amateur of such barbarous spectacles, but, as far as whipping went, even fouled his consecrated hands with the base offices of the executioner, and of whom a most remarkable saying has been handed down. When wondering at the courage of the poor protestant martyrs even in the fire, and at effects so very different from those it was intended and expected to produce, he exclaimed, in the coarse language of that age:
"Plague on them! I think they take delight in burning."
Dr. Story, in his last will, charged his wife Joan not to set foot on the land of England, or carry his daughter thither (according to a promise she had made to God and him) until it were restored to the unity of the church, "except it be for the only intent to procure her mother to come thence; and in such case not to tarry there above the space of three months, unless she by compulsion be forced thereunto."
There was discovered under the word "Thomas" a great A upon a bell, a punning rebus, plainly intended for the name of Dr. Thomas Abel, who was executed for treason in the year 1540.
It is very observable that a similar rebus for the name of the famous alderman Abel, the monopolizer of wines in the reign of Charles I. is given in the very fine and scarce portrait of him engraved by Hollar, and barely mentioned by Granger, who, from this circumstance, must have been an entire stranger to his history and character.
Dod, in his Church History, tells us, that Thomas Abel or Able, was educated in Oxford, where he completed his degrees in arts 1516, and, proceeding in divinity, became doctor of that faculty. He was not only a man of learning, but also very well qualified in many other respects. He was a great master of instrumental music, and well skilled in the modern languages. These qualifications in-
