Note 415 — THE HEIR. ACT I.

["A celebrated political register, as Mr Chalmers aptly terms it, which was now much used. Mention of it is made by almost all the writers of Jonson's age. As it treated of contemporary events, treaties, sieges, &c., in a dead language, it was necessarily driven to the use of unknown and unwarranted terms."—Gifford's Ben Jonson, ii. 530, note.]

Cleveland, in the "Character of a London Diurnal," 1644, says: "The original sinner of this kind was Dutch, Gallo-belgicus the Protoplast: and the Modern Mercuries but Hans en Kelders." Some intelligence given by Mercurius Gallo-belgicus is mentioned in Carew's "Survey of Cornwall," p. 126, originally published in 1602. Dr Donne, in his verses upon Thomas Coryat's "Crudities," 1611, says—