The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 43 pages of information about The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.

The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 43 pages of information about The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction.

TRANSLATED.

  Unless old proverbs fail, and wizard’s wits be blind,
  The Scots shall surely reign, where’er this stone they find.

Luther sent a glass to Dr. Justus Jonas, with the following verses:—­

  Dat vitrum vitro, Jonae, vitro ipse Lutherus,
  Se similem ut fragili noscat uterque vitro
.

TRANSLATED.

  Luther a glass, to Jonas Glass, a glass doth send,
  That both may know ourselves to be but glass, my friend.

PRIOR.

Mirror, vol. xii. p. 184.

Prior’s epitaph on himself was parodied as follows:—­

  Hold Mathew Prior, by your leave,
    Your epitaph is very odd: 
  Bourbon and you are sons of Eve,
    Nassau the offspring of a God.

Which being shewn to Swift he wrote the following:—­

  Hold, Mathew Prior, by your leave,
    Your epitaph is barely civil;
  Bourbon and you are sons of Eve,
    Nassau the offspring of the devil.

In the “Spectator,” is part of an epitaph by Ben Jonson, on Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, and sister of Sir Philip Sidney.  The following is the whole, taken from the first edition of Jonson’s works, collected as they were published:—­

  Underneath this stone doth lie,
  As much virtue as could die;
  Which when alive did vigour give,
  To as much beauty as could live;
  If she had a single fault,
  Leave it buried in this vault.

Another on the same, from the same source:—­

  Underneath this sable hearse,
  Lies the subject of all verse,
  Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother,
  Death ere thou hast slain another,
  Fair, and good, and learn’d as she,
  Time shall throw a dart at thee;
  Marble piles, let no man raise
  To her fame; for after days,
  Some kind woman born as she,
  Reading this, like Niobe,
  Shall turn statue and become
  Both her mourner and her tomb.

A CORRESPONDENT.

* * * * *

The Londiners pronounce woe to him, that buyes a horse in Smith-field, that takes a Seruant in Paul’s Church, that marries a Wife out of Westminster.  Londiners, and all within the sound of Bow-Bell, are in reproch called Cocknies, and eaters of buttered tostes.  The Kentish men of old were said to haue tayles, because trafficking in the Low Countries, they neuer paid full payments of what they did owe, but still left some part vnpaid.  Essex men are called calues, (because they abound there,) Lankashire eggepies, and to be wonne by an Apple with a red side.  Norfolke wyles (for crafty litigiousness:) Essex stiles, (so many as make walking tedious,) Kentish miles (of the length.)

—­Moryson’s Itinerary, 1617.

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The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.