less and shameless man of wealth and power may, like the supposed Lord Dalgarno, brazen out the shame of his villanies, and affect to triumph in their consequences, so long as they were personally advantageous to his own pleasures or profit.

Alsatia is elsewhere explained as a cant name for Whitefriars, which, possessing certain privileges of sanctuary, became for that reason a nest of those mischievous characters who were generally obnoxious to the law. These privileges were derived from its having been an establishment of the Carmelites, or White Friars, founded, says Stow, in his Survey of London, by Sir Patrick Grey, in 1241. Edward I. gave them a plot of ground in Fleet Street, to build their church upon. The edifice then erected was rebuilt by Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, in the reign of Edward. In the time of the Reformation the place retained its immunities as a sanctuary, and James I. confirmed and added to them by a charter in 1608. Shadwell was the first author who made some literary use of Whitefriars, in his play of the Squire of Alsatia, which turns upon the plot of the Adelphi of Terence.

In this old play, two men of fortune, brothers, educate two young men, (sons to the one and nephews to the other,) each under his own se

parate system of rigour and indulgence. The elder of the subjects of this experiment, who has been very rigidly brought up, falls at once into all the vices of the town, is debauched by the cheats and bullies of Whitefriars, and, in a word, becomes the Squire of Alsatia. The poet gives, as the natural and congenial inhabitants of the place, such characters as the reader will find in the note. The play, as we learn from the dedication to the Earl of Dorset and Middlesex, was successful above the author's expectations, "no comedy these many years having filled the theatre so long together. And I

"Cheatly, a rascal, who by reason of debts dares not stir out of Whitefriars, but there he inveigles young heirs of entail, and helps them to goods and money upon great disadvantages, is bound for them, and shares with them till he undoes them. A lewd, impudent, debauched fellow, very expert in the cant about town. **

"Shamwell, cousin to the Belfords, who being ruined by Cheatly, is made a decoy-duck for others, not daring to stir out of Alsatia, where he lives. Is bound with Cheatly for heirs, and lives upon them a dissolute debauched life.

"Captain Hackum, a blockheaded bully of Alsatia, a cowardly, impudent, blustering fellow, formerly a sergeant in Flanders, who has run from his colours, and retreated into Whitefriars for a very small debt, where by the Alsatians he is dubb'd a captain, marries one that lets lodgings, sells cherry brandy, and is a bawd.”

"Scrapeall, a hypocritical, repeating, praying, psalm singing, precise fellow, pretending to great piety; a godly knave, who joins with Cheatly, and supplies young heirs with goods and money. Dramatis Persona to the Squire of Alsatia, SHADWELL's Works, vol, iv.

had the great honour, " continues Shadwell, "to find so many friends, that the house was never so full since it was built as upon the third day of this play, and vast numbers went away that could not be admitted." From the Squire of Alsatia the author derived some few hints, and learned the footing on which the bullies and thieves of the Sanctuary stood with their neighbours, the fiery young students of the Temple, of which some intimation is given in the dramatic piece.

Such are the materials to which the author stands indebted for the composition of the Fortunes of Nigel, a novel which may be perhaps one of those that are more amusing on a second perusal, than when read a first time for the sake of the story, the incidents of which are few and meagre.

The Introductory Epistle is written, in Lucio's phrase," according to the trick," and would never have appeared had the writer meditated making his avowal of the work. As it is the privilege of a masque or incognito to speak in a feigned voice and assumed character, the author attempted, while in disguise, some liberties of the same sort; and while he

• Dedication to the Squire of Alsatia, Shadwell's Works, vol. iv. VOL. II.

T

continues to plead upon the various excuses which the introduction contains, the present acknowledgment must serve as an apology for a species of "hoity toity, whisky frisky" pertness. of manner, which, in his avowed character, the author should have considered as a departure from the rules of civility and good taste.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

M

NOVELS AND ROMANCES. VOL. III.

THE FORTUNES OF NIGEL.

DAVID RAMSAY.-P. 65, 1. 7.

David Ramsay, watchmaker and horologer to James I., was a real person, though the author has taken the liberty of pressing him into the service of fiction. Although his profession led him to cultivate the exact sciences, like many at this period he mingled them with pursuits which were mystical and fantastic.

The truth was, that the boundaries between truth and falsehood in mathematics, astronomy, and similar pursuits, were not exactly known, and there existed a sort of terra incognita between them, in which the wisest men bewildered themselves. David Ramsay risked his money on the success of the vaticinations which his researches led him to form, since he sold clocks and watches under condition, that their value should not become payable till King James was crowned in the Pope's chair at Rome. Such wagers were common in that day, as may be seen by looking at Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour.

David Ramsay was also an actor in another singular scene in which the notorious astrologer Lilly was a performer, and had no small expectation on the occasion, since he brought with him a half-quartern sack to put the treasure in.