he is in the World and I must intreat you to be assur'd that your retirement at Roissy is not a greater affliction to your self than it is to me who am apt to hope that sometime or other you would give me a Visit at my little Chamber if your residence were at Paris This is to be understood when you were disappointed of all other meetings and assignations and could not bestow your time elsewhere The actions of our Neighbours should be the Subject of our discourse and many times we should recreate our selves by some little circumventing tricks without which I maintain that all conversation must be lost in process of time Mean time Monsieur d'Elbene and my self often remember you over a glass of Frontiac wishing you were here to do us reason Monsieur de Mata is in Xaintonge I wish that he also were at Paris his company would make your hours slide away somewhat the more merrily whenever you had the kindness to visit Your most humble servant S. FINIS Books Printed for and sold by George Dawes at his Shop over against Lincolns-Inn Gate in Chancery Lane THE History of the World in Five Books The first Intreating of the beginning and first Ages of the same from the Creation unto Abraham The second of the Times from the Birth of Abraham to the Destruction of the Temple of Solomon The third from the Destruction of Jerusalem to the time of Philip of Macedon The fourth from the Reign of Philip of Macedon to the Establishing of that Kingdome in the Race of Antigonas The fifth from the setled Rule of Alexander's Successors in the East until the Romans prevailing over all made Conquest of Macedon Written by Sir Walter Raleigh Knight in Folio The Second Part of the Institutes of the Lawes of England containing the Exposition of Magna Charta and many Ancient and other Statutes Written by the Lord Chief Justice Coke The 3d. Edition with an Alphabetical Table in Folio The Third Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England concerning High Treason and other Pleas of the Crown and Criminal Causes The Fourth Edition Written by the Lord Chief Justice Coke in Folio The Fourth Part of the Lawes of England concerning the Jurisdiction of Courts Written by the Lord Chief Justice Coke The 4th Edition with an Alphabetical Table not heretofore Printed in Folio Brief Animadversions on Amendment of and Additional Explanatory Records to the Fourth Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England concerning the Jurisdiction of Courts by William Prynn Esq in Folio A Second Book of Judgments in Real Personal and mixt Actions and upon the Statute all or most of them Affirmed upon Writs of Error Collected out of the Choice Manuscripts of Mr. Brownloe and Mr. Moyle sometimes Prothonotaries of the Common Pleas. As also of Mr. Smither formerly Secondary of the same Court. Perused Transcribed Corrected and Tabled with Addition of some Notes by George Townesend Esq Second Prothonotary of the Common Pleas. Very use and necessary for all Prothonotaries Secondaries Students Clerks of Judgments and all sorts of Persons any way relating to the Law in Quarto price bound 5 s. De Jure Maritimo et Navali Or a Treatise of Affairs Maritime and of Commerce In three Books Modus Intrandi Placita Generalia The Entring Clerks Introduction Being a Collection of such Presidents of Declarations and other Pleadings with Processe as well Mesne as Judicial as are Generally used in every dayes Practice With Notes and Observations thereupon Composed for the Benefit of the Students of the common Law of England as also of the Attorneys Entring Clerks and Solicitors of the Courts of Common Pleas and Kings Bench ' Acquainting them with the Rudiments of Clerkship and such General-Pleadings and Processe as are used at this day in the Courts of Record at Westminster By William Brown Gent. Author of Formulae Bene Placitandi in Large Octavo Price bound 5 s. Jus Imaginis apud Anglos Or the Law of England Relating to the Nobility and Gentry Faithfully Collected and Methodically Digested for Common Benefit by John Brydall of Lincolns-Inn Esque in Large Octavo Price bound 12 d. Parsons Law or a View of Advowsons Wherein is contained the Rights of Patrons Ordinaries and Incumbents to Advowsons of Churches Collected by William Hughes of Grayes-Inn Esq The third Edition Reviewed and much Enlarged by the Author in his Life-time in Large Octavo An Exact Abridgment in English of the Eleven Books of Reports of the Learned Sir Edward Cook Knight late Lord Chief Justice of England and Composed by Sir Thomas Ireland Knight and Reader of the Honourable Society of Greys-Inn in Octavo Tryals per Pais or the Law concerning â—uries by Nisi Prius By S. E. of the Inner Temple Esq in Octavo Of the Office of the Clerk of the Market of Weights and Measures and of the Laws of Provision for Man and Beast for Bread Wine Beer Meal c. by William Shepheard Esq in Octavo There may be had all sorts of Blank Bonds and Blank Sheriffs Warrants FINIS
