es, overthrown abbies, broken
churches, torn castles, rent towers, overturned walls of
towns and fortresses, with the confused heaps of all ruined
monuments." _Treatise of Treasons_, 1572, 8vo., fol. 148,
rev.]

[Footnote 313: There are few bibliographers at all versed in
English literature and history, who have not heard, by some
side wind or other, of the last mentioned work; concerning
which Herbert is somewhat interesting in his notes:
_Typographical Antiquities_, vol. iii., p. 1630. The reader
is here presented with a copious extract from this curious
and scarce book--not for the sake of adding to these
ponderous notes relating to the REFORMATION--(a subject,
upon which, from a professional feeling, I thought it my
duty to say something!)--but for the sake of showing how
dexterously the most important events and palpable truths
may be described and perverted by an artful and headstrong
disputant. The work was written expressly to defame
ELIZABETH, CECIL, and BACON, and to introduce the Romish
religion upon the ruins of the Protestant. The author thus
gravely talks

"_Of Queen Mary and her Predecessors._

"She (Mary) found also the whole face of the commonwealth
settled and acquieted in the ancient religion; in which, and
by which, all kings and queens of that realm (from as long
almost before the conquest as that conquest was before that
time) had lived, reigned, and maintained their states; and
the terrible correction of those few that swerved from it
notorious, as no man could be ignorant of it. As King John,
without error in religion, for contempt only of the See
Apostolic, plagued with the loss of his state, till he
reconciled himself, and acknowledged to hold his crown of
the Pope. King Henry VIII., likewise, with finding no end of
heading and hanging, till (with the note of tyranny for
wasting his nobility) he had headed him also that procured
him to it. Fol. 85, 86.

"_Libellous Character of Cecil._

"In which stem and trunk (being rotten at heart, hollow
within, and without sound substance) hath our spiteful
pullet (CECIL) laid her ungracious eggs, mo than a few: and
there hath hatched sundry of them, and brought forth
chickens of her own feather, I warrant you. A hen I call
him, as well for