[259] Alluding to the acts of Oliver Cromwell's parliament for punishing adultery, incest, and fornication; by which it was declared that the two former should be punishable with death on the first offence, and the latter upon the second conviction. "These acts," an excellent writer (Mr Barrington on the Statutes) observes, "could not have continued long unrepealed, _even if Charles II._ had not succeeded to the throne." It has been doubted whether there were any instances of carrying them into execution, notwithstanding the rigidness of the times wherein they were enacted. A newspaper, however, of that period furnishes an example which, from the extraordinary circumstances attending it, may perhaps be considered as not unworthy of being preserved. In _Mercurius Politicus_, No. 168, from Thursday, Aug. 25, to Thursday, Sept. 1, 1653, p. 2700, is the following passage:--"At Monmouth Assize an old man of _eighty-nine years_ was put to death for adultery, committed with a woman above _sixty_." [260] [Lindabrides is a character in the "Mirror of Knighthood," once a famous romance. The name was afterwards applied to women of a certain class. She is mentioned in act ii. of "A Match at Midnight."] [261] [Dragged.] [262] This incident is borrowed from the Italian, and it is employed by many of their novelists. It also forms the eighth story of "Les Comptes du Monde adventureux," printed at [Paris in 1555, and a translation from the Italian.] Casti founded his tale of "La Celia" upon it, with the variation of making the old woman a negress; but in this change he was not original. Richard Brome employed it in his "Novella," acted at the Blackfriars Theatre thirty years before Killigrew's play was published.--_Collier._ [263] [A hit at some of the frivolous poetry of an earlier period. See Hazlitt's "Handbook" _v._ Lenton.] [264] The _sickness_ was the common name for the plague. See Gifford's Ben Jonson, iii. 353, iv. 9, &c.--_Collier._ [265] This alludes to one of the regulations made to prevent the spreading of the plague. When a house became infected, the officers empowered for that purpose immediately placed a guard before it, which continued there night and day, to prevent any person going from thence until the expiration of forty days. At the same time, _red crosses, of a foot long_ were painted on the doors and windows, with the words LORD HAVE MERCY UPON US, in great letters, wrote over them, to caution all passengers to avoid infected places. In a collection of epigrams, entitled, "More Fools Yet," written by R. S. (Roger Sharpe), 1610, 4^o, is the following--