er Peard has become desperately sick; and so his vote, his
law, and haire have all forsook him, his corporation of Barnstable
have been in perfect health and loyalty. The town of Barnstable having
submitted to the King, this will no doubt be a special cordial for
their languishing Burgess. And yet the man may grow hearty again when
he hears of the late defeat given to his Majesty's forces in
Lincolnshire."

This paper was immediately answered by MARCHMONT NEEDHAM, in his
"Mercurius Britannicus," who cannot boast the playful and sarcastic
bitterness of Sir John; yet is not the dullest of his tribe. He opens
his reply thus:

"Aulicus will needs venture his soule upon the other _half-sheet_; and
this week he _lies_, as completely as ever he did in _two full
sheets_; full of as many scandals and fictions, full of as much
stupidity and ignorance, full of as many tedious untruths as ever. And
because he would _recrute_ the reputation of his wit, he falls into
the company of our _Diurnals_ very furiously, and there lays about him
in the midst of our weekly pamphlets; and he casts in the few squibs,
and the little wildfire he hath, dashing out his conceits; and he
takes it ill that the poore scribblers should tell a story for their
living; and after a whole week spent at Oxford, in inke and paper, to
as little purpose as _Maurice_ spent his shot and powder at
_Plimouth_, he gets up, about Saturday, into a jingle or two, for he
cannot reach to a full jest; and I am informed that the three-quarter
conceits in the last leafe of his Diurnall cost him fourteen pence in
_aqua vitae_."

Sir John never condescends formally to reply to Needham, for which he
gives this singular reason:--"As for this libeller, we are still
resolved to take no notice till we find him able to spell his own
name, which to this hour BRITANNICUS never did."

In the next number of Needham, who had always written it _Brittanicus_,
the correction was silently adopted. There was no crying down the
etymology of an Oxford malignant.

I give a short narrative of the political temper of the times, in
their unparalleled gazettes.

At the first breaking out of the parliament's separation from the
royal party, when the public mind, full of consternation in that
new anarchy, shook with the infirmity of childish terrors, the
most extravagant reports were as eagerly caught up as the most
probable, and served much better the purposes of their inventors.
They had dai