RUDE TRUTH FOR A QUEEN.
It is well known to how great an extent Queen Elizabeth, with all her strength of mind, was beset by the weakness of her sex in what concerned her age and her personal appearance. "The majesty and gravity of a sceptre," says one of her contemporaries, "could not alter the nature of a woman in her. When Bishop Rudd was appointed to preach before her, he, wishing in a godly zeal, as well became him, that she should think sometimes of mortality, being then sixty-three years of age—he took his text fit for that purpose out of the Psalms, xc. 12: 'Teach us to number our days, that we may incline our hearts unto wisdom;' which text he handled most learnedly. But when he spoke of some sacred and mystical numbers, as three for the Trinity, three times three for the heavenly hierarchy, seven for the Sabbath, and seven times seven for a jubilee; and lastly, nine times seven for the grand climacterical year (her age), she, perceiving whereto it tended, began to be troubled by it. The Bishop, discovering that all was not well, for the pulpit stood opposite her Majesty, he fell to treat of some more plausible (pleasing) numbers, as of the number 666, making Latinus, with which, he said, he could prove Pope to be Antichrist, etc. He still, however, interlarded his sermon with Scripture passages, touching the infirmities of age, as that in Ecclesiastes: 'When the grinders shall be few in number, and they wax dark that look out of the windows,' etc.; 'and the daughters of singing shall be abased;' and more to that purpose. The Queen, as the manner was, opened the window; but she was so far from giving him thanks or good countenance, that she said plainly: 'He might have kept his arithmetic for himself; but I see the greatest clerks are not the wisest men;' and so she went away discontented."
AN ARCHBISHOP'S INSTALLATION FEAST.
Fuller, in his Church History, relates that "George Nevill, brother to the great Earl of Warwick, at his instalment into the Archbishoprick of York, gave a prodigious feast to all the nobility, most of the prime clergy, and many of the great gentry, wherein, by his bill of fare, three hundred quarters of wheat, three hundred and thirty tuns of ale, one hundred and four tuns of wine, one pipe of spiced wine, eighty fat oxen, six wild bulls, one thousand and four wethers, three hundred hogs, three hundred calves, three thousand geese, three thousand capons, three hundred pigs, one hundred peacocks, two hundred cranes, two hundred kids, two thousand chickens, four thousand pigeons, four thousand rabbits, two hundred and four bitterns, four thousand ducks, two hundred pheasants, five hundred partridges, four thousand woodcocks, four hundred plovers, one hundred curlews, one hundred quails, one thousand egrets, two hundred roes, above four hundred bucks, does, and roebucks, one thousand five hundred and six hot venison pasties, four thousand cold venison pasties, one thousand dishes of jelly parted, four thousand dishes of plain jelly, four thousand cold custards, two thousand hot custards, three hundred pike, three hundred bream, eight seals, four porpoises, and four hundred tarts. At this feast the Earl of Warwick was steward, the Earl of Bedford, treasurer, the Lord of Hastings, comptroller, with many more noble officers; servitors, one thousand; cooks, sixty-two; kitcheners, five hundred and fifteen.... But," continues honest Fuller, "seven years after, the King seized on all the estate of this archbishop, and sent him over prisoner to Calais in France, where vinctus jacuit in summa inopia, he was kept bound in extreme poverty. Justice thus punished his former prodigality."
DA VINCI A GREAT ANATOMIST.
Leonardo Da Vinci, to his talents as a painter, added that of being the best anatomist and physiologist of his time, and was the first person who introduced the practice of making anatomical drawings. Vassari, in his Lives of the Painters, says that Leonardo made a book of studies, drawn with red chalk, and touched with a pen with great diligence, of such subjects as Marc Antonio de la Torre, an excellent philosopher of that day, had dissected. "And concerning those from part to part, he wrote remarks in letters of an ugly form, which are written by the left hand backwards, and not to be understood but by those who knew the method of reading them; for they are not to be read without a looking-glass." Those very drawings and writings alluded to by Vassari, were happily found to be preserved in the royal collection of original drawings, where Dr. Hunter was permitted to examine them. The Doctor, in noticing them, says: "I expected to see little more than such designs in anatomy as might be useful to the painter in his own profession; but I saw, and, indeed, with astonishment, that Leonardo had been a general and a deep student. When I consider what pains he has taken upon every part of the body, the superiority of his universal genius, his particular excellence in mechanics and hydraulics, and the attention with which such a man would examine and see objects which he was to draw, I am fully persuaded that Leonardo was the best anatomist at that time in the world."
EXTRAVAGANCES OF THE HERRNHUTERS.
In a letter to Count Zinzendorf—the founder of the community of Moravian Brethren at Herrnhut, in Upper Lusatia—who visited England about 1745, Whitfield thus describes and rebukes some of the extravagant flummeries then practised by the Moravians: "Pray, my Lord, what instances have we of the first Christians walking round the graves of their deceased friends on Easter day, attended with hautboys, trumpets, French horns, violins, and other kinds of musical instruments? Or where have we the least mention made of pictures of particular persons being brought into the Christian assemblies, and of candles being placed behind them in order to give a transparent view of the figures? Where was it ever known that the picture of the Apostle Paul, representing him handing a gentleman and lady up to the side of Jesus Christ, was ever introduced into the primitive love-feasts?... Again, my Lord, I beg leave to inquire whether we hear anything in Scripture of eldresses or deaconesses of the apostolical churches seating themselves before a table covered with artificial flowers, and against that a little altar surrounded with wax tapers, on which stood a cross, composed either of mock or real diamonds, or other glittering stones? And yet your Lordship must be sensible this was done in Fetter Lane Chapel, for Mrs. Hannah Nitschman, the present general eldress of your congregation; with this addition, that all the sisters were seated, clothed in white, and with German caps; the organ also illuminated with three pyramids of wax tapers, each of which was tied with a red ribbon; and over the head of the general eldress was placed her own picture, and over that (horresco referens) the picture of the Son of God. A goodly sight this, my Lord, for a company of English Protestants to behold!... A like scene to this was exhibited by the single brethren in a room of their house at Hatton Garden. The floor was covered with sand and moss, and in the middle of it was paved a star of different-coloured pebbles; upon that was placed a gilded dove, which spouted water out of its mouth into a vessel prepared for its reception, which was curiously decked with artificial leaves and flags; the room was hung with moss and shell; the Count, his son, and son-in-law, in honour of whom all this was done, with Mrs. Hannah Nitschman, and Mr. Peter Boehlen, and some other labourers, were also present. These were seated under an alcove, supported by columns made of pasteboard, and over their heads was painted an oval in imitation of marble, containing cyphers of Count Zinzendorf's family. Upon a side-table was a little altar covered with shells, and on each side of the altar was a bloody heart, out of, or near which, proceeded flames. The room was illuminated with wax tapers, and musicians played in an adjoining apartment, while the company performed their devotions, and regaled themselves with sweetmeats, coffee, tea, and wine." Mr. Whitfield also mentions a "singular expedient" made use of to raise the drooping spirits of one Mr. Bell, who had been induced to join the Brethren. On his birthday, he was sent for by Mr. Peter Boehlen, one of the bishops, and "was introduced into a hall, where was placed an artificial mountain, which, upon singing a particular verse, was made to fall down, and then behind it was discovered an illumination, representing Jesus Christ and Mr. Bell sitting very near, or embracing each other; and out of the clouds was also represented plenty of money falling round Mr. Bell and the Saviour." Towards the close of his career, Count Zinzendorf applied himself, and not without success, to undo a good deal of the extravagant and unseemly work of former years, both in his devotional hymns and forms.