_In 1605 Joseph Hall published at Frankfort in Latin a witty satire on the weak side of the world, which had been written several years earlier, entitled "Mundus Alter et Idem." Of this book I have given a description in the volume of "Ideal Commonwealths," which forms one of the series of the "Universal Library." Hall had obtained reputation as a divine, by publishing two centuries of religious "Meditations," which united wit with piety. Prince Henry, having sought an opportunity of hearing him preach, made Hall his chaplain, and the Earl of Norwich gave him the living of Waltham in Essex. At the same time, 1608, a translation of Hall's Latin Satire, printed twice abroad, was published in London as "The Discovery of a New World;" he himself published also two volumes of Epistles, and this book of "Characters." There was a long career before him as a leader among churchmen fallen upon troubled days. He became Bishop of Exeter and was translated to Norwich. He was committed to the Tower, released, and ejected from his see, and after ten years of retirement, living upon narrow means at the village of Higham near Norwich, he died in the Commonwealth time at the age of eighty-two, on the 8th of September 1656. He took a conspicuous part in the controversy of 1641 about the bishops, but twenty years before that date a collection of his earlier works had formed a substantial folio of more than eleven hundred pages. His "Characters of Virtues and Vices," written in early manhood, follow next in our collection._ CHARACTERS OF VIRTUES AND VICES. _IN TWO BOOKS._ BY JOSEPH HALL. A PREMONITION or THE TITLE AND USE OF CHARACTERS.