Many other extraordinary books and manuscripts I saw in this library, and a great number of fine curiosities; but I can only mention one particular more. Engraven on a beautiful cornelian, I saw the Roman god of bounds, with these words, Concedo Nulli,' and one of the gentlemen asked me, what I supposed the meaning of this design? The emblem, I answered, was a very just one, and in my opinion meant, that truth must never be given up.

much valuable criticism, that if the reader of fortune will take my advice, he will get them all into his closet as soon as possible; and at the same time, the four excellent pieces I have mentioned of Julius Cæsar Scaliger, the father of Joseph.

The great Louis Cappel, author of the Assertion of the True Faith, was a protestant minister at Saumur. He was born October 14, 1583, and died at Saumur, the 16th of June, 1658, aged 75. He was likewise the author of that excellent book called, Arcanum Punctuationis Revelatum; and of another very valuable work, intitled Critica Sacra. His son, Jean Cappel, turned papist, and died a despicable apostate in the Romish church.

There were two other Cappels, protestant ministers; both Jacques, one who died in 1585, the other in 1624, who were both authors of several controversial pieces against popery. They were however weak writers, when compared with the learned Louis Cappel.

That, it was replied, was not the meaning of it, though my thought was not unjust. The design is to put one in mind of death, of which terminus is the most just emblem; and he says, Concedo Nulli,' I favour none, I suffer none to pass the limit. There is, continued the gentleman, a little curious history depends on this. Here is a gold medallion, on one side of which you see the image of the great Erasmus, and on the other this fancy; which he always wore in a ring, and from thence I had the medallion struck. Erasmus asked the famous Carvajal the Spanish cordelier, just as I did you, what the meaning of this ring was. Carvajal, who had had some contests with Erasmus and hated him greatly, said "it owed its being without all peradventure, to the pride of Erasmus, and meant, that he would never yield, right or wrong, to any one in the republic of letters." Erasmus answered, that "his explication was quite wrong, and that on the contrary, he used the device, to kill his pride, and put him in mind of death, which suffers not the greatest men to pass the short limit of time allotted them." This pleased me much, and I resolved to get the fancy on a cornelian for a seal.

Another extraordinary thing these gentlemen shewed me was a hole leading to some wonderful caverns in the side of a mountain, about a mile to

the north of their house. It resembles at the entrance, Penpark-hole, in Gloucestershire, within

* In Penpark-hole you are let down by ropes fixed at the top of the pit, four fathom perpendicular, and then descend three fathom more, in an oblique way, between two rocks, which brings you in a perpendicular tunnel, thirty-nine yards down, into which you descend by ropes, and land in a spacious chamber, that is seventyfive yards in length, forty one in breadth, and nineteen yards high, from the margin of a great water, at the north end of it, to the roof. This water is twenty-seven yards in length, twelve in breadth, and generally sixteen deep. It is sweet, bright, and good drink. It rises sometimes several feet, and at other times sinks two feet below its usual depth. The torches always burn clear in this chamber, nor is the air in the least offensive, though fifty-nine yards from the surface of the earth, and separated from the day by such deep tunnels, and an oblique descent between them. The great tunnel is about three yards wide, and in the south side of it thirty yards down, nine yards before you come to the opening of the chamber, or cavity below, is a passage thirty-two yards in length, three and a half high, and three yards broad. It is the habitation of bats, and towards the end of it, a sloping hole goes to some other place. This passage, and the tunnels, and the chamber below, are all irregular work.

Penpark-hole has long been an object of curiosity,

three miles of Bristol; but with this difference, that Penpark-hole was once a lead ore pit, and one is

and induced many to leave "the roddie lemes of daie,” to explore its terrific and gloomy subterranean caverns. The descent of Captain Sturmy in 1669, and of Captain Collins in September 1682, are on record; but few later visitors of such scenes, so dismal and dreary as are rarely to be parallelled and, of which the most fervid imagination can form at best an inefficient and faint idea, have published any descriptive account. Mr. George Symes Catcott, who more than once gratified his curiosity in attempting further discoveries in those regions of horror and doleful shades;' on a visit to this place on Easter Monday, April 17, though the year is not mentioned, describes the chamber noticed in the preceding note as about ninety feet long, and fifty-two broad, with a hard rocky vaulted roof, about thirty feet above the water; but when the water is at the lowest, it is supposed to be at least about ninety feet, so that even with the assistance of torches the summit cannot be distinctly

seen.

The roof appears to be of nearly an equal height in every part; and very much resembles the ceiling of a Gothic cathedral. This place is rendered awful by the great reverberation which attends the voice when speaking loud, and still more so by the pendant rocks which sometimes break in very large pieces from overhead and the sides, riveting forcibly on the mind the most horrific tremor and dreadful apprehensions of personal

let down by ropes through two tunnels, to the chamber; whereas the entrance of the place I am speaking of is the work of nature, a steep and narrow descent of twenty-three yards, which I went down by having a rope under my arm, and setting my hands and feet against the sides of the passage, till I came to a flat rough rock, which opened two yards and a half one way, and four yards the other way. This little cavern was two yards high. We went from it into a more easy sloping way, which

danger. The water, agreeably to the preceding description, is stated by Mr. Catcott, to be in many places seven or eight fathoms deep, but "in August 1762, it was found not more than one fathom." In conclusion of the notice of this dreadful chasm, the melancholy circumstance of the poor traveller being thrown headlong by the villains who had robbed him, into Eldine-hole, near Derby, may recur to the reader, when he is told that on the 17th of March, 1775, the Rev. Mr. Newnam, fell by accident into this tremendous cavern, and was no more seen. Public curiosity was excited, and for some weeks a vast concourse of persons were brought together daily, to visit this ill-boding and gloomy spot. Some few persons summoned sufficient fortitude to descend into and explore the yawning gulph, and the result of these inquiries were communicated by Mr. Catcott, to an excellent, but long since discontinued work, the Literary Magazine, March 1793, pp. 206-9. En.