Distinguished amongst literary physicians was Andrew Borde, who studied Medicine at Oxford and Montpelier, and it is said acted as a physician in the service of Henry the Eighth. Borde's career has hitherto been a puzzle to antiquaries who, though interested in it, have been able to discover only little about it. It was his whim to sign himself Andrew Perforatus (his name really signifying "a cottage,"--"bordarius=a cottager"). In the same way after him Robert Fludd, the Rosicrucian doctor, adopted for his signature Robertus de Fluctibus. In his works he occasionally gives the reader a glimpse of his personal adventures; and from contemporary literature, as well as tradition, we learn enough to feel justified in believing that he created the cant term "Merry Andrew." Of his freaks, about the most absurd was his conduct when acting as foreman of a jury in a small borough town. A prisoner was charged with stealing a pair of leather breeches, but though appearances were strongly against the accused (who was a notorious rogue), the evidence was so defective that to return a verdict of guilty on the charge was beyond the logic and conscience of the twelve good men and true. No course seemed open to them but to acquit the knave; when Andrew Borde prevailed on them, _as_ the evidence of stealing the leather breeches was so defective, to bring him in guilty of manslaughter. It is needless to say that the jurymen took Andrew's advice, and finding a verdict to the best of those abilities with which it had pleased God to bless them, astonished the judge and the public, not less than the prisoner, with the strange conclusion at which they had arrived. Anthony à Wood and Hearne tell us the little that has hitherto been known of this eccentric physician. To that little an important addition may be made from the following letter, never before published, the original of which is in the State-Paper Office. The epistle is penned to Henry the Eighth's minister, Thomas Cromwell. "Jesus.