the Prophets that make my people erre, that bite with their teeth, and cry peace:  and he that putteth not into their mouths, they prepare war against him:  Therefore night shall be upon them, that they shall not have a vision, &c.  The Sun shall goe down over the prophets, and the Day shall be dark.  Their seers shall be ashamed, and the Deviners confounded:  yea, they shall All cover their lips, for there is no answer of God.” London, 1654. 4to.]

[Footnote 25:  Athen.  Oxon., Vol. ii., p. 175.  Edit. 1721.]

[Footnote 26:  Old Anthony chronicles this battle of the kerchiefs with a sly humour very different from his usual solemn matter-of-fact style.]

Of Erbury who, being originally in holy orders and a beneficed clergyman, deserted the Established Church and ran into all the excesses of Antinomianism, Webster was a great admirer, and has in a preface, hitherto unnoticed, prefixed to a scarce tract of Erbury’s, entitled “The great Earthquake, or Fall of all the Churches,” published in 1654, 4to, left a sketch of his opinions and character, in which his defence is undertaken with great zeal and no small ingenuity.  One of his apologist’s conclusions most of Erbury’s readers will find no difficulty in assenting to, “the world is not ripe for such discoveries as our author held forth.”  The verses which are appended to this sketch, characterizing Erbury—­

                    “As him
    Who did the saintship sever
    From the opinion; this fails, that shall never,
    Chymist of Truth and Gospel;”—­

are, also, evidently Webster’s, and their quality is not such as to make us unreasonably impatient for any further manifestations of his poetical skill.  In the year 1654 he published another tract of singular interest and curiosity, in which he attacks the Universities and the received system of education there, always with vigour and various learning, and frequently with success.  It is entitled “Academiarum Examen, or the Examination of Academies; wherein is discussed and examined the matter, method, and customes of academick and scholastic learning, and the insufficiency thereof discovered and laid open; as also some expedients proposed for the reforming of schools, and the perfecting and promoting of all kind of science; offered to the judgment of all those that love the proficiencie of arts and sciences and the advancement of learning.  By Jo.  Webster.  In moribus et institutis academiarum, collegiorum et similium conventium quo ad doctorum hominum sedes et operas mutuas destinata sunt, omnia progressui scientiarum in ulterius adversa inveniri.  Franc.  Bacon de Verulamio lib. de cogitat. et vis. pag. mihi. 14.  London:  Printed for Giles Calvert, and are to be sold at the sign of the Black Spread-Eagle, at the west end of Paul’s. 1654.” 4to.  In this tract, which, like some other attacks upon the seats of learning, displays more power in objection than in substitution,