Henry Rex.
That the subject of the above letters may be better understood, it may be necessary to state that L'Isle Adam was driven out of Rhodes by the Sultan Solyman, after a most desperate and sanguinary struggle, which continued almost without intermission from the 26th of June to the 18th of December, 1523. From this date to the month of October, 1530, nearly seven years, the Order of St. John of Jerusalem had no fixed residence, and the Grand Master was a wanderer in Italy, either in Rome, Viterbo, Naples, or Syracuse, while begging of the Christian Powers to assist him in recovering Rhodes, or Charles V. to give him Malta as a residence for his convent. It was during this period that the above letters, and some others which I purpose sending hereafter, were written.
William Winthrop.
PENNY SIGHTS AND EXHIBITIONS IN THE REIGN OF JAMES I.
The following curious list may amuse some of your readers. I met with it among the host of panegyrical verses prefixed to Master Tom Coryate's Crudities, published in 1611. Even in those days it will be admitted that the English were rather fond of such things, and glorious Will himself bears testimony to the fact. (See Tempest, Act II. Sc. 2.) The hexameter verses are anonymous; perhaps one of your well-read antiquaries may be able to assign to them the author, and be disposed to annotate them. I would particularly ask when was Drake's ship broken up, and is there any date on the chair[[1]] made from the wood, which is now to be seen at the Bodleian Library, Oxford?
"Why doe the rude vulgar so hastily post in a madnesse
To gaze at trifles, and toyes not worthy the viewing?
And thinke them happy, when may be shew'd for a penny
The Fleet-streete Mandrakes, that heavenly motion of Eltham,