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went away as in a rapture at such an uncommon condescension in a king.

His person and temper, his vices as well as his fortunes, resemble the character that we have given us of Tiberius so much, that it were easy to draw the parallel between them. Tiberius's banishment, and his coming afterwards to reign, makes the comparison in that respect come pretty near. His hating of business, and his love of pleasures; his raising of favourites, and trusting them entirely; and his pulling them down, and hating them excessively; his art of covering deep designs, particularly of revenge, with an appearance of softness, brings them so near a likeness, that I did not wonder much to observe the resemblance of their faces and persons. At Rome,' I saw one of the last statues made for Tiberius, after he had lost his teeth. But, bating the alteration which that made, it was so like King Charles, that Prince Borghese and Signior Dominico, to whom it belonged, did agree with me in thinking that it looked like a statue made for him.

Few things ever went near his heart. The Duke of Gloucester's death seemed to touch him much. But those who knew him best, thought it was because he had lost him by whom only he could have balanced the surviving brother, whom he hated, and yet embroiled all his affairs to preserve the succession to him.

His ill conduct in the first Dutch war, and those terrible calamities of the plague and fire of London, with that loss and reproach which he suffered by the insult at Chatham, made all people conclude there was a curse upon his government. His throwing the public hatred at that time upon Lord Clarendon was both unjust and ungrateful. And when his people had brought him out of all his difficulties upon his entering into the triple alliance, his selling that to France, and his entering on the second Dutch war with as little colour as he had for the first; his beginning it with the attempt on the Dutch Smyrna fleet, the shutting up the exchequer, and his declaration for toleration, which was a step for the introduction of popery, make such a chain of black actions, flowing from blacker designs, that it amazed those who had known all this to see with what impudent strains of flattery addresses were penned during his life, and yet more grossly after his death. His contributing so much to the raising the greatness of France, chiefly at sea, was such an error, that it could not flow from want of thought, or of true sense. Rouvigny told me he desired that all the methods the French took in the increase and conduct of their naval force might be sent him; and he said he seemed to study them with concern and zeal. He shewed what errors they committed, and how they ought to be corrected, as if he had been a viceroy to France, rather than a king that ought to have watched over and prevented the progress they made, as the greatest of all the mischiefs that could happen to him or to his people. They that judged the most favourably of this, thought it was done out of revenge to the Dutch, that, with the assistance of so great a fleet as France could join to his own, he might be able to destroy them. But others put a worse construction on it; and thought, that seeing he could not quite master or deceive his subjects by his own strength and management, he was willing to help forward the greatness of the French at sea, that by their assistance he might more certainly subdue his own people; according to what was generally believed to have fallen from Lord Clifford, if the king must be in a dependence, it was better to pay it to a great and generous king, than to five hundred of his own insolent subjects.

No part of his character looked wickeder, as well as meaner, than that he, all the while that he was professing to be of the Church of England, expressing both zeal and affection to it, was yet secretly reconciled to the Church of Rome; thus mocking God, and deceiving the world with so gross a prevarication. And his not having the honesty or courage to own it at the last; his not shewing any sign of the least remorse for his ill-led life, or any

tenderness either for his subjects in general, or for the queen and his servants; and his recommending only his mistresses and their children to his brother's care, would have been a strange conclusion to any other's life, but was well enough suited to all the other parts of his.

The Czar Peter in England in 1698.-From the same. I mentioned, in the relation of the former year, the Czar's coming out of his own country; on which I will now enlarge. He came this winter over to England, and stayed some months among us. I waited often on him, and was ordered, both by the king and the archbishop and bishops, to attend upon him, and to offer him such informations of our religion and constitution as he was willing to receive. I had good interpreters, so I had much free discourse with him. He is a man of a very hot temper, soon inflamed, and very brutal in his passion. He raises his natural heat by drinking much brandy, which he rectifies himself with great application; he is subject to convulsive motions all over his body, and his head seems to be affected with these; he wants not capacity, and has a larger measure of knowledge than might be expected from his education, which was very indifferent; a want of judgment, with an instability of temper, appear in him too often and too evidently; he is mechanically turned, and seems designed by nature rather to be a ship-carpenter than a great prince. This was his chief study and exercise while he stayed here; he wrought much with his own hands, and made all about him work at the models of ships. He told me he designed a great fleet at Azuph, and with it to attack the Turkish empire; but he did not seem capable of conducting so great a design, though his conduct in his wars since this has discovered a greater genius in him than appeared at that time. He was desirous to understand our doctrine, but he did not seem disposed to mend matters in Moscovy. He was indeed resolved to encourage learning, and to polish his people by sending some of them to travel in other countries, and to draw strangers to come and live among them. He seemed apprehensive still of his sister's intrigues. There was a mixture both of passion and severity in his temper. He is resolute, but understands little of war, and seemed not at all inquisitive that way. After I had seen him often, and had conversed much with him, I could not but adore the depth of the providence of God, that had raised up such a furious man to so absolute an authority over so great a part of the world.

