_WEDNESDAY_, January 13. THe Commissioners appointed by the Parliament to go to the North, and receive the Kings Person, and then conduct him to Holmsby house, are these _The Earle of Pembroke._ _The E. of Denbigh._ _The L. Montague._ _Sir Iohn Holland._ _Sir Waker Earl._ _Sir Iohn Cook._ _Sir Iames Harrington._ _Major Gen. Brown._ _Mr. Iohn Crew._ Two Ministers, _viz._ _Mr. Marshal_, and _Mr. Carol_, go with the Commissioners. The Commissioners to the Scots Army, are the Earl of Stamford. B Mr. ] Who would think, while reading these calm corrections, that the poet knew he was in imminent danger, and that in a couple of months he was to be a proscribed fugitive, hiding in the purlieus of Westminster from Royalty’s myrmidons? Yet it was so, and the degradation to which literature may be submitted is proved by the fact that within the same space of time his works were, in accordance with an order of the House of Commons, burned by the hangman. The excessive loyalty exhibited about this time by the lawyers, who were then, as now, quite able to look after their own interests, shows in rather a ludicrous light, viewed through the zealous officiousness of Mr Nicholas Bacon, who must have been the fountspring of the following effusion, which appears in a June, 1660, number of the _Mercurius Politicus_:-- WHEREAS one Capt. _Gouge_, a witness examined against the late King’s Majesty, in those Records stiled himself of the Honorable Society of _Gray’s_ Inne. These are to give notice that the said _Gouge_, being long sought for, was providentially discovered in a disguise, seized in that Society, and now in custody, being apprehended by the help of some spectators that knew him, viewing of a banner with His Majesties arms, set up just at the same time of His Majesties landing, on an high tower in the same Society, by _Nicholas Bacon_, Esq., a member thereof, as a memorial of so great a deliverance, and testimony of his constant loyalty to His Majesty, and that the said _Gouge_ upon examination confessed, That he was never admitted not so much as a Clerk of that Society. The King does not seem to have enjoyed his own very long before he was subjected to loss by the dog-stealers, who, less ready to revere royalty than the lawyers, led to the publication of the following in the _Mercurius Publicus_ of June 28, 1660:-- ☞ A Smooth Black DOG, less than a Grey-hound, with white under his breast, belonging to the Kings Majesty, was taken from Whitehall, the eighteenth day of this instant _June_, or thereabouts. If any one can give notice to _John Ellis_, one of his Majesties servants, or to his Majesties Back-Stairs, shall be well rewarded for their labour.