ts with a fanciful pen in conveying the same kind of
intelligence, and so nice in the shades of curiosity, that he can describe
a quarrel before it takes place.

"You know the _primum mobile_ of our court (Buckingham), by whose motion
all the other spheres must move, or else stand still: the bright sun of
our firmament, at whose splendour or glooming all our marygolds of the
court open or shut. There are in higher spheres as great as he, but none
so glorious. But the king is in progress, and we are far from court. Now
to hear certainties. It is told me that my Lord of Pembroke and my Lord of
Rochester are so far out, as it is almost come to a quarrel; I know not
how true this is, but Sir Thomas Overbury and my Lord of Pembroke have
been long jarring, and therefore the other is likely."

Among the numerous MS. letters of this kind, I have often observed the
writer uneasy at the scandal he has seasoned his letter with, and
concluding earnestly that his letter, after perusal, should be thrown to
the flames. A wish which appears to have been rarely complied with; and
this may serve as a hint to some to restrain their tattling pens, if they
regard their own peace; for, on most occasions of this nature, the letters
are rather preserved with peculiar care.]

Such was this race of gossipers in the environs of a court, where, steeped
in a supine lethargy of peace, corrupting or corrupted, every man stood
for himself through a reckless scene of expedients and of compromises.

* * * * *

A PICTURE OF THE AGE FROM A MS. OF THE TIME.

A long reign of peace, which had produced wealth in that age, engendered
the extremes of luxury and want. Money traders practised the art of
decoying the gallant youths of the day into their nets, and transforming,
in a certain time, the estates of the country gentlemen into skins of
parchment,

The wax continuing hard, the acres melting.

MASSINGER.

Projectors and monopolists who had obtained patents for licensing all the
inns and alehouses--for being the sole vendors of manufactured articles,
such as gold lace, tobacco-pipes, starch, soap, &c., were grinding and
cheating the people to an extent which was not at first understood,
although the practice had existed in the former reign. The gentry, whose
family pride would vie with these _nouveaux riches_, exhausted themselves
in rival profusion; all crowded to "upstart