that from Vologda, with the first sled way, Novogrode, or where we will in Rusand then they should see them, and land: but the three-and-twentieth of then we would shew them the prices this present we were with the secreof them and likewise we could not tary; and then among other talk, we tell them what we would give them moved, that if we should tarry at Coljustly, till we did know as well their mogro with our wares, and should just weights as their measures; for in not come to Vologda, or further to all places where we did come, all seek our market, but tarry still at weights and measures did vary. Then Colmogro, and then the merchants of the secretary (who had made promise the Mosco and others should not come unto us before) said, that we should and bring their wares, and so the have all the just measures under seal; ships should come, and not have their and be that was found faulty in the lading ready, that then it were a great contrary, to buy or sell with any other loss and hindrance for us: then said measure than that, the law was, that he again to us, that the merchants he should be punished: he said more- had been again together with him, over, that if it so happen that any of and had put the like doubt, that if our merchants do promise by cove- they should come and bring their nant at any time to deliver you any wares to Colmogro, and that they certain sum of wares in such a place, should not find wares there sufficient and of such like goodness, at such a to serve them, that then they should day, for such a certain price, that then be at great loss and hindrance, they because of variance, we should cause leaving their other trades to fall to it to be written, according as the bar- that: and to that we did answer, gain is, before a justice or the next after the time that we do appoint Juier to the place: if he did not keep with them to bring their wares to covenant and promise in all points, Colmogro, God willing, they should according to his covenant, that then never come thither, but at the begin look what loss or hindrance we could ning of the year, they should find justly prove that we have thereby, that our merchants would have at the The should make it good if he be worth least for a thousand robles, although so much; and in like case we must the ships were not come; so that do to them and to that we did agree, he said, that then we must talk fursave only if it were to come over the ther with the merchants: so as sea, then if any such fortune should yet I know not, but that we shall be (as God forbid) that the ship should have need of one house at Colmogro, mischance or be robbed, and the and another at Vologda, and if that proof to be made that such kind of they bring not their wares to Colmowares were laden, the English mer- gro, then we shall be sure to buy chants to bear no loss to the other some at Vologda, and to be ont of merchant. Then the chancellor said, bondage. methinks you shall do best to have And thus may we continue three your house at Colmogro, which is but or four years, and in this space we one hundred miles from the right dis- shall know the country and the mercharge of the ships, and yet I trust the chants, and which way to save our ships shall come nearer hereafter, be- selves best, and where to plant our cause the ships may not tarry long houses, and where to seek for wares: for their lading, which is one thou- for the Mosco is not best for any kind -sand miles from Vologda by water, of wares for us to buy, save only wax, and all our merchants shall bring all which we cannot have under sevenour merchandise to Colmogro to you, pence the Russe pound, and it lacks and so shall our merchants neither go two ounces of our pound, neither empty nor come empty; for if they will it be much better cheap, for I Jack lading homeward, there is salt, have bidden six-pence for a pound. which is good ware here, that they And I have bought more, five hun may come loaden again. So we were dred weight of yarn, which stands me very glad to hear that, and did agree in eight-pence farthing the Russe to his saying: for we shall neverthe-pound one with another. And if we less, if we list, have a house at Vo- had received any store of money, and logde, and at the Mosco, yea, and at were dispatched here, of that we tarry for, as I doubt not but we shall be not of these: and to say the truth, shortly (you know who I mean, the way is not for him to travel in. then as soon as we have made sai), I But I will make another shift beside, do intend to go to Novogrode, and which I trust shall serve the turn till to Plesco, whence all the great num- he come, if sales be made before he ber of the best tow flax cometh, and be ready, which is and shall be as such wares as are there I trust to buy pleaseth God: who ever preservé part. And fear you not but we will your worship, and send us good sales. do that may be done, if God sends us Written in haste. health, desiring you to prepare fully for