have more reason that come to accompany the corpse to the grave to bring wine and cordials with them to comfort the widow and children, who have the greatest loss." Others besides Cooke have censured the folly of expensive funerals; but pride, vanity, and interest, have combined against improvement. We cannot, of course, enter upon an examination of the enormous evils attendant on the harpy-like procession, with its "well-plumed hearse,”-nor point out the too-frequent impositions of what, in the confusion of grief, or the hurry of succession to property, is often overlookedthe Undertaker's Bill; but we may take leave to regret that a good suggestion of Woodward's, in his Fair Warnings to a Careless World, is so rarely carried out-namely, instead of costly rings, to present to mourners, as tokens of regard and remembrance, a suitable religious book, in appropriate binding, which might breathe sweet consolation, or impart judicious counsel. In the 9th place, Cooke requests masters of mills, and millers, not to take excessive toll from the poore; he shows the evil practice to be prevalent, and wishes that all such as "are too nimble in poore men's bags might have some severe punishment." His 10th intimation is to ministers, and specially to impropriators of tithes,a tenth of which he would have given to the poor. "Who," says he, "are such fit objects of liberality as the poore; but truly the avarice, and covetousness, of many English ministers, would make a man think that religion was but a polity to keep men in subjection; for how improper is it for a covetous earth-worme to tell others of the danger of riches, and the difficulty for a rich man to enter into the kingdome of Heaven, when this covetous earth-worme minds nothing but the fleece, and satisfies himself with a toothless, sapless preaching in a customary formality; not falling out with the richest parishioners for their handfastednesse, and hardheartednesse, in not relieving the poore, but wrangling and brangling with poore men about an egg at Easter?" He implores the English clergy to be the advocates of the poor in their respective parishes; to denounce * Having mentioned this book, first published in 1697, we may just add that this "Proposal" occupies its last eight pages. Its author replies to the objections that may be urged by interested parties-goldsmiths, glovers, wine-merchants, and preparers of sweetmeats; he gives a list of books proper to such occasions; he appends forms of inscriptions, and ends his recommendation by saying, "Several books bound as proposed" (in black morocco, of various cost and device) "may be seen at Mr. Aylmer's, at the Three Pigeons, Cornhill; Mr. Wyat's, in St. Paul's Church Yard; Mr. Rogers, in Fleet Street; and at most Booksellers." "A Book may find him who a Sermon flies, the covetous and the drunkard; telling them that so living and dying they cannot be saved; that God abhors them, and that "all honest, sober men, will kick them out of their company." These remarks have much of the coarse freedom of the times it is scarcely necessary to say, that to the English clergy of 1853, with rare exceptions, such language could not be addressed with any tolerable degree of propriety. "A word to the learned Physicians" forms his 11th remedy,whom he beseeches to deal "kindly with poore people when they are sicke,—" for a poore man to give 10s. for a visit, is as grievous many times as the disease itself;" and he admonishes the faculty, if they cannot prescribe to the poor gratis, not to hinder any man that would thus befriend them. And here Cooke introduces us to a piece of medical history. 66 A certain Doctor Trigg* seems to have undertaken to kill people unprofessionally, and to have walked into an extensive practice. Whatever his education might have been, and perhaps it was little enough, he had been, according to Cooke, called "a Doctor" for twenty years; and was, as such men usually are, an universal genius, for "he did abundance of cures upon poore people," curing every yeare, all sorts of feavers, plague, palsies, agues, gout, consumptions, dropsies, collicks, and all sorts of diseases, and his manner of practice is to take little or nothing from the poore, and from the rich 2s., or 2s. 6d. at the most, for his advice and physick:" moreover, says Cooke, "our clyent hath done good to above 30,000 men, women, and children, in and about this city since 1624." But the College of Physicians-liking Trigg no better than they did Margaret Kennix, for whom Sir Francis Walsingham was obliged to intercede, that the worshipful body would "admit her into the quiet exercise of her small talent,"-prosecuted the counterfeit physician, and Cooke was his counsel; the cause, however, was lost, and a judgment for penalties to the amount of £115 (being £5 per month for using his art) was entered against Trigg. This matter therefore sharpens Cooke's pen, and he forcibly remonstrates with the college doctors; strongly complains that his client should *We presume that the "one John Trigg (afterwards a famous physician in London)," as named in Clark's Lives of Eminent Persons, was the veritable William Trigg in question. Clark informs us that the embryo physician, when a boy, accompanied by a schoolfellow, Samuel Fairelough, subsequently an ejected minister of learning and worth, robbed an orchard, and that Fairclough hearing, on the following Sunday, a sermon on the conversion of Zaccheus, was so conscience-stricken, that he was impelled to make to the owner of the orchard a fourfold restitution for the fruit stolen, and that it gave a religious turn to the whole of his future life. Trigg shared the fruit, but it is not recorded that he participated in the penitence. have been indicted "by the name of William Trigg, shoemaker, alias William Trigg, hule-maker, &c.; and is quite indignant that one of the grave and learned body should have said, "this Trigg workes by the Devil, or else he could never do such cures." Trigg's case was carried by a writ of error before the House of Lords, but how it was decided we have not at hand the means of knowing. From physic, Cooke passes to law, and in his 12th