We may suspect that our citizen and chronicler, however he might be familiar with the public acts of royalty, had no precise notions of the principles of their government. We cannot otherwise deem of an historical recorder whose political sagacity, in that famous interview between our Edward the Fourth and Louis the Eleventh, of which Comines has left us a lively scene, could not penetrate further than to the fashion of the French monarch's dress. He tells us of "the nice and wanton disguised apparel that the King Louys wore upon him at the time of this meeting, _I might make a long rehearsal_, apparalled more like a minstrel than a prince." Fabyan shared too in the hearty "John Bullism" of that day in a mortal jealousy of the Gaul, and even of his _Sainte Ampoule_. Though no man had a greater capacity of faith for miracles and saints on English ground, yet for those of his neighbours he had found authority that it was not necessary for his salvation to believe them, and has ventured to decide on one, that "they must be folys (fools) who believe it." Had the _Sainte Ampoule_, however, been deposited in Westminster Abbey for our own coronations, instead of the Cathedral at Rheims for a French king, Fabyan had not doubted of the efficacy of every drop of the holy oil. But the dotage of FABYAN did not particularly attach to him; and though his intellectual comprehension was restricted to the experience of an alderman, he might have been the little Machiavel of his wardmote--for he has thrown out a shrewd observation, which no doubt we owe to his own sagacity. In noticing the neglect of a mayor in repairing the walls which had been begun by his predecessor, he observes that this generally happens, for "one mayor will not finish that thing which another beginneth, for then they think, be the deed ever so good and profitable, that the honour thereof shall be ascribed to the beginner, and not to the finisher, which lack of charity and desire of vainglory causeth many good acts and deeds to die, and grow out of mind, to the great decay of the commonwealth of the city." A profound observation, which might be extended to monarchs as well as mayors. Indulging too often the civic curiosity of "a citizen and alderman," FABYAN has been taunted for troubling posterity. "FABYAN," says Warton, "is equally attentive to the succession of the mayors of London and the monarchs of England. He seems to have thought the dinners at Guildhall and the pageantries of the city companies more interesting transactions than our victories in France and our struggles for public liberty at home."