one ship to be ready in the beginning of April to depart off the coast of England. By your's to command, Concerning all those things which ON SOME SINGULAR WORKS OF THE Sir, ANCIENTS. we have done in the wares, you shall receive a perfect note by the next bearer (God willing) for he that carrieth these from us is a merchant of NE of the greatest poets of antiTerwill, and he was caused to carry laborious verses the form of a syrinx. quity, Theocritus, gave to his these by the commandment of the In his time, taste was already much Emperor his secretary, whose name vitiated, and such follies may well be is Juan Mecallawick Weskawate, pardoned to a writer of the age of the whom we take to be our very friend. Ptolemies. But what shall we say to And if it please you to send any let- Pindar, that noble and divine lyric ters to Dantiske to Robert Elson; or poet, who, born in the most brilliant to William Watson's servant Duns- period of Grecian literature, did not tan Walton to be conveyed to us, disdain similar trifling. He composed it may please you to enclose ours in a an ode without an s in it, if we may letter sent from you to him, written believe Eustathius, the commentator in Polish, Dutch, Latin, or Italian: on Homer: but Eustathius may have so enclosed coming to the Mosco to been mistaken, and have misunderhis hands, he will convey our letters stood the words of Athæneus. It is to us wheresoever we be. And I certain, however, that Lasus, a poet have written to Dantiske already to them for the conveyance of letters yet more ancient, (for some writers place him among the seven wise men) composed an ode entitled the Cen from thence. ther of which an s was to be found. taurs, and a hymn to Ceres, in nei Athanæus has preserved the first verse of this hymn. And to certify you of the weather here, men say that these hundred years was never so warm weather in this country at this time of the year. But as yesternight we received a letter from Christopher Hudson, from a Dimitra melpô Korante Klymenio alochon, city called Yeraslave, who is coming "I sing Ceres and the virgin of Clymenus. hither with certain of our wares, but Barthelemy, in his Anarcharsis, the winter did deceive him, so that seems to think, after the ancient he was fain to tarry by the way: and grammarians, that these poets bahe wrote that the Emperor's present nished the SIGMA from their works, was delivered to a gentleman at Vo- on account of the disagreeable sibillalogda, and the sled did overthrow, tion produced by its frequent recurand the butt of hollock was lost, rence; and which was unpleasant to which made us all very sorry. their refined and delicate ears. This I pray you be not offended with supposition, however, is not very these my rude letters for lack of time; probable, for the remedy was worse but as soon as sales be made, I will than the disease. It seems to me find the means to convey you a letter more natural to think that Lasus and with speed: for the way is made so Pindar merely meant a jeu d'esprit in doubtful, that the right messenger is these compositions, and the minute so much in doubt, that he would not pleasure of success over a minute dif have any letters of any effect sent by ficulty. Afterwards, Euripides sought any man, if he might, for he knows for the sigma with as much diligence UNIVERSAL MAG. Vol. IX, 2 P as the others avoided it; and his sig- Rambouillet, endeavours with much matism becoming proverbial, fur- ingenuity to defend this car, for which nished to the lyrick comic writers a it was proposed to substitute pour ce field for numerous pleasantries. The que. following is one out of many : Esosa s'os isasin hillinón osi. Other poets, whom we may call pangrammatists, following a dírectly Many centuries afterwards appeared make each of their verses contain the contrary mode, have endeavoured to a yet more singular poet under the whole alphabet. We have at present reign of the Emperor Severus. Nes- six of these ridiculous verses, comtor, born at Laranda, a town of Lycia, posed by 7setzes, a Greek author of composed an entire Iliad, with the the twelfth century. Similar insingular care of excluding successively stances are also to be found in the from each of the twenty-four cantos French and Latin languages. each of the twenty-four letters of the following," says the Seigneur des alphabet. There was no A in the Accords, "is a verse that inadverfirst canto; no в in the second; and tently escaped me, in which all the so on. Nestor had a worthy imita- letters of the alphabet are contained: tor. Tryphiodorus, of whom there The is yet extant a small poem on the tak- Qui flamboyant guidait zéphir sur ces caux, ing of Troy, composed a liprogram- A German informed me at Avig matic odyssey; in which, as in the non, that he had also composed a Iliad of Nestor, each book was de- Latin one that had the same singulaprived of a letter. Addison, in the rity: Spectator, has ridiculed this folly of Duc zephyre