I cannot reproach my self with any remission in the love I bear you I know not how far it may contribute to that of my pain but this I am certain of that you owe me a great measure of Esteem and Friendship and that if you do me Justice I shall have this to bragg of that towards the period of my days I have made so advantageous an acquaintance as yours I might very well think this a fair acquest for a Person who cannot stirr from the place where he is set and give a check to all further ambition but you have given me so excellent a Character of Monsieur Manchini that I shall never acquit you of the promise you have made me of the honour to be known to him Yet must it be with this precaution That he be not a man of many complements for when I am forc'd to make any my self or to receive them from others I cannot forbear weeping and am put out of countenance to think what a loss they also are at who will needs display their Eloquence when they have to do with the object of universal compassion In a word I have as great an aversion for Complements as most people have for Serpents and Toads and to assure you it is so I shall conclude my Letter without making you any and put a short period to a long Letter by telling you that I am My Lord Your most humble and most obedient Servant S. LETTER XIX To Monsieur Marigny Sir I Must acknowledg my self orepress'd by the weight of so great an honour as that of being so much in the remembrance of a Prince and that though I am the most wretched and the most froward person that ever was yet there have been general observations made of my alacrity since I have receiv'd your assurances that his Highness found some diversion in the reading of my Letters I must impute it to a strange hazard that they should be thought pleasant at Brussels for he who writ them at Paris is a Person the most apt to be out of humour of any in the world And who with a mischief could be otherwise plac'd in the same circumstances as I am True it is that some express a certain esteem for me many take occasion to compassionate the hardness of my Fortune but how few endeavour to alleviate it In the mean time Gray hairs affliction discontent Poison all my divertisement Past ills the present those to come Hasten my course to my long home WHen I bethink my self that I was once handsome enough to deserve the respects of the Bois-Roberts of my time when I reflect that I have been healthy enough till the Twenty seventh year of my age to have drunk after the rate of a German that I am still as sound within as that I can drink of all Liquors and eat of all sorts of Meat with as much unreservedness and indifference as the greatest Epicureans when I bethink my self that my apprehensions are not faint pedantick or impertinent that I am free from ambition and avarice and that if Heaven had continu'd me the use of those Legs which have perform'd their part well in a Dance and those hands which have been well skill'd in Drawing and playing on the Lute and in fine a very streight Body so that I might have liv'd a happy though somewhat an obscure life I assure you my dear Friend that if it had been lawful for me to have been my own Executioner I had long since wafted my self in a Socratick draught into the other World Nay I am somewhat of a perswasion that I must come to it in time Orewhelm'd with sadness grief and misery Far beyond all support of Constancy Admitting not the hope of any rest But what in a deep grave may be possest My restless thoughts continually dilate Themselves on the disasters of my Fate But what avail imprudent exclamations 'T is vain with Heav'n to make expostulations For if the Pow'rs above do so decree To punish my licentious Poetry That from the fatal minute of my birth I should be wretched till I 'm turn'd to earth Far be 't from me their Orders to oppose But court their favour in submissive Prose This shall be the last sally of my Poetick vein it lay so heavy on my heart that I could not be at ease till I had disburthen'd my self of it And to make you further reparation for the trouble I give you by the peevishness of this Letter I send you six Stanza's which I have added to the Baronade The News spread abroad of the Spanish Paralytick who is to challenge me upon the score of reputation hath found those whom I have acquainted with it very good sport There has not yet been 50000 Livers bestow'd in Spanish Grammars as you say though the Spanish Tonge was never so corrupted as it hath lately been at Paris I am extreamly oblig'd to you for the pains you take to supply me with Spanish Comedies I wish c. LETTER XX. To the same Monsieur Marigny Sir NEver was two-legged or two-handed Creature hurry'd into such a degree