lists; and they gave order to the Kings at Arms, Heralds, and Pursuivants, that the honour which had been awarded to Tirante that day, should be proclaimed in all the Courts, and through the city.

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The morals of the book are such as might be expected to accompany such notions of chivalry. The only instance which can be adduced without coming.

...

under the cognizance of the Society for

the Suppression of Vice, is a modest request of Tirante to the Princess Carmesina, that she would be pleased to give him the shift which she has on, as being the thing nearest her precious body, and that he may take it off with his own hands. Carmesina has the grace to exclaim, "Santa Maria, et chè è quello che mi dite!" She gives him the shift, but has decency enough to retire and take it off herself:..it is the only mark of decency which she ever discovers.

In a coronation procession at London, all the wives, widows, and maidens, walk; next all the religioners of both sexes, by special licence of the Pope; the rear is brought up by all the common strumpets and their bullies. The author has several odd things about England. The morning collation at the English court, he says, was green ginger, with good malmsey, which was their custom, because of the coldness of the land. He tells the story of the Institu

tion of the Garter, and writes the motto, Puni soyt qui mal lu pense: and here is the story of a stag being taken with a collar round its neck, and an inscription thereon, saying that it was put there by Julius Cæsar. It was a gold collar, inserted under the skin of the animal, and the skin sewn over it. Its shape was wholly of esses, SSS, because in the whole A B C there is no letter of greater authority and perfection than the S; standing for Santità, Saviezza, Sapientia, Signoria, &c... and this is the origin of the collar of the Garter. He describes a radical

reform of the

English law. It begins by hanging six lawyers, upon which the King says to the Duke who hung them, "You could not have done me a greater service in the world, nor a greater pleasure than this thing;" and he makes a law, that from thenceforth there shall be only two lawyers in England, who shall decide every cause which is brought before them within fifteen

days; they are to have a good salary, and be hanged and quartered if they take money from any person.

226. The Emperor Maximilian. The Emperor Maximilian said, as Johannes Aventinus witnesseth, (De Bello Turcico,) that the Emperor of Germany was Rex Regum, meaning that his Princes were so great men. The King of Spain was Rex Hominum, because his People would obey their Prince in any reasonable moderation. The King of England was Rex Diabolorum, because the subjects had there divers times deprived their Kings of their crowns and dignity. But the King of France was Rex Asinorum, in as much as his people did bear very heavy burdens of taxes and imposi tions*."

* Archbishop Abbot's brief Description of the Whole World.

Maximilian, when he thus quaintly characterized the people of the four great monarchies, would have been mortified could be have foreseen that the Emperor of Germany would one day be reduced to be Rex Servorum, and himself little better than the vassal

of an upstart tyrant. R x Asinorum the Ruler of France might well be stiled, if patience were the only crime of his subjects. The King of Spain is still Rex Hominum, for never since the commencement of human history have any people acted a more manly part than the Spaniards of our own days. As for the King of England, if folly and fanaticism continue to spread as they are spreading, he bids fair in half a century to be King of the Saints. 1812.

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Mr. Daniel Lambert and the Irish Giant both died in fear of the surgeons, Great men of every description are in

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