exsurgens curvum cum fla Tryphiodorus with his usual pleasantry. Some moderns have imitated these silly attempts at wit and ingenuity. tibus æquor." An absurdity more known, but not less ridiculous, was that of Placentius Fabius Claudius Gordianus Fulgen- and some others who composed tius composed a treaty on the Ages of poems, which they called Lettrizes. the World and of Man, divided into The Pugna Porcorum (the battle of twenty-three chapters; and in each the pigs) of Placentius, who assumed chapter each letter is omitted accord- the name of Publius Porcius, contains ing to its rank in the alphabet. "The nearly three hundred and fifty verses, work," says Menage, is very ridi- and each word commences with a P. culous both in style and ideas; and the The following is an example: notes which accompany it are equally Præcelsis proavis pulehere prognate pa so." section a letter was omitted. trone, Father Riga, a canon of Rheims, Pectore prudenti pretateque priædite prisco. wrote, about five or six centuries ago, an abridgement of the Bible in Elegiac with Christus Crucifixus. Pierius, But this is nothing in comparison verse. This abridgement was divided the author of it, had the patience into twenty-three sections, and in each to compose nearly twelve hundred With these may be compared the with a c. Ex. Gr. verses, each word of which began singular affectation of Gomberville, one of the first members of the French Currite, Castalides, Christo comitante Caacademy, who had, says Desmaizeaux, Conce ebraturque cunctorum carmine cer"so furious an antipathy for the word car, that he boasted one day of having never employed it in the whole five volumes of his Polexandre." Hence, in the comedy of the Academicians, it is he that St. Evremont makes utter the following: Que feront nous, messieurs, de car & de pourquoi? Voiture, in a letter to Mademoiselle mænæ, tum Confugium collapsorum. The epoch of these whimsical compositions was also that of the Leonine verses, thus called, according to some, from Leo, a writer of the twelfth century, who was the supposed inventor of them; but they have been found prior to this period. The Leonine verses are Latin verses, which rime at the end, or at the end French. This sale produced to the and in the middle; sometimes even Spaniards one million of francs per there are three rimes in the same verse. annum, which sum was disbursed in If the following inscription on an French commodities. image of Dagobert be by a contemporary author, it may be considered as the most ancient example of the true Leonine verse extant: Fingitur hac specie bonitatis odore refertus, Istius ecclesiæ fundater, rex Dagobertus. The epitaph on St. Edme has been frequently cited: it is indeed a rich depository of rimes: Hic erat Edmundus anima cum corpore mundus, There exists between the two powers a treaty of commerce, bearing date 1604, the occasion of which was as follows: The Spaniards had imposed very heavy duties, as well upon the goods France; and the latter nation in its exported for, as those imported from turn laid still more exorbitant imposts upon Spanish goods landed at Calais : but by the treaty of commerce already mentioned, both nations agreed, that the duty of 30 per cent. &c. should be taken off. Under the administraBut the following is an example of tion of Colbert, the French made use mariculous patience hardly credible. of three different modes to obtain a Bernard Morlaxinsis, a monk of the participation in the silver brought in eleventh century, composed three bars and specie by the fleet and the entire books of Leonine verses with triple rimes: Quem non immundus potuit pervertere mundus. Qui regis omnia, pelle tot impia: surge petimus: Nos Deus aspice: ne sine simplice lumine sinus. These monks were led into these absurd combinations by the example of the ancients: but they abused it ridiculously. There are many rimes in Virgil, and other good poets. Cornua velatarum obvertimus anteunarum. I tunc et verbis virtutem illude superbis. Totaque thuriferis Penchaia pinguis areuis These rimes, however, in Virgil, Horace, &c. were purely accidental. When Persius, in his first satire, ridicules the famous verses of Nero, Torva Minualloneis impierunt cornua bombis, Et raptum vitulo caput ablatura superbo Bassaris...... galleons from the East Indies. The first of these modes was, that of carrying the merchandises of France to Cadiz, where they were shipped in the gallcons and the fleet bound for New Spain. The second was to export similar merchandises in French vessels for all the ports of Spain, and also to send them by land carriage The third mode was put into effect by into the interior of that kingdom. the Auvergnats, Limosins, and Gascons, who annually passed into Spain, and obtaining as recompence for their working there at the lowest trades, labour small sums of money. Such, for a considerable period, were the branches of commerce between the French and the Spanish nations; but at