ve passed a week or a month in
contemplating them.

In Cheyne Walk, facing the Thames, I sought for the Museum and
Coffee-house of Don Saltero, renowned in the swimming exploits of
Franklin. Here stands the same house, and it is still a place of
entertainment; but, about ten years ago, the lease expired, when the
rarities, presented by so many collectors, to the spirited Barber
Salter, (nicknamed, Don Saltero,) were sold by public auction.

A little farther stands the ancient and unostentatious palace of the
Bishops of Winchester, and here has resided the venerable Brownlow
North, during the thirty-three years that he has filled that wealthy
see; and, a hundred yards to the west, I surveyed, with becoming
interest, the decayed premises, now a paper-hanging manufactory, which
once was the residence of the witty Sir Thomas More, and where, as it
is recorded, he entertained Erasmus. I was, therefore, on classic
ground; though Faulkner, in his amusing History of Chelsea, ascribes
the residence of the Chancellor to another situation. The men who
adorned the era of the revival of learning, and, as its patrons,
furnished us with weapons by which to deprive imposition of its
powers, are well entitled to our esteem; but many of them were
entangled in the bridle, by whose means more crafty persons had long
rode on the backs of mankind. Thus the friendship and intercourse of
sir Thomas More and Erasmus were founded on their mutual zeal in
behalf of those ecclesiastical frauds which for so many ages had
subdued every scintillation of reason. They were, in their days, among
the adherents of Popish superstition, what Symmachus had been to the
Roman polytheists in the age of Theodosius--what Peter the Hermit was
to the fanatics of the darker ages--and what Burke was to the bigotted
politicians at the dawn of liberty in France. Erasmus, it is true,
exposed, with great ability much priestcraft and statecraft, yet his
learning and labours were, for the chief part, devoted to the support
of certain irrational points of theological faith; and poor Sir Thomas
More lost his head on the scaffold rather than aid his less fastidious
sovereign in overturning the spiritual supremacy of the bishops of
Rome. We may honour the conscientious scruples of such men; but,
enabled, as we now are, to view their errors at a proper focal
distance, we are warranted, by their example, in drawing the inference
that the highest human authorities are no tests o