m an excommunication against Frederick. I am ignorant
of the motive. All that I know is, that there exist, between this Prince
and the Roman Pontiff great differences, and an irreconcileable hatred.
God only knows which of the two is wrong. Therefore with all my power I
excommunicate him who injures the other; and I absolve him who suffers,
to the great scandal of all Christianity."

The following anecdotes relate to a period which is sufficiently remote
to excite curiosity; yet not so distant as to weaken the interest we
feel in those minutiae of the times.

The present one may serve as a curious specimen of the despotism and
simplicity of an age not literary, in discovering the author of a libel.
It took place in the reign of Henry VIII. A great jealousy subsisted
between the Londoners and those foreigners who traded here. The
foreigners probably (observes Mr. Lodge, in his Illustrations of English
History) worked cheaper and were more industrious.

There was a libel affixed on St. Paul's door, which reflected on Henry
VIII. and these foreigners, who were accused of buying up the wool with
the king's money, to the undoing of Englishmen. This tended to inflame
the minds of the people. The method adopted to discover the writer of
the libel must excite a smile in the present day, while it shows the
state in which knowledge must have been in this country. The plan
adopted was this: In every ward one of the King's council, with an
alderman of the same, was commanded to see every man write that could,
and further took every man's book and sealed them, and brought them to
Guildhall to confront them with the original. So that if of this number
many wrote alike, the judges must have been much puzzled to fix on the
criminal.

Our hours of refection are singularly changed in little more than two
centuries. In the reign of Francis I. (observes the author of
Recreations Historiques) they were accustomed to say,--

Lever a cinq, diner a neuf,
Souper a cinq, coucher a neuf,
Fait vivre d'ans nonante et neuf.

Historians observe of Louis XII. that one of the causes which
contributed to hasten his death was the entire change of his regimen.
The good king, by the persuasion of his wife, says the history of
Bayard, changed his manner of living: when he was accustomed to dine at
eight o'clock, he agreed to dine at twelve; and when he was used to
retire at six o'clock in the evening, he frequently sat up as late as
midn