came through the Citie at his first coming to the Crowne.'

pon the Conduit in Grateous [Gracechurch] streete, were these verses:

"Kingdomes change, worlds decay:
But Trueth contine wes till the last day.

"6 Let money be a slaue to thee,

Yet keepe his seruice, if you can:
For if thy purse no money haue,
Thy person is but halfe a man.

In Cornewell (Cornhill.)

"To be wise, & wealthy too,

Is sought of all, but found of few.

"All on this worlds Exchange do meete,

But when deaths burse-bell rings, away ye fleete.

· When a Kinges head but akes,

Subjects should mourne:

For, vnder their crownes,

A thousand cares are worne.

"Bread, earnd with honest laboring hands,
Tastes better then the fruite of ill-got lands.

"Hee that wants bread, & yet lyes still,
It's sinne his hungry cheekes to fill.

"As man was first framed & made out of clay,
So must he at length depart hence away.
"A man without mercy, of mercy shall misse ;
And he shall have mercy, that mercifull is.

In Cheapside.

Life is a drop, a sparkle, a spau,
A bubble yet how proude is man.

"Life is a debt, which at that day
The poorest hath enough to pay.
"This world's a stage, whereon to-day
Kings & meane men parts do play.
To-morrow others take their roomes,
While they do fill vp graues & toomes.
"Learning liues, & Vertue shines,
When Follie begs, & Ignorance pines.
"To liue well, is happinesse:

To die well, is blessednesse."

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF WILL. Sommers, KING HENRY THE EIGHTH'S FOOL, OR JESTER.

WILL. SOMMERS, the Buffoon, or Jester, to King Henry the Eighth, is one of the most renowned of his class, although very little is known of his actual biography. Though a reputed Fool, he was highly celebrated for his sarcastic wit and sparkling talents at repartee, and that unaccompanied by the scurrility and grossness which prophaned the conversation of his fellow jesters. But whatever were his qualifications, he is unquestionably indebted for no inconsiderable portion of his fame to the horned and spectacled caricature of his person, which, to the disgrace of decency, was so long exhibited in the Horse Armoury in the Tower.*

This was a block of wood, carved and painted to resemble life, surmounting a suit of armour, in which he is said to have attended King Henry at the Siege of Boulogne, Ram's horns, and a pair of very large spectacles, were at

It appears from a scarce tract, intituled " A Pleasant History of the Life and Death of Will Somers,” &c. (which was first published in 1676, and great part of which is said to have been taken from Andrew Borde's collection of "The Merry Jests and Witty Shifts of Scoggin,"*) that he was the son of a poor shepherd and husbandman in the neighbour hood of Eston Neston, in Northamptonshire, and that for some time he lived servant to Richard Farmor, Esq. of that place, ancestor to the Earl of Pomfret. He was afterwards constrained to proceed to London in search of employment, his master having been found guilty of a præmunire, and stript of all his property by Henry the Eighth, for sending eight-pence, and two shirts, to a priest who had been convicted of denying the King's supremacy, and was then in the gaol at Buckingham.

Having by his drollery and good temper obtained a place in the service of a gentleman about the court, "the fame of his vast abilities soon came to the ear of the King, who sent to see and talk with him; and so well did he comply with that unruly monarch's humour, that he presently entertained him both into his grace and living, in quality of his Jester.

tached to the head, for the ridiculous reason, as the warders told the story, that he never would believe that his wife had cornuted him, until he had put on his spectacles to verify the fact. There is an engraving of this figure in Caulfield's "Portraits, &c. of Remarkable Persons," vol. i.

* Vide Caulfield's "Portraits," &c. vol. i. p. 5, edit. 1813.