LISTLESS TRAVELS IN FRANCE.

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much worn out in many places. This comes much fhort of the Alexandrian MS. at Sf.James’s for beauty and antiquity.

There was another MS. of the gofpel of St. Matthew , which was but of late difcover-ed ; a very fair volume in a large folio. This was cut to pieces in the back, and hadbeen fhufned and bound up again; and another book overwritten in a fmall modernGreek hand, about 150 years ago. The firft writing was turned fo pale that they tookno pains to rub it out. One of the library keepers observing this, hath reduced it againby paging it a-ne\v ; and with a little heeding it is yet very legible. The letter is as faira fquare capital as any I have feen. There are forne interpolations very notorious, asabout the defcent of the Tick man into the pool of Belhefda; which 1 fuppofe will beaccounted for by the induftrious and learned collator.

I obferved the China manufcripts which father Beauvais brought this year asaprefentto the king. They are about forty- four packs of fmall books, of a long quarto fafhfon,put up in loofe covers of a purple fatin glued on pafteboard ; of natural hiftory, of dic-tionaries relating to the expofition of their characters, &c.

The king hadafet much of the fame before in white fatin, with their titles.

Here alfo I faw the third decad of Livy, a large quarto in vellum, without diftinc-tion of words in fair large capitals. It is fuppofed by Monfieur Baluze to be 1 icoyears old.

Yet the manufcript of Prudentius Hynines, wdiich was alfo fhewed us, is a much fairerletter, and therefore thought to be older by one century at leaf:.

Here alfo I faw a famous Latin roll or volume, written on -/Egyptian paper, intitled,Charta Plenarm Securitatis , taken the 38th year of Juftian ; it is fairly engraved andinterpreted letter by letter upon copper by Monfieur Thevenot. I faw the print thereof:it is wrote long-ways the roll and not crofs, in three columns: the column in themiddle is three times as long as the. two end columns. The roll is not above a footbroad.

They fhewed us alfo in this houfe the apartment of Monfieur Huygens, which wasvery noble, and well for air, upon the garden : but here he fell melancholy, and diedof it in Holland. He fhewed the firft tokens of it by playing with a tame fparrow, andneglecting his mathematic fchemes. It is certain, life and health of body and mind arenot to be preferved, but by the relaxation and unbending the mind by innocent diver-fions. For fleep is nothing elfe that I know of, but the giving up the reins, and lettingnature to aCt alone, and to put her in full poffeffion of the body. We have a convincinginftance of this, in being in bed awake. No man can lie ftill fcarce three minuteswithout turning ; and if it come not prefently upon us, we muft turn again and again,and at length we become fo intolerably weary, that our bed is a very rack to us.Whereas, if we chance to fall afleep, though we lie in one and the fame pofture fevenhours, we fhall wake frefh and without pain, as though the body did not weigh at allupon itfelf in fleep. It is certain, the nerves and mufcles are in little or no tenfion infleep ; but when we are awake, are always ftretched and comprefied, whence weari-nefs: which, if upon our feet or fitting, we are not fenfible of, becaufe we removequick and with eafe, and of courfe ; but laid, we foon find ourfelves very uneafy, tillwe change the pofture.

But this is not all in the king’s library: there are other things to be feen, viz. a con-fiderable number of ancient Roman and Egyptian antiquities; as lamps, pateras, andother veffels belonging to the facrifices; a fiftrum or Egyptian rattle with three loofe andrunning wires crofs it.

f 2 Amongft