the Lady of Sir Robert Wilson, in the North Aisle of Westminster Abbey, they discovered, at the head of it, a leaden coffin, placed in the ground perpendicularly, with the head downwards in a hole about two feet square. At the top of the hole was a square stone, about eighteen inches wide, on which were the initials "B. J." cut in characters rather illegible: on inquiry amongst the old men of the Abbey, they state that the tradition is, that when Ben Jonson was seriously ill, he was asked where he would be buried? He said, "If I can get foot ground, in Westminster Abbey, I will be interred there," and on the Dean of Westminster being applied to, he gave sufficient ground to admit the corpse in a perpendicular position, as it was found. The skeleton of the deceased was entire, and in a singular state of preservation.

FOOLS' PARTS.

"My husband, Timothy Tattle," says a character in one of Ben Jonson's plays, "God rest his poor soul! was wont to say, there was no play without a fool and a devil in it; he was for the devil style, God bless him! "The devil for his money," would he say. "I would fain see the

devil." "And why would you so fain see the devil?" would I say. "Because he has horns, wife, and may be a cuckold as well as a devil," he would answer. "You are e'en such another! husband," quoth I. "Was the devil ever married? Where do you read the devil was ever so honourable as to commit matrimony?"—" The play will tell us that," says he; "we'll go see it to-morrow." Staples of news.

"It was wont," says good master John Geb, (Coll. Ex.)" when an interlude was to be acted in a country town, the first question that an hobnailed spectator made, before he would pay his penny to goe in, was, whether there bee a devile and a foole in the play? and if the foole get upon the divell's back and beat him with his coxcombe till he rore, the play is complete." The fool out of the snare. p. 68.

These extracts allude to the old moralities. The fool or clown of the new comedy, however, succeeded to all the celebrity of his predecessor, and was inquired after with equal impatience. Goffe has a pleasant passage in his "Careless Shepherdess," which gives a good idea of the delight which the audience never failed to express on the appearance of a favourite fool.

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Why, I would have the fool in every act,
Be it comedy or tragedy. I have laugh'd
Until I cry'd again, to see what faces

The rogue would make. O, it does me good

To see him hold out's chin, hang down his hands,
And twirle his bawble: there is never a part
About him but breaks jests.

I had rather hear him leap, or laugh, or cry,
Than hear the gravest speech in all the play.
I never saw Reave peeping through the curtain
But ravishing joy enter'd into my heart."

Emanuel Reave, the Fool here alluded to, was one of the original actors, in Beaumont and Fletcher's plays; these, however, could have afforded little scope for the fine acting which gave such delight to the good landlord in Goffe's prelude; and which, in all probability, was exhibited in some of those admirable clowns whom Shakspeare has delineated.

THE FIRST COMEDY WRITER.

THE first comic writer, of whom we have an account, was no less a man than Dr. John Still, Bishop of Bath and Wells, who produced, in 1575, that curious comedy, entitled "Gammer Gurton's Needle." He was the son of William Still, of Grantham, in Lincolnshire, and was ad

mitted a student in Christ College, Cambridge, where he took his degree of Master of Arts. He afterwards became Rector of Hadleigh, in the county of Suffolk, and was finally appointed Bishop of Bath and Wells, on the death of Bishop Godwin, in 1607.

The story of this play, which is written in the metres, and extended into five regular acts, is as follows:-Gammer Gurton has lost his needle;. and in order to make a general search for it about the house, his boy is sent to hold a candle; but when he goes towards the chimney, he spies a witch in the grate, with two fiery eyes staring on him; whereupon he cries out, "the devil's in the fire; for when I puff it, it goes out, and when I do not, it is lit."-" Stir it," cries Gammer Gurton.-The boy does as he is bidden, when, behold, the witch flies out amongst a pile of wood, and all hands are at work to prevent the house being set on fire. The witch, however, is at last discovered, by a priest, who seems to have a little more cunning than the rest, to be no more than a cat.

The catastrophe is equally good: Gammer Gurton, it seems, had, the day before, been mending his man Hodge's breeches; when

Hodge, in some game of merriment, was to be punished with three slaps on a certain part, by the brawny open hand of one of his fellow bumpkins his head is laid down, for this purpose, in Gammer Gurton's lap, when, at the first slap, he bellows out, in great pain. A search is made, to find out the cause of it, when, behold, the needle is found almost buried up to the eye in the flesh of poor Hodge. Great rejoicing is made by all the parties for this discovery, and so ends this excellent comedy.

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ORIGIN OF THE STORY OF THE MERCHANT OF VENICE."

THE two principal incidents of this play are to be found, separately, in a collection of old stories, which were very popular, at least five hundred years ago, under the title of "Gesta Romanorum." In the first of these, a knight borrows money of a merchant, upon condition of forfeiting all his flesh for non-payment. When the penalty is enacted before the judge, the knight's mistress, disguised as a man, comes into court, and, by permission of the judge, endeavours to soften the merchant. She first offers him his money, and then the double of it, to all

VOL. III.