1307.] Extracts from the Port-folio of a Man of Letters. 
dient: he whifpered in Voltaire’s ear, 
that feveral ambafladors from crowned 
heads Were waiting in the anti-chamber, 
to deliver compliments to him from the 
kings their matiers. 
This information effectually reufed the 
fick man, who, railing himfelf in his 
chair, cried out in an extacy of joy, 
“ Shew them in—Let them come in, lL 
fay.” 
So fudden a recovery quite difconcert- 
ed the informant, who very umprudently 
461 
faid, “ Oh! it is nothing, Sir, but your 
lethargy !” This unlucky observation was 
very near proving fatal in reality: the phi- 
lofopher of Ferney threw back his head, 
muttered fome words indittinctly, and 
{tretched out his legs, which appeared 
to fiiffen as if he had actually given up 
the ghoft. Tlowever, after a confider- 
able time had elapfed, his friends were 
relieved from their anxiety, and M. de 
Voltaire gradually recovered the ule of 
all his faculties. ! 
Extradls from the Port-folio of a Man of Letters. 
— ie 
JAMES IT, 
2 anne, the Second said he never knew 
a modest man make his way in a 
court. A Mr, Ployd, who was then in 
waiting, replied bluntly, “ Pray, Sir, 
whose fault’s that?” The King stood 
corrected, and was silent. 
THOMAS BETTERTON. 
Thomas Betterton, the Roscius of his 
time, who was in dramatic excellence 
what Purcell was im music, first appeared 
upon the stage in the reign of Charles the 
Second. “ His portrait (says. Granger) 
belongs to the reign of William. the 
Lhird.” 
He died April 8th, 1710, and was bu- 
ried in the cloister of Westminster Ab-’ 
bey. He is said to have been bred a 
bookseller; and, serving the Playhouses 
with books, was led to come upon the 
stage. See his character in the Tatler, 
LILLY, THE GRAMMARIAN. 
Peacham, in the Complete Gentle- 
man (edit. 1622, p. 92.), says of Sir Tho- 
mas Moore, ‘ In his younger yeeres there 
was ever a friendly and vertuous emula- 
tion for the palme of invention and poe- 
sie betweene Wilham Lillie, the author 
of our Grammar, and him, as appeareth 
by their severall translations of many 
Greck epigrammes, and their invention 
tried upon one subject; notwithstand- 
ing, they loy’d and liv’d together as deer- 
est friends. Lillie also was, heside, an 
excellent Latine poet, a singular Gre- 
cian; who, atter he travelled all Greece 
over, and many parts of Europe beside, 
and lived some four or five years in the 
{sle of Rhodes, returned home, and by 
John Collet, Deane of Paule’s, was elect- 
ed Master of Paule’s Schoole, which he 
had newly founded.” = 
PEDANTRY OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 
Tt is @ euriqus circumstance (says 
Dr. Henry, in the part of his History 
relating to the fourteenth century), that 
not only treatises composed for the i- 
struction of farmers und their servants, 
down to the swineherd, were written in 
Latin, but even the accompts of the ex- 
pences and profits of farms and dairies 
were keptin that language.”—Though the 
Latin, it must be confessed, is not of the 
most classical description, Bishop Ken= 
net, in the Parochial Antiquities (p. 549), 
has exhibited an original account deli- 
vered to the Prior and Convent of Burces- 
ter of all the gain and profit of one of 
their dairies in the seventh year of Hen- 
ry the Fourth, 1406, wherein we have 
“Pro uno Seedcod empto, nid. Et pro 
uno Cart-sadel, uno colero cam uno pari 
tractuum emptis, xivd. Et pro altero 
colero cum alvo corio empto, ivd. Et 
pro factura de Drawgere per Walterum 
Carpenter de Langeton, nid. Et pro 
duobus capistris canabi cum Weppecord 
empt. nid. Et pro uno Dongecart emp- 
to de Symone Adam cum pertinentus 
suis, xivd.” 
EXCOMMUNICATION. 
The singular extent to which the sen- 
tence of the church in this respect was 
sometimes carried, is curiously exem- 
phfied in Blomefield’s History of Nor- 
folk (vol. T. p. 253, .). 
“ Hughde Albany, Earl of Arundel and 
Sussex, at the. coronation of Eleanor, 
daughter of Hugh Earl of Provence, then 
married to King Henry the Third, dee 
puted the Earl of Warren to serve his 
othce of the botelry, he beimg incapaci- 
tated to serve that office himself, as be- 
ing then excommunicated by the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, because, when the 
archbishop was hunting in the said 
Hagh’s forest, in Sussex, he took away 
his dogs, the Archbishop claiming it as 
~ his 