proposition he intreats the judges of the land to discriminate in such cases of stealing as may come before them, and to punish less severely such as may arise from necessitous circumstances. He advises his brethren to use despatch in all cases; to undertake, as he pledges himself to do, poor men's causes, gratis, "this hard yeare;" and he even brings to the ears of his astonished compeers such advice as this," In doubtful matters let us disswade our clyents from going to law, and tell them the danger of it, advising them to do as they would be done unto; let us contend earnestly for the truth, more than for victorie; and so soon as we discover the injustice of the cause, let us leave it, and advise our clyents to make their peace, never speaking anything but what we believe to be true; if they tell us they have no money, let us do their business for thanks, and I warrant you the people will quickly find the usefulness of us, and an honest lawyer will be a necessary member in a kingdome." And further he expresses his desire that there might be friend-makers in every parish, for matters of small concernment, "and I would have this golden sentence written in capital letters over Westminster doores,-QUICK JUSTICE MAKES A QUIET KINGDOME." In truth, Cooke was a pretty sturdy Law Reformer, but a root and branch" man. "I am," says he, " for a reformation in courts of justice, and not an extirpation,-it must never come to root and branch in point of civil government." not " We conclude our notice of this tract, by giving a brief account of a Neapolitan fraternity, called by our author "Lesiwants ;" their motto was, "Be sober and frugal;" but their practice, that which their denomination indicates-stinginess (we use an old but very significant word). Cooke is of opinion that some portion of what was censurable in them, might with prudence be adopted in time of dearth, still deprecating "the abominable covetousness" of those who are not merciful to the poor-"base earth-wormes," he calls them, who care not what becomes of the needy; who are of any opinion to get money; they laugh whoever may cry; and these men I count to be a generation of Lisiwants," among whose principles, 66 he tells us, were such as these:-" never to take any physic, in hopes to recover by fasting; to weare one glove at a time, and that being lost, another may be had for little; to eat roast meat but once a year; not to break bread too small, for it crumbles away; not to send their servants too far in a morning, for fear of getting too good a stomach; to make a new garment of two old ones; when your servant goes to draw the best drink, make him sing all the while; use pigmy candles, for they least hurt the sight;" and other maxims equally thrifty and artful. At the end of his pamphlet, Cooke subscribes himself "the honest poor man's faithfull servant," and misguided as he may have been, and strange as some of his opinions unquestionably are, there is notwithstanding so much of earnestness and sincerity in "The Poor Man's Case," that we are not disposed to refuse to its author the distinction he thus humbly claims. ART. III.-Old English Letter-Writing. The English Secretary, or Methode of writing of Epistles and Letters: with a declaration of such Tropes, Figures, and Schemes, as either vsually or for ornament sake are therein required. Also the parts and office of a Secretarie. Deuided into two bookes. Now newly reuised, and in many parts corrected and amended. By ANGEL DAY. At London, Printed by P. S., for C. Burbie, and are to be sold at his shop, at the Royall Exchange. 1599. (4to.) The Enemy of Idlenesse, Teaching a perfect platforme how to indite Epistles and Letters of all sortes: as well by answer as otherwise; no lesse profitable then pleasant. The whole diuided into foure Bookes: newly published and augmented by W. F. OF This booke by practise of the Pen And judgement of the Wise; Stands Enemy to Idlenesse And Friend to Exercise. London. Printed by Edw. All-de, for John Tap, dwelling at St. F all the branches and species into which literature is divisible, there is none that has a wider range-none that is of more universal application-none that takes so strong a hold upon our sympathies,-in short, none that is so indispensable to the comfort, A letter, happiness, and refinement of society, as letter-writing. The busy times in which it is our lot to live bid fair almost to abolish letter-writing. Rowland Hill and the railways will have much to answer for in this respect. The penny-postage system, as it has increased the number of every man's correspondents, so it has necessarily led to all possible abridgement of his letters. As he now gets six "missives" for what under the old tariff was the postage of one, he must manage to scrawl six communications-letters he cannot call them—in the space of time which he could formerly devote to one three-side post-quarto letter. Again, the time which it requires to write a lengthened epistle, would, by the aid of steam, enable him to reach his friend's fireside and make his communication orally with much greater satisfaction to both parties. Now although no one possessed of common sense wishes the days of dear letters and stage coaches revived, yet many do regret the loss of that excellent and interesting emanation of thought and feeling, a well-written, deliberate, and pregnant letter. Letter-writing is, we boldly affirm, at least an obsolescent, if not an obsolete, science, and therefore comes fairly within the scope of a penchant for the "retrospective." A true old-fashioned letter, such as our grandfathers and grandmothers used to write, was a very serious affair, and if done by an orthodox hand had its exordium, peroration, and nearly all the other parts of a formal address. We speak, of course, of the not very welleducated class, which was then a heavy majority. A "Complete Letter-Writer" of some sort or other was consequently a manual in high request. A collection of the multitudinous works of this class would be a literary curiosity not unworthy of the attention of a bibliographer. We will here present two early specimens to the notice of the reader. |