adventures chronicling the achievements and
experiences of the Baron Munchausen ; and
also of a story in No. 254 of The Tatler.
"This excesse of cold in the ayre," writes
Peter, "gave occasion to Castilian, in his
Aulicus, wittily and not incongruously to
faine, that if two men, being somewhat
distant, talke together in the winter, their
words will be so frozen that they cannot bee
heard ; but if the parties in the spring return
to the same place, their words will melt in
the same order that they were frozen and
spoken, and be plainly understood." As a
tragedy by the side of this burlesque, we may
repeat Heylyn's assertion that " in the yeare
1598, of 70,000 Turkes which made an inrode
into Muscovie, 40,000 were frozen to death : "
which looks like an anticipation of the
terrible French retreat. The Russians and the
Turks, we see, are old enemies.

Quitting Russia, and flying across sea and
land straightway to England, we drop down
on London in 1629, and find ourselves in a
strange spot, although at home again. It
seems to our modern eyes a singularly little
place for a capital; though Peter informs us
that it "may containe eight miles " in circuit.
But our friend's astonishment seems greatly
moved by the vastness of the population,
which he regards as absolutely "wondrous,"
and which proves to be "well nigh four
hundred thousand people, which number is
much augmented in the Tearme time." This
he considers greater than the population of
Paris; but he thinks that the size of the
latter is superior to that of our metropolis.
Next to London, York seems to have been
the chief city of England: Liverpool and
Manchester being then as naught. Here are
some statistics concerning the amount of
"butcher's meat" eaten in London in those
days:" In London only there are no fewer
than 67,500 beefes and 675,000 sheepe slain
and uttered in a yeare, besides calves, lambes,
hog's-flesh, and poulterers' ware. The Earle
of Gondamor, late the Spanish leiger here,
having in some severall market days seen the
several shambles of this great city, said to
them who made the discovery with him, that
there was more flesh eaten in a month in that
towne, than in all Spaine in a yeare." This
was probably an exaggerated estimate; yet it
is evident that a high amount of national
prosperity must have existed at the time.

Heylyn says of the commonalty that
"they live, together with gentlemen, in
villages and townes, which maketh them
savour of civility and good manners; and
live in farre greater reputation than the
yeomen in Italy, Spaine, France, or
Germany, being able to entertaine a stranger
honestly, diet him plentifully, and lodge him
neatly." He also says that they "enjoy a
multitude of prerogatives above all other
nations, being most free from taxes and
burdenous impositions." How much the
people valued these immunities, was shown
by the civil war then fast approaching, and
provoked in the first instance by the levying
of ship-money and other oppressive taxes.
There is some justice in the complaints of
those who, while seeing the immense subsequent
increase of riches to the rich, fail to
observe a corresponding amount of prosperity
among the masses at the bottom of the scale.

In his account of Scotland, Heylyn gives
an odd relation of the feuds which were once
common among the clans. "The people,"
says he, "had not long since one barbarous
custome: which was, if any two were
displeased, they expected no law, but banged it
out bravely, one and his kindred against the
other and his; and thought the King much
in their common [qy. debt?], if they granted
him at a certaine day to keepe the peace."
Rapidly glancing over the chief events of
Scottish history, Peter considers it necessary
to relate at length the story of Macbeth (or
"Machbed," as he calls him), as though it had
not been popularised by Shakspeare; of whom
indeed he makes no mention. He says that
it is "a history than which, for variety of
action, or strangenesse of event, I never met
with any more pleasing." It is remarkable
that the Scotch historian, Buchanan, who
published his great work while Shakspeare
was a youth, recommended the story of
Macbeth as a fit subject for the stage. It is
still more remarkable than in Jeremy Collier's
'Dictionary,' printed as late as seventeen
hundred and one, Macbeth is said, in a half
contemptuous manner, to have been made the
subject of stage plays to this day."

Passing over into Ireland, we can only
afford space to quote a singular description of
the existing state of that country: singular,
because it indicates a subsequent retrogression,
and because it is in some measure paralleled
by what is now passing under our own eyes.
Alluding to the reforms which had lately
been carried out by Queen Elizabeth and her
successor, Heylyn says: "Whereas there was
before but one freeholder in a whole county,
which was the lord himself, the rest holding
in villenage and beeing subject to the lord's
immeasurable taxations, whereby they had no
incouragement to build or plant; now the
lord's estate was divided into two parts; that
which he held in demeane to himselfe, which
was still left unto him, and that which was in
the hands of his tenants, who had estates
made in their possessions according to the
common law of England, paying instead of
uncertain Irish taxations, certain English
rents: whereby the people have since set their
minds upon repairing their houses and manuring
their lands, to the great increase of the
private and publique revenue." How like
this is, to the good effects which have accrued
from the Encumbered Estates Act! But
Ireland has not yet again reached the point
of orderliness and prosperity from which it
appears to have fallen since the early part of
the seventeenth century, if we may credit