[l] Prynne's Chronol.

There was one that lined a hatcase with a paper of Benlowes' poetry; Prynne bought it by chance and put a new demi-castor into it.

Laugh and lye downe Launcepresado Law, the spider's cobweb Legerity Letters of mart Leveret Limbo Line of life Linstock Long haire, treatise against (An allusion to William Prynne's tract The Unlovelinesse of Love-Lockes.) Loves Changelings Changed,

* * PRYNNE.

Anthony A'Wood has informed us that when Prynne studied, "his custom was to put on a long quilted cap, which came an inch over his eyes, serving as an umbrella to defend them from too much light, and seldom eating any dinner.

The discovery of an old manuscript by a former surveyor, and a rag of scarlet cloth, which, on careful examination, assumed the shape of a letterthe capital Agave a reasonably complete explanation of the whole affair of "one Hester Prynne, who appeared to have been rather a noteworthy personage in the view of our ancestors."

The young woman was tall, and those who had known Hester Prynne before were astonished to perceive how her beauty shone out.

Preceded by the beadle, and attended by an irregular procession of stern-browed men and unkindly visaged women, Hester Prynne set forth towards the place appointed for her punishment.

One man, small in stature, and of a remarkable intelligence in his features, who stood on the outskirts of the crowd, attracted the notice of Hester Prynne, and he in his turn bent his eyes on the prisoner till, seeing she appeared to recognise him, he slowly raised his finger and laid it on his lips.

Then, touching the shoulder of a townsman who stood next to him, he said, "I pray you, good sir, who is this woman, and wherefore is she here set up to public shame?" "You must needs be a stranger, friend," said the townsman, "else you would surely have heard of Mistress Hester Prynne, and her evil doings.

But the magistracy, in their great mercy and tenderness of heart, have doomed Mistress Prynne to stand only a space of three hours on the platform of the pillory, and for the remainder of her natural life to wear a mark of shame upon her bosom.

But he will be knownhe will be known!" Directly over the platform on which Hester Prynne stood was a kind of balcony, and here sat Governor Bellingham, with four sergeants about his chair, and ministers of religion.

"Hester Prynne," said he, "if thou feelest it to be for thy soul's peace, I charge thee to speak out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer.

"Wondrous strength and generosity of a woman's heart!" Hester Prynne kept her place upon the pedestal of shame with an air of weary indifference.

Let thy husband be to the world as one already dead, and breathe not the secret, above all, to the man thou wottest of?" "I will keep thy secret, as I have his." II.A Pearl of Great Price When her prison-door was thrown open, and she came forth into the sunshine, Hester Prynne did not flee.

" The affair being so satisfactorily concluded, Hester Prynne, with Pearl, departed.

One night in early May, driven by remorse, and still indulging in the mockery of repentance, the minister sought the scaffold, where Hester Prynne had stood.

And now Hester Prynne resolved to do what might be in her power for the victim whom she saw in her former husband's grip.

"And I thee," answered Hester Prynne, "for the hatred that has transformed a wise and just man to a fiend!

" IV.Revelation A week later Hester Prynne waited in the forest for the minister as he returned from a visit to his Indian converts.

According to these highly respectable witnesses the minister's confession implied no part of the guilt of Hester Prynne, but was to teach us that we were all sinners alike.

Wiseman does not even mention it, though slitting the nose, and cutting off the ears, was a common mode of punishing political delinquents in his time; and it is said that Prynne, whose ears were cut off, had new ones made, "à la Taliacotius."

Notable years, what with soap-monopoly, ship-money, death of the great Gustavus at Lûtzen, pillorying of William Prynne, Jenny Geddes, and National Covenant, old Field-Marshal Lesley at Dunse Law and pacification thereafter nowise lasting.

Almost simultaneously appeared Prynne's famous attack on all things connected with the stage, in which was one particularly scurrilous passage concerning women who appeared on the boards.

As this, of course, was not the practice of the public stage, it was evident that the author must have had some specific instance in mind, and though it is not certain whether there was any personal intention in the allusion, the cap was made to fit, and for the supposed insult to the queen Prynne lost his ears.