HOWELL'S SABBATH DEVOTIONS

'Tis true, though there be rules and rubrics in our liturgy sufficient to guide every one in the performance of all holy duties, yet I believe every one hath some mode and model or formulary of his own, especially for his private cubicular devotions.

I will begin with the last day of the week, and with the latter end of that day, I mean Saturday evening, on which I have fasted ever since I was a youth in Venice, for being delivered from a very great danger: this year I use some extraordinary acts of devotion to usher in the ensuing Sunday in hymns, and various prayers of my own penning before I go to bed. On Sunday morning I rise earlier than upon other days, to prepare myself for the sanctifying of it; nor do I use barber, tailor, shoemaker, or any other mechanic that morning, and whatsoever diversions, or lets may hinder me the week before, I never miss, but in case of sickness to repair to God's Holy House that day, where I come before prayers begin, to make myself fitter for the work by some previous meditations, and to take the whole service along with me; nor do I love to mingle speech with any in the interim about news or worldly negotiations in God's Holy House. I prostrate myself in the humblest and decentest way of genuflection I can imagine: nor do I believe there can be any excess of exterior humility in that place: therefore I do not like those squatting unseemly bold postures upon one's tail, or muffling the face in the hat, or thrusting it in some hole, or covering it with one's hand but with bended knee, and an open confident face, I fix my eyes on the east part of the church, and heaven. I endeavour to apply every tittle of the service to my own conscience and occasions, and I believe the want of this, with the huddling up, and careless reading of some ministers, with the commonness of it, is the greatest cause that many do undervalue, and take a surfeit of our public service.

For the reading and singing psalms, whereas most of them are either petitions or eucharistical ejaculations, I listen to them more attentively, and make them my own; when I stand at the creed, I think upon the custom they have in Poland, and elsewhere, for gentlemen to draw their swords all the while, intimating thereby, that they will defend it with their lives and blood : And for the Decalogue, whereas others use to rise, and sit, I

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ever kneel at it in the humblest and trembling'st posture of all, to crave remission for the breaches passed of any of God's holy commandments (especially the week before), and future grace to observe them.

I love a holy devout sermon, that first checks, and then cheers the conscience, that begins with the Law, and ends with the Gospel: but I never prejudicate or censure any preacher, taking him as I find him.

And now that we are not only adulted, but ancient christians, I believe the most acceptable sacrifice we can send up to heaven, is Prayer and Praise, and that sermons are not so essential as either of them to the true practice of devotion. The rest of the holy Sabbath, I sequester my body and mind as much as I can from wordly affairs. (From the Same.)

THE PIED PIPER

TO MR. E. P.

SIR-I saw such prodigious things daily done these few years past, that I had resolved with myself to give over wondering at anything, yet a passage happened this week, that forced me to wonder once more, because it is without parallel. It was that some odd fellows went skulking up and down London streets, and with figs and raisins allured little children, and so purloined them away from their parents, and carried them a ship-board, far beyond sea, where by cutting their hair, and other devices, they so disguised them that their parents could not know them. This made me think upon that miraculous passage in Hamelen, a town in Germany, which I hoped to have passed through when I was in Hamburg, had we returned by Holland, which was thus (nor would I relate it unto you were there not some ground of truth for it). The said town of Hamelen was annoyed with rats and mice and it chanced that a pied-coated Piper came thither, who covenanted with the chief burghers for such a reward, if he could free them quite from the said vermin, nor would he demand it till a twelvemonth and a day after the agreement being made, he began to play on his pipes, and all the rats and the mice followed him to a great lough hard by, where they all perished;

so the town was infected no more. At the end of the year, the Pied Piper returned for his reward, the burghers put him off with slightings, and neglect, offering him some small matter, which he refusing, and staying some days in the town, one Sunday morning at high mass, when most people were at church, he fell to play on his pipes, and all the children up and down followed him out of the town, to a great hill not far off, which rent in two, and opened, and let him and the children in, and so closed up again. This happened a matter of two hundred and fifty years since: and in that town, they date their bills and bonds, and other instruments in law, to this day from the year of the going out of their children: besides, there is a great pillar of stone at the foot of the said hill, whereon this story is engraven.

