play, _Jovis omnia plena_. But when
righteousnesse hath sowne and comes to reape, here is no haruest;
[Greek: ouk eurisko], I finde none. And as there was neuer lesse
wisdome in Greece then in time of the Seven Wise Men, so neuer lesse
pietie among vs, then now, when vpon good cause most is expected. When
the sunne is brightest the stars be darkest: so the cleerer our light,
the more gloomy our life with the deeds of darkness. The Cimerians,
that live in a perpetuall mist, though they deny a sunne, are not
condemned of impietie; but Anaxogoras, that saw the sunne and yet
denied it, is not condemned of ignorance, but of impietie. Former times
were like Leah, bleare-eyed, but fruitful; the present, like Rachel,
faire, but barren. We give such acclamation to the Gospell, that we
quite forget to observe the law. As vpon some solenne festivall, the
bells are rung in all steeples, but then the clocks are tyed vp: there
is a great vntun'd confusion and clangor, but no man knowes how the
time passeth. So in this vniuersall allowance of libertie by the
Gospell (which indeed rejoyceth our hearts, had we the grace of sober
vsage), the clocks that tel vs how the time passes, Truth and
Conscience, that show the bounded vse and decent forme of things, are
tyed vp, and cannot be heard. Still _Fructum non invenio_, I finde no
fruits. I am sorry to passe the fig-tree in this plight: but as I finde
it, so I must leave it, till the Lord mend it."--Pp. 39, 40., 4to.
Lond. 1623.

BALLIOLENSIS.

* * * * *

Minor Notes.

_On a "Custom of y^e Englyshe._"--When a more than ordinarily doubtful
matter is offered us for credence, we are apt to inquire of the teller if
he "sees any green" in our optics, accompanying the query by an elevation
of the right eyelid with the forefinger. Now, regarding this merely as a
"fast" custom, I marvelled greatly at finding a similar action noted by
worthy Master Blunt, as conveying to his mind an analogous meaning. I can
scarcely credit its antiquity; but what other meaning can I understand from
the episode he {363} relates? He had been trying to pass himself off as a
native, but--

"The third day, in the morning, I, prying up and down alone, met a
Turke, who, in Italian, told me--Ah! are you an Englishman, and with a
_kind of malicious posture laying his forefinger under his