38033] Extraéts from the Portfolio of a Man of Letters. 34} 
was attacked with a fever, accompanied 
by an inflammation on the lungs. M. 
Chanut, the French ambaffador to the 
court of that Princefs, who had triumphed 
over a fimilar malady, wifhed that our 
patient fhould betreated ina like manner ; 
but Defeartes would not accede to the 
propofition, and obftinately refufed to be 
blooded, exclaiming, ‘* Gentlemen, fpare 
French blood !”? He confented at Ja(t, how- 
ever, buf it was too late, and he died in the 
fifty-fourth year of his age. The Queen 
at firft propoled to bury him in the royal 
cemetry, with a pomp fuitable to her rank 
and his own genius ; and at the fame time 
to raife a marble cenotaph to his memory. 
But M. Chanut perfuaded her Majetty to 
permit his remains to be depofited with 
privacy. He was buried in Stockholm, 
where his duft remained to the year 7666, 
when it was removed by M. d’Alibert, 
Treafurer of France, to Paris, where it 
was interred a fecond time, with extra- 
ordinary pomp, in the church of St. Ge- 
nevieve du Mont.” 
VOITURE. 
Voiture was not lefs famed for his ge- 
nerofity than his wit. Balzac fent ta 
him one day for the loan of 400 crowns, 
which he readily lent, and at the bottom 
of the promiffory note for that fum he 
wrote the following lines. “I promife 
to pay M. Balzac the fum of 800 crowns 
for the pleafnre that he has afforded’ me 
of lending him 400.”—He returned this 
note by the fervant that came for the 
money. .When Balzac read it, he ex- 
claimed, ‘* This‘note does him more ho- 
nour than all the letters for which he is fo 
juftly and univerfally admired.” » 
WILLIAM NOY, 
Attorney-general to Charles the Firft, 
was a very great Jawyer, though he ren- ~ 
dered himfelf exceedingly obnoxious to 
the popular party, by the affiftance he 
gave to the Crown in the affair of thip- 
money. He died in 1634. His body 
being opened after his deceafe (fays An- 
thony Wood,) his heart was found fhri- 
velied like a leather penny purfe, nor 
were his lungs right, which caufed feveral 
conjectures by the Puritans. But that 
which was molt obfervable after his death 
was his will, dated 4d June, 1634, at 
which all the world wondered, becaufe 
the maker thereof was accounted a great 
clerk in the law; for therein, after he 
had bequeathed to his fon Humphrey an 
hundred marks per annum, to be paid 
out his tenements in the hundred of Pyder, 
in Cornwall, he concludes thus, ‘ & re, 
figua omnia, &c. and the reit of all my 
lands, goods, &c. I leave to my foa 
Edward Noy, whom I make my executer, 
to be confumed and fcattered about, mer 
de co melius fperavi,” Sc. But Edward 
lived not long to enjoy the eftate, for 
within two years after, he was flain in a 
duel in France, by one Captain Byron, 
who efcaped {cot-free, and had his pardon. 
In the place of William Noy fucceeded 
Sir John Banks; and the next year, Sir 
Robert Heath, being removed from the 
Chief Jufticcthip of the King’s Bench, 
for bribery, Sir John Finch came into 
play, whereupon thefe verfes were made—= 
Noy’s flood is gone, 
The Banks appear 5 
Heath is thorn down, 
And Finch ings there, 
CROMWELL L&E, 
An old Englifh writer, was a younger 
fon ot Sir Anthony Lee, vw? Burfton, ig 
Buckinghamfhire, Kor. by his wite, a 
daughter of the unfortunate Sir Tomas 
Wyat, and defcended froin the Lees of 
Quarendon in that county. This Crome 
well was a commoner of St. Jolin’s Cal- 
lege, Oxford, and {pent feveral years in 
Italy. He compiled a Dictionary in Ita- 
lian and Englifh, which though it resches 
only ‘to the word Yralingato, is as big as 
a church bible. This book the author 
gave to the library of St. John’s College, 
where a fair copy of it, tranferibed by 
Thomas Potticary, M.A. of that cols 
lege, yetremains, He died near Oxford, 
in 1603. A homorous fiudent wrote the 
following epitaph on him; 
Here lieth old Cromwell, - 
Who, living, lov’d the bum well; 
When he dy’d he gave nothing to the peor, 
Bat half to his baftards and half to his whore. 
LAY PREACHING. 
Though this irregular practice may 
now be jufily condemned, yet in the fix- 
teenth century it was publicly allowed. 
Sir Thomas More, after he was called to 
the bar in Lincoln’s Inn, did, for a con- 
fiderable time, read a public lecture out 
of St. Auftin, de Civitate Dei, in the 
church of St. Lawrence Jewry. Richard 
Taverner, clerk of the fignet, though a 
lavman, obtained, in 1552, a {pecial ‘li. 
cence from Edward VI. to preach in any 
place of his dominions; and the more for this 
reafon (faith Wood) becaufe the fcarcity 
and flacknefs of preachers was fo great, 
that fome of the King’s chaplains were ap- 
pointed to ride circuit about the kingdom, 
to preach to the people, efpecially againtt 
Popery. I have been informed (faith the 
Oxford antiquary) that he preached a 
ore 