of exasperation as I am at this time that when you thought I might find his Highness the Prince some divertisement my claw-like hand is grown so rebellious that I cannot command it to write For as if all my other afflictions were not torment enough to me I must make what shift I can to tell you that for above a month now past I have had a continual conflict with the Gout which like Prometheus's Vulture has fed upon me without the least remorse or consideration of my other infirmities And what do you imagine I can do amidst the racking twitches it gives me Or how should I resent the malicious visit it makes me at this time when the Prince himself is expos'd to the jerks of the same inexorable disease All I can do is to fancy to my self that I come not behind Job in miseries though I may do it in patience It makes me so inventive in the faculty of swearing that I think without ostentation I could out-swear any man in France though at other times I place that amongst the most superfluous Transgressions and I must acknowledg it to be so now for any thing I am the better for it Certainly if the greatness of the torment which occasions it does not expiate the crime as I can hear so shall I in the next World be the most wretched of all Mankind For sometimes my furious transports are so like those of a damned Soul that if a commanded party of Devils were coming for me I think I should endeavour to meet them half-way I doubt they are coming for I begin to feel the first accesses of a dreadful fit and therefore must take a short leave of you and leave you to imagine the rest with c. LETTER XXI To the same SIR YOur writing to me has given me the greatest satisfaction I could have expected My generous
those Titles and assume the place of Monsieur Fouquet I mean the most excellent Person in the World when you shine in your own proper lustre without borrowing that of your Charges and Dignities when having quitted the Consular Robe you are at St. Mandés or Paris in your withdrawing-Room clad according to the ordinary mode of private persons and somewhat in the same equipage and humour as Scipio was in when he gather'd shells on the Sea-side with his Friend Loelius Could I have the happiness my Lord to be admitted to you at such a time I should make no difficulty to entertain you with any thing that came first into my head and be the frolickest person alive as long as Heaven were pleas'd to continue me in the humour Yet should not that be till I had first begg'd your permission to be so such as was given me by the late Cardinal of Lyons and such as I took my self without asking with the Cardinal de Retz when he lay by me upon my little yellow Couch and talk'd of things no way relating to the Cabals of Paris I dare boldly own it that in those two Eminences I triumph'd over the Stoicisme and serious temperament which attends the red Cap. Time was when they would have it to be an Article of my Faith that they had a love for me you may follow their example and afford me a little of your affection without either blushing or disparagement and by the extraordinary care I took to deserve their caresses imagine with what zeal I shall be inclin'd to love you You have a kindness for me upon this particular score that I am a wretched person and you have done me more in the space of fifteen dayes than the greatest part of the Peerage of France promis'd me ever since the time I was condemn'd to the posture of perpetual sitting Of the last Twenty years which I shuffled away of my weary life there has not past one but some great Lord among those that come to see me at my Chamber as people went heretofore to see Elephants and Estriches or popp'd in thither to pass away the afternoon when they had made bilk Visits or have nothing else to do there has not I say one year pass'd but some one of those titulary Grandees and mountainous promisers of Friendship and all the conveniences consequent thereto hath shamefully broke his word with me and has as often proffer'd either for my Friends or my self what I desir'd not of them And yet Monsieur the First President whom I never had the honour to see in my life sent me this last Year a considerable Present by the Abbot of Menagius and that within a very short time after I had dedicated a Book to him whereas you your self who were ignorant of my being in the world have honour'd me with your kindnesses and that after a manner yet more obliging than those very kindnesses I think my Lord that I am not engag'd to make a more particular discovery of what I desire of you whatever Command you have laid on me to do it I ought to receive the favours you shall do me with all the resentment of gratitude that I am capable of but I have not any right to prescribe them to you nor yet to demand any of you Your own Generosity knowes well enough what it