David, considering the great things God had made for the use of man, broke out into the meditation: 'What is man that thou art so mindful of him?' But here there is an occasion for reversing these words, since man seems a very contemptible thing in the sight of God, while such a person as the Czar has such multitudes put, as it were, under his feet, exposed to his restless jealousy and savage temper. He went from hence to the court of Vienna, where he purposed to have stayed some time; but he was called home, sooner than he had intended, upon a discovery or a suspicion of intrigues managed by his sister. The strangers, to whom he trusted most, were so true to him, that those designs were crushed before he came back. But on this occasion he let loose his fury on all whom he suspected. Some hundreds of them were hanged all round Moscow; and it was said that he cut off many heads with his own hand. And so far was he from relenting, or shewing any sort of tender. ness, that he seemed delighted with it. How long he is to be the scourge of that nation, or of his neighbours, God only knows. [The Czar died in 1725.] So extraordinary an incident will, I hope, justify such a digression.

Character of William III.—From the same.

Thus lived and died William III. King of Great Britain, and Prince of Orange. He had a thin and weak body, was brown-haired, and of a clear and delicate

constitution. He had a Roman eagle nose, bright and sparkling eyes, a large front, and a countenance composed to gravity and authority. All his senses were critical and exquisite. He was always asthmatical; and the dregs of the small-pox falling on his lungs, he had a constant deep cough. His behaviour was solemn and serious, seldom cheerful, and but with a few. He spoke little and very slowly, and most commonly with a disgusting dryness, which was his character at all times, except in a day of battle; for then he was all fire, though without passion; he was then everywhere, and looked to everything. He had no great advantage from his education. De Witt's discourses were of great use to him; and he, being apprehensive of the observation of those who were looking narrowly into everything he said or did, had brought himself under a habitual caution, that he could never shake off; though in another scene it proved as hurtful as it was then necessary to his affairs. He spoke Dutch, French, English, and German equally well; and he understood the Latin, Spanish, and Italian, so that he was well fitted to command armies composed of several nations. He had a memory that amazed all about him, for it never failed him. He was an exact observer of men and things. His strength lay rather in a true discerning and a sound judgment, than in imagination or invention. His designs were always great and good. But it was thought he trusted too much to that, and that he did not descend enough to the humours of his people to make himself and his notions more acceptable to them. This, in a government that has so much of freedom in it as ours, was more necessary than he was inclined to believe. His reservedness grew on him, so that it disgusted most of those who served him; but he had observed the errors of too much talking, more than those of too cold a silence. He did not like contradiction, nor to have his actions censured; but he loved to employ and favour those who had the arts of complacence, yet he did not love flatterers. His genius lay chiefly to war, in which his courage was more admired than his conduct. Great errors were often committed by him; but his heroical courage set things right, as it inflamed those who were about him. He was too lavish of money on some occasions, both in his buildings and to his favourites, but too sparing in rewarding services, or in encouraging those who brought intelligence. He was apt to take ill impressions of people, and these stuck long with him; but he never carried them to indecent revenges. He gave too much way to his own humour, almost in everything, not excepting that which related to his own health. He knew all foreign affairs well, and understood the state of every court in Europe very particularly. He instructed his own ministers himself, but he did not apply enough to affairs at home. He tried how he could govern us, by balancing the two parties one against another; but he came at last to be persuaded that the Tories were irreconcilable to him, and he was resolved to try and trust them no more. He believed the truth of the Christian religion very firmly, and he expressed a horror at atheism and blasphemy; and though there was much of both in his court, yet it was always denied to him, and kept out of sight. He was most exemplarily decent and devout in the public exercises of the worship of God; only on week-days he came too seldom to them. He was an attentive hearer of sermons, and was constant in his private prayers, and in reading the Scriptures; and when he spoke of religious matters, which he did not often, it was with a becoming gravity. He was much possessed with the belief of absolute decrees. He said to me he adhered to these because he did not see how the belief of Providence could be maintained upon any other supposition. His indifference as to the forms of church-government, and his being zealous for toleration, together with his cold behaviour towards the clergy, gave them generally very ill impressions of him. In his deportment towards all about him, he seemed to make little distinction between the good and the

