536. Extracts from the Portfolio of a Man of Letters. . 
never better inher q, indeed, than when 
she apes the nightingale, especially in 
their fughes, forthen you- would thinke 
them both starke madde, while. they 
follow one another so close at the heeles, 
and yet can never overtake. each ather. 
She is a right woman, thet can keepe. no 
~ epunsell,. ee yet will bee readie to. ‘in- 
trude. aisele. into everié cnes counsell, 
but. as soone. as shee pri it out it goes 
straight, life or death, all is one to her. 
She were good to. make a player of the 
stage, for she would cake her cues ex- 
cellentiy well. She is no Ciceronian, nor 
[Jane 1, 
apt for fluent stiles; but a Lipsian right, 
»and- fitter for.a briefe manner of speech 
dialogue-wise. All her poetry ts chiefly 
in Sapphicks or iambicks at most, for she 
cannot abide the examiter or heroical 
verse, because too long for her. In fine, 
though shee bee a common speaker and 
teller of newes (as I said) yet makes she 
a conscience to devise any of herselfe,. 
and therefore would hardly serve to be 
the seécretatie of false fame; but being’ 
once broached, let her alone to Bags, 
it; abroad through all the wilderness,” 
Extracts from the Portfolio of a Man of Letters. 
—Zia— 
HOMER MEDICUS, 
WN R. Wood, in his Essay on the ort- 
ginal Genius of Homer, says, 
“ Homer has been highly extolled for'his 
knowledge of medicine and anatomy, 
particularly the latter: and his insight 
into the structure of the human body has 
been considered so nice that he has been 
imagined by some to have wounded his 
heroes with too much science.” On this 
passage, Mr. Bowyer (the celebrated 
Lape: has @ note which stands thus: 
“ Mr. Pope, as he read over every book 
he could think of that could give him any 
. hight into the life of Elomer, had gotten 
an old Latin edition of Diodorus Siculus, 
wherein he found Homer was said to be 
Medicus. At which he was overjoyed, 
and thought he should communicate a 
great discovery. Bat behold, when he 
consulted another edition, be found the 
true reading was mendicus. “* This (says 
Mr. Bowyer) I had from his own mouth, 
ai Pwiekenham.” 
NEWSPAPERS. 
The Gallo- Belgicus was the first news- 
paper publislied England. The exact 
time when they were first printed is not 
Known, but the imtelligent editor of 
Dodsley ’s Old Plays has proved, vol. 8. p. 
4112, that they were as early as Queen 
Elizabeth. In1663 , Sir Roger! 'Estrange 
set up a newspaper ca'led ‘ ‘the Pebi 
Intelligencer, and the News: ” the first of 
which came out the ist. of August, and 
the secoud on Thursday, September 3; 
and continued to be published twice a 
week ull the 19th of Jameary, 1665, 
when he laid it down on the design then 
concerted of publisiing the London 
nd uzette, so calied from tts being sold for 
neéce Of money cailed a gue zee | 
yes 
INDIAN INS, 
The black inky fluid of the cuttle-fish, 
which hes often been supposed to be the 
bile, is a very singular secretion. The 
bag in which it is contained, has a fine 
callous interna] surface, and its excretory 
duct opens near the anus. The uid 
itself is thick, but miscible with water 
to such a degres, that a very small quan= 
tity will cover a vast bulk of water: and 
the ammal employs it in this way to 
elude the pursuit ef its enemies, Accords . 
ing to Cuvier, the Indian ink (which. 
cumes from China) is madeof this fluid. 
SHAKESPEARE MANUSCRIPTS. __ 
Dr. Latham attended es the last 
illness the father of that Mr. I. Ireland 
who produced the Shakespeare manu~ 
scripts. “In his wurk on Diabetes, lately 
published, he says, p. 176, “ Notwiths 
standing the world did not give Mr. 
Treland credit for his assertions respecting 
his concurrence, or even cofinivance, at 
his son’s literary fraud; yet, in justice to 
his memory, I think myself here called 
upon, sifice I have this opportunity, to 
record it as his death-bed declaration, 
that he was totally ignorant of the deceit, 
and was equally a believer in the authens 
ticity of the manuscripts: as those 
wére the most credulous.” = 
Ble 
A LIVING CLOCK, eo 
Dr. Willis mentions an idiot, who w - 
accustomed to repeat the strokes iad 
clock near which he‘lived, with a 
voice. Afterwards having been removed 
into a parish where there was no church-, 
clock, he continued as before to call the 
hours successively ; and this wiih so great 
sccuragy both as to the number of 
tolls, vitae he pretended to count, ‘and 
as tO the’ length of the Ftc hours, 