the commencement of the eighteenth century, the peace of Utrecht having confirmed the throne of Spain to a Prince of the House of Bourbon, the commercial relation between the two countries became considerably more important. The imports from Spain into France, at the end of the reign of Louis XIV. amounted to the sum of 17,600,000 An Account of the COMMERCE of francs, in which were included twelve FRANCE with SPAIN and POR he ridiculed equally the recurrence of the rimes and the affectation of the style. London, April 2d. TUGAL. Z. million, the value of dollars or piastres. At the time of the Revolution, they THE THE commercial intercourse be- amounted to 33,300,000 francs, being tween France and Spain has un- the value of merchandises only; exdergone a wonderful change since the clusive of which the piastres and fifteenth century. At that period the quadruples of gold formed a sum of Spaniards manufactured their own 62.500,000 francs. Wools, and sold their cloths to the This large quantity of gold and ilver was not wholly the result of exist as soon as a Prince of the House cash balance due by Spain to France of Bourbon ascended the Spanish upon their mutual traffic; on the throne. At the end of Louis XIV.'s contrary, the greater part of it was reign, the commerce between France destined to pass to other nations of and Portugal was next to nothing. Europe, which had demands upon The monopoly of Portuguese trade Spain. was delivered over to England in virThe payment of the balances due tue of the treaty of Methuen 1703. by Spain to various powers was, in The imports from Portugal, at the fact, made through the medium of end of Louis XIV.'s reign, amounted Paris, in virtue of the contract entered only to 340,000 francs, and consisted into after the peace of 1783, between of various articles, especially hides in the bankers of that capital and the the hair, Brazil tobacco, olive oil, and bank of Saint Charles established at dried fruits. At the time of the RevoMadrid. In fine, in the said sum of lution, they amounted to 10,400,000 62,500,000 francs were included francs. The progress of luxury seems 15,250,000 francs, being the value to have caused this increase, which is of gold and silver brought from Cadiz about the proportion of one to thirty. by French East Indianen. By con- In effect, the articles sent to France fining ourselves therefore to the com- from Portugal consist mostly of Inparison between the importations of dian manufactures and produce. The merchandises, at the three epochs al- exports of France for Portugal, at the ready mentioned, we perceive that end of Louis XIV.'s reign, amounted at the end of Louis XIV.'s reign the to the sum of 740,000 francs, conaugmentation of Spanish goods was sisting chiefly of paper, haberdashery, in respect to those of the fifteenth woollens, &c. At the time of the century as one is to sixteen, suppos- Revolution, their amount was coming however that the purchases of the puted at four million. The result of two nations were of equal value. The this commerce has usually been a increase of imports from Spain at the balance in favour of France of about time of the Revolution was in respect 6,400,000 francs, which is paid in to those of Louis XIV.'s time, nearly cash. as one is to four. The merchandises, whose value as already quoted, was 33,300,000 francs, formed four classes-1st, Raw materials, particu CHARACTER of WILKES. By the. larly wool, ashes, &c. also beasts of Ho the favourites of kings: it burden, horses, mules, &c. to the value of twenty million. 2d, Eatables, will be well to make known a man seven million. 3d, Brandies and who has become the idol of the peowines, four million. 4th, Manufac-ple, and particularly of the English tured articles of various kinds about people. Of all modern nations, they two million. possess the noblest character; but The exports of France for Spain at enthusiasm becomes more fatal and the end of Louis XIV.'s reign, dangerous in this country than in any amounted to twenty million francs, other, because every man is at liberty and at the time of the Revolution to to become factious. 44,400,000, thus exhibiting an aug- Wilkes knows this, and confesses mentation with respect to the se- that he would not have dared to be cond epoch of more than double. what he is had he lived in any other These exports are also divided into country. I will endeavour to depict four classes, viz. 1, manufactures, this man to you, who possesses no26,500,000 francs; 2d, raw materials, thing remarkable but his reputation, 200,000; 3d, vegetables and animals, I have known him; I have conversed eleven million; 4th, wine and brandy, 1,500,000 francs. Some letters upon the English The ancient ties which united nation, written at this period by the France and Portugal, when the Spa- Abbé, have recently been published nish branch of the House of Austria in the French Journals, whence the was their common enemy, ceased to above is extracted. |