has to do It is sufficient for the quiet remainder of my life that from the place where you are you have cast an eye upon me in that where I am and I question not after the obliging Note you were pleas'd to write to me and which I shall dearly keep but that I may shortly say when I speak of you Deus nobis haec otia fecit Mean time to importune you no farther I am My Lord Your most humble c. SCARRON LETTER XXXIX To the same My Lord I Question not but you may have heard that I was as kindly entertain'd by the late Queen of Sweden Christina as I could expect when I was carried to the Lowvre to satisfie her Curiosity Nor is it to be doubted but that the relation she made in her own Country and the many others through which she has once travell'd of that important Visit was extreamly divertive to all that heard it A good Sedan and two lusty Fellows to carry it and a third to convey my own great Chair out of which I have dictated more Burlesquery than any other Author has done might with as much ease bring me to your Palace that my Curiosity may be once satisfy'd with the sight of in seeing that Person to whom of all the World I am the most engag'd I should have already satisfy'd the impatience I am in to do it if my health had not oblig'd me to take a little change of Air at a place about a League from Paris where I hope to put a period to a Comedy I have in hand Mean time I beg your Lordships remembrance of the Promise you have made my Wife concerning the Marquisate of her Cousin de Circe and to be pleas'd that Monsieur Patriau may make you a report of that affair The favour we beg of you herein is one of the greatest but if I am not mistaken I have already told you That you could not do small ones And I once more protest to you That if I were not fully perswaded that the Lands for which we beg your final conclusion are as much our rightful Freehold as any man's can be in France I should not have undertaken to speak to you of it though all my Wife's Relations in Poictou have importun'd me to do it I shall forbear further abusing your patience and remain My Lord Your most humble c. S. LETTER XL. To Monsieur Pelisson SIR AFter all the good Offices you do me with our Noble Patron the Surintendant methinks you might well have taken the freedom to open the Letters he writes to me before they came to my hands and I have some reason to complain that you had not the first reading of that which I receiv'd this day It speaks so much of Kindness intended to me and that does so enflame my gratitude and puts me to so great a loss that if he often write me the like he I say whom I ought to love above all the World I think I should come and run my self through with a Stilletto at his feet not knowing any thing else efficacious enough fully to express a resentment so real â—nd sincere as mine is I send you the Letter it self that I may have your joynt-affirmation of its being the most obliging Missive that ever was When you have return'd it I will have it put up amongst my greatest Rarities as a Testimonial to all Posterity of the Kindness which the most Generous of all men is pleas'd to have for me I desire to know Whether he were much diverted with my Epigrams against Monsieur B _____ among which there are two very pleasant ones
whether he will do it much I believe also that he finds it some trouble to raise money at the beginning of a Campagne but there wants so small a sum for me to begin mine and what I expect from him would contribute so little to the distraction he is in that he might put a period to mine without much augmenting his own It is your concern to solicite him herein were it only that you may be deliver'd from the persecution of my Letters To excite you the more I am to tell you that I was yesterday put into a great fright word was brought me that Monsieur Meraut Master of the Accompts was desirous to see me I was much troubled to think what might be the consequence of my Landlord's visit But his discourse was only concerning the reparations of his house the innundation of the River Seine and his last complement was That though unhappy in other things I was a happy man in being so ingenious I am Sir Your most humble c. LETTER XLV To _____ Sir I Have a story to tell you which if I mistake not will find you some diversion Some three dayes since I was fallen very low in the purse an accident which is very ordinary to me I sent my servant to Monsieur Richemont of whom I receive every Quarter four hundred Livers a Pension bestow'd on me by Monsieur the Surintendant I desir'd him to do me the favour to make me ten dayes advance of the Quarter now current There happen'd to be with him one Monsieur _____ a person I know not and he reproach'd me with it as a great fault whereof I have yet but little thought to reform my self This man meeting with my