Theatre; the performers there being termed "the king's servants." In
the civil wars most of the young actors, deprived of living by their
profession, all theatres being closed by order of the Parliament,
went into the king's army. Robinson was fighting at the siege of
Basing House, in Hampshire, October, 1645, when after an obstinate
defence his party was defeated, he laid down his arms, suing for
quarter, but was shot through the head by Colonel Harrison, as he
repeated the words quoted above.

[335] The following account is drawn from Sir William Dugdale's
interleaved Pocket-book for 1648.--"Aug. 17. The Scotch army, under
the command of Duke Hamilton, defeated at Preston in Lancashire.
24th. The Moorlanders rose upon the Scots and stript some of them.
The Scotch prisoners miserably used; exposed to eat cabbage-leaves
in Ridgley (Staffordshire), and carrot-tops in Coleshill
(Warwickshire). The soldiers who guarded them sold the victuals
which were brought in for them from the country."

[336] Desodoard's Histoire Philosophique de la Revolution de France,
iv. 5. When Lyons was captured in 1793, the revolutionary army
nearly reduced this fine city to a heap of ruins, in obedience to
the decree of the Montagne, who had ordered its name to be effaced,
that it should henceforth be termed, "Commune affranchie," and upon
its ruins a column erected and inscribed, "Lyon fit la guerre a la
liberte; Lyon n'est plus."

[337] The _Moderate_, from Tuesday, July 31, to August 7, 1649.

LIFE AND HABITS OF A LITERARY ANTIQUARY.--OLDYS AND HIS MANUSCRIPTS.

Such a picture may be furnished by some unexpected materials which my
inquiries have obtained of Oldys. This is a sort of personage little
known to the wits, who write more than they read, and to their volatile
votaries, who only read what the wits write. It is time to vindicate the
honours of the few whose laborious days enrich the stores of national
literature, not by the duplicates but the supplements of knowledge. A
literary antiquary is that idler whose life is passed in a perpetual
_voyage autour de ma chambre_; fervent in sagacious diligence, instinct
with the enthusiasm of curious inquiry, critical as well as erudite; he
has to arbitrate between contending opinions, to resolve the doubtful,
to clear up the obscure, and to grasp at the remote; so busied with
other times, an