No more now, for this is enough in conscience for one time: so I am

Your most affectionate servitor,

FLEET, I Octob. 1643.

J. H.

(From the Same.)

WINES

FRANCE participating of the climes of all the countries about her, affords wines of quality accordingly, as towards the Alps and Italy she hath a luscious rich wine called Frontignac; in the country of Provence towards the Pyrenees: in Languedoc there are wines concustable with those of Spain: one of the prime sort of white wines is that of Beaume, and of clarets that of Orleans, though it be interdicted to wine the King's cellar with it in respect of the corrosiveness it carries with it. As in France so in all other winecountries the white is called the female, and the claret or red wine is called the male, because commonly it hath more sulphur, body and heat in't the wines that our merchants bring over grow upon the river Garonne, near Bordeaux, in Gascony, which is the greatest mart for wines in all France; the Scot, because he hath always been an useful confederate to France against England, hath (among other privileges) right of preemption or first choice of wines in Bordeaux; he is also permitted to carry his ordnance to the very walls of the town, whereas the English

are forced to leave them at Blaye a good way distant down the river. There is a hard green wine that grows about Rochelle, and the islands thereabouts, which the cunning Hollander sometimes use to fetch, and he hath a trick to put a bag of herbs, or some other infusions into it (as he doth brimstone in Rhenish), to give it a whiter tincture, and more sweetness; then they reembark it for England, where it passeth for good Bachrag, and this is called stooming of wines. In Normandy there's little or no wine at all grows, therefore the common drink of that country is cider, specially in Low Normandy: there are also many beerhouses in Paris and elsewhere, but though their barley and water be better than ours, or that of Germany, and though they have English and Dutch brewers among them, yet they cannot make beer in that perfection.

The prime wines of Germany grow about the Rhine, specially in the Pfalts or lower Palatinate about Bachrag, which hath its etymology from Bacchiara, for in ancient times there was an altar erected there to the honour of Bacchus, in regard of the richness of the wines. Here and all France over, 'tis held a great part of incivility for maidens to drink wine until they are married, as it is in Spain for them to wear high shoes, or to paint till then. The German mothers, to make their sons fall into hatred of wine, do use when they are little to put some owl's eggs into a cup of Rhenish, and sometimes a little living eel, which twingling in the wine while the child is drinking so scares him, that many come to abhor and have an antipathy to wine all their lives after. From Bachrag the first stock of vines which grow now in the Grand Canary Island were brought, which, with the heat of the sun and the soil, is grown now to that height of perfection, that the wine which they afford are accounted the richest, the most firm, the best-bodied, and lastingest wine, and the most defecated from all earthly grossness of any other whatsoever, it hath little or no sulphur at all in't, and leaves less dregs behind, though one drink it to excess: French wines may be said to pickle meat in the stomach, but this is the wine that digests, and doth not only breed good blood, but it nutrifieth also, being a glutinous substantial liquor of this wine, if of any other, may be verified that merry induction, That good wine makes good blood, good blood causeth good humours, good humours cause good thoughts, good thoughts bring forth good works, good works carry a heaven, ergo good wine carrieth a man to heaven. If this be

man to

true surely more English go to heaven this way than any other, for I think there's more Canary brought into England than to all the world besides. I think also there is a hundred times more drunk under the name of Canary wine than there is brought in, for Sherries and Malagas well mingled pass for Canaries in most taverns, more often than Canary itself, else I do not see how 'twere possible for the vintner to save by it: or to live by his calling, unless he were permitted sometimes to be a brewer. When Sacks and Canaries were brought in first among us, they were used to be drunk in Aquavitae measures, and 'twas held fit only for those to drink of them who were used to carry their legs in their hands, their eyes upon their noses, and an Almanack in their bones: but now they go down every one's throat both young and old like milk. (From the Same.)