servant entertain'd him with this discourse I know not your Master He knowes none but Monsieur de Lorme and never either dedicated to or presented me with any of his Books tell him that he shall not have his mony till the end of this month You see Sir how that Poverty makes men despicable and though Queens and Princes and all the greatest persons of quality in the Kingdom have had the curiosity to come and see me honour me with their Visits and dispense with my rendring of any to them I find an unciviliz'd Lord in Monsieur _____ And you see also Sir that though you are esteem'd and belov'd of all the World yet is there an envious Brute to whom your noble repute gives some disturbance I shall forbear giving further occasion of grumbling to the people of business who wait in your Antichamber by amusing you any longer with the reading of a Letter of no great importance I am Sir Your most humble c. LETTER LXVI To _____ Sir I Am much troubled to hear of the soarness of your Eyes But what addes to the trouble is that having a great likelihood of doing much mischief they are the less bemoan'd by divers other persons It concerns you to examine whether they have deserv'd what they endure and so seek out in your own virtue for all the patience you now stand in need of For my part it is the greatest of my afflictions partly out of a consideration of my present interest and partly out of that of my future expectation For since it has been known that you have honour'd me with your acquaintance I find that I am more considerable among several persons The other day I only took occasion to speak of you as I ought to do before Monsieur de Scudery and this day I receiv'd from him the Letter I now send you by which you will see that he hopes great things from you if you but ever so little promote the request which Monsieur Menagius has made for him No doubt but Monsieur Servient will tell you that these Briefs from Rome are very troublesome and I am so more then any one in recommending two affairs to you in the space of eight dayes But when I solicite for other persons I am as fierce as a Lyon but for my self I am so bashful that it is with the greatest repugnance in the World I importune any man with my concerns Since my Letter is grown so long I must tell you further that upon the first sight of Monsieur Servient I conceiv'd he would be a person answerable to my inclination his merit has since rais'd in me a veneration for him and the kindness he has express'd in enquiring whether I were alive has made an absolute acquest of me to his service This protestation of mine is as sincere as that of my being Sir Your most humble c. S. LETTER XLVII To _____ Sir I Send you the two Letters which I read to you yesterday because I observ'd that you express'd a certain liking of them with this promise that I shall cause some others to be transcrib'd for you as also some Verses But at the present the greatest part of my employment is the writing of Comedies because my principal subsistance depends on it 'T is a wretched kind of Labour which is not of any great advantage though a man bestowes much of his time in it and gains him but little reputation when he makes too great expedition The others require a great repose and serenity of mind and a man has but little of either of them when he is as much discompos'd in his health as in his affairs And for my part I must acknowledge that I find a great diminution of that facetious humour for which I am so remarkable ever since I have been reduc'd to a necessity of making verses for my livelihood as a person damn'd to a Trade I am extreamly at a loss when I reflect that if I express not my thankfulness to Monsieur the Procurator General as highly as my resentment of his favours advises me to do he may suspect I have it not to the degree I ought and if I do thank him answerably to the desires I have to do so he may imagine that I have a mean and mercenary soul I am sufficiently satisfy'd that he is so transcendently generous as not to expect Complements from those whom he obliges and goes by this principle that that is properly giving when a man gives to an useless person such as I am whereas to be liberal to one from whom he may receive some service implies somewhat of Commerce rather then the bestowing of a kindness In a word Sir there is in this point a certain nicety which I ought to observe and which I desire to be instructed by you who have known him so well and so long I did not make account to have written to you so seriously but sometimes there rises a certain cloudiness in a man's mind which cannot presently be dispell'd I am Sir Your most humble c. S. LETTER XLVIII To _____ SIR I Make no question but you have long since assign'd me a place among your Friends how well I deserve it will appear by the demonstration I now make of