with prefaces mostly of his own composition; who could extend his attention still farther and by his labours secure the fame, by immortalizing the compositions of the most distinguished scholars of his own age and country, must have been endowed in a very high degree, not only with industry and perseverance, but with judgment, learning, and discrimination. One virtue more, Aldus possessed in common with many of the great literary characters of that period, I mean, a sincere and manly piety, a virtue which gives consistency, vigour, and permanency to every good quality, and never fails to communicate a certain grace and dignity to the whole character. BOTTLES OF SKIN. The Ancients made use of bottles of skin to hold their wine, as is usual in many countries to this day. Thus Homer mentions wine being _brought in a goat’s skin_. (Il. II. iii. line 247. Odys. VI. line 78, IX. line 196, 212) Herodotus (ii. 121,) mentions _skins_ being filled with wine. And Maundrell in his Travels to Jerusalem, speaking of the Greek Convent at Bellmount, near Tripoli, in Syria, says, “The same person whom we saw officiating at the altar in his embroidered sacerdotal robe, brought us the next day on his own back, a kid, and a _goat’s skin of wine_ as a present from the Convent.” ENGLISH SLAVE TRADE. A great article of exportation among the Anglo-Saxons was Slaves, in which kind of traffic, the Northumbrians in particular, were very famous, amongst whom this trade continued, according to William of Malmesbury, for some time after the conquest. The people of Bristol were also very much employed in the Slave Trade, which they pursued with such eagerness, that they frequently spared not their nearest relations; but at length they were prevailed upon by the preaching and exhortation of Wulstan, Bishop of Worcester, who possessed that See at the time of the Conquest, to quit such a barbarous and inhuman traffic. In the history of the Saxon period there is frequent mention of living money, in contradistinction to coins of gold, silver, &c. This living money consisted of slaves and cattle of all sorts, which according to the value fixed upon them by law, were equally current with gold or silver in the payment of debts. In Domesday Book it is said that in the Borough of Lewes, four-pence was to be paid to the Portreeve for every man sold within that borough. The Monks were forbid by an ancient Canon to manumit their slaves, and this unhappy race of men seems to have been longer perpetuated on the estates of the Monasteries than elsewhere, for in the survey of Glastonbury Abbey taken after the dissolution, there is mention of “271 bondmen, whose bodies and goods were at the King’s Highness’s pleasure.” OLIVER CROMWELL’S WIFE.