profound conviction of the wickedness and
immorality of the age, could have moved our
author to write and publish, in the year
eighty-five, that famous little twelvemo volume
called—The Anatomie of Abuses: being
a Discourse or Brief Summarie of such
Notable Vices and Corruptions as now raigne
in many Christian Countreys in the Worlde:
but (especially) in the Countrey of Ailgna:
Together with most Fearful Examples of
God's Judgements, executed upon the Wicked
for the same, as well in Ailgna of late as in
other Places elsewhere.  Very Godlye: To
but most chiefly to be regarded in England.
Made Dialoguewise.  By Philip Stubbes.

Ailgna, it need scarcely be said, is England,
and the abuses, vices, and corruptions
anatomised and denounced are all English. Mr.
Stubbes must have been a man of some
courage, both moral and physical, for he has
not hesitated to attack, not only the vices and
follies of the day, but also some very ticklish
matters of religion and government. That
he did so with impunity is to be presumed as
we hear nothing of the Anatomie of Abuses
having been made a Star Chamber matter, or
that Mr. Subbes ever suffered in his own
anatomy by stripes or imprisonment, the
"little ease," the scavenger's daughter, the
pillory, the loss of ears, or the loss of money
by fine.

I must state frankly, that I have not been
wholly disinterested in adverting to Mr.
Stubbes in this place. Something like envy,
something resembling democratic indignation,
prompted me to make the old Elizabethan
worthy a household word; for, Stubbes is very
scarce. He has never, to my knowledge, been
reprinted, and none but the rich can possess
an original copy of the Anatomie of Abuses.
He sells—musty little twelvemo as he is—
for very nearly his weight in gold;  and it
was the fact of a single Stubbes having
fetched, a month since, at the sale of the
Bakerian Collection of rare books and
autographs, no less a sum than nine pounds ten
shillings sterling, that induced me to hie
instanter to the reading-room of the British
Museum; to search the cataloggue anxiously;
to find Stubbes triumphantly; to anatomise
his Anatomie gaily, and with a will. May the
shadow of the British Museum library never be
less! I don't care for the defective catalogue;
I can suffer the attacks of the Museum flea;
I have Stubbes; and Lord Visount Dives
can't have any more of him, save the power
of tearing him up to light his pipe with. I
don't envy Dives. My library is as good as
his, with all its Turkey carpets, patent reading
desks, busts, and red morocco trimmings to
the shelves.

The interlocutors or speakers in the
Anatomie of Abuses in Ailgna are Philoponus
and Spudeous. Spudeus, Philoponus, and
Stubbes to boot, being long since gone the
way of all twelve mo writers, I need not
trouble my readers with what they severally
said. A summary of the substance of their
discourse will be sufficient. I may premise,
however, that Spudeus opens the dialogue by
wishing Philoponus good morrow: adding to
his salutation the pithy, though scarcely
appropriate, apophthegm that "flying fame is
often a liar." To which answers Philoponus, that
he wishes Spudeus good morrow, too, with
all his heart. The interchange of civilities
being over, Philoponus informs his friend
that he has been lately travelling in a certain
island, once named Ainabla, after Ainatib,
but now presently called Ailgna, and forth-
with launches out into a tremendous diatribe
on the abuses of that powerful but
abandoned country.

Ailgna, says Stubbes, through his eidolon
Philoponus, is a famous and pleasant land,
immured about by the sea, as it were with a
wall; the air is temperate, the ground fertile,
the earth abounding with all things for
man and beast. The inhabitants are a strong
kind of people, audacious, bold, puissant, and
heroical: of great magnanimity, valiancy, and
prowess, of an incomparable feature, an
excellent complexion, and in all humanity
inferior to none under the sun. But there is a
reverse to this flattering picture. It grieveth
Stubbes to remember their licences, to make
mention of their wicked ways; yet, unaccustomed
as he is to public abuse, he must say
that there is not a people more corrupt, lying,
wicked, and perverse, living on the face of
the earth.

The number of abuses in Ailgna is infinite,
but the chief one is pride. The Ailgnan pride
is tripartite: pride of the heart, pride of the
mouth, and pride of apparel; and the last,
according to our anatomiser, is the deadliest,
for it is opposite to the eye, and visible to the
sight, and enticeth others to sin.

Stubbes says little about pride of the heart,
which he defines as a rebellious elation, or
lifting oneself up on high. The worthy old
reformer, probably remembered, and in good
time, that pride of heart was an abuse,
slightly prevalent among the princes and
great ones of the earth: among brothers of
the sun and moon, and most Christian kings,
and defenders of faiths they had trampled
on, and sovereigns by the grace of the God
they had denied. The good man held his
tongue, and saved his ears. But, on pride of
the mouth— in less refined Ailgnian, bragging
—he is very severe. Such pride, he says, is
the saying or crying aperto ore, with open
mouth, " I am a gentleman, I am worshipful,
I am honourable. I am noble, and I cannot
tell what. My father did this. My grandfather
did that. I am sprung of this stock,
and I am sprung of that; whereas Dame
Nature, Philoponus Stubbes wisely remarks,
bringeth us all into the world after one sort,
and receiveth us all again into the womb of
our mother—the bowels of the earth— all
in one and the same manner, without any