story, and moralizing of a story, in Natural
History, or rather in that Fabulous Natural History where poets and
mythologists found the Phoenix and the Unicorn and "other strange
fowl," is nowhere extant. It is a fable which Sir Thomas Browne, if
he had heard of it, would have exploded among his Vulgar Errors; but
the delight which he would have taken in the discussing of its
probabilities, would have shown that the _truth of the fact_, though
the avowed object of his search was not so much the motive which put
him upon the investigation, as those hidden affinities and poetical
analogies,--those _essential verities_ in the application of strange
fable, which made him linger with such reluctant delay among the last
fading lights of popular tradition; and not seldom to conjure up a
superstition, that had been long extinct, from its dusty grave, to
inter it himself with greater ceremonies and solemnities of burial.]

_Decayed Gentry_.--"It happened in the reign of King James, when
Henry Earl of Huntingdon was Lieutenant of Leicestershire, that a
laborer's son in that country was pressed into the wars; as I take
it, to go over with Count Mansfield. The old man at Leicester
requested his son might be discharged, as being the only staff of his
age, who by his industry maintained him and his mother. The Earl
demanded his name, which the man for a long time was loath to tell
(as suspecting it a fault for so poor a man to confess the truth); at
last he told his name was Hastings. 'Cousin Hastings,' said the Earl,
'we cannot all be top branches of the tree, though we all spring from
the same root; your son, my kinsman, shall not be pressed.' So good
was the meeting of modesty in a poor, with courtesy in an honorable
person, and gentry I believe in both. And I have reason to believe,
that some who justly own the surnames and blood of Bohuns, Mortimers,
and Plantagenets (though ignorant of their own extractions), are hid
in the heap of common people, where they find that under a thatched
cottage which some of their ancestors could not enjoy in a leaded
castle--contentment, with quiet and security."--_Worthies_, article
_Of Shire-Reeves or Shiriffes_.

_Tenderness of Conscience in a Tradesman_.--"Thomas Curson, born in
Allhallows, Lombard Street, armorer, dwelt without Bishopsgate. It
happened that a stage-player borrowed a rusty musket, which had lain
long leger in his shop: now though his part were comical, he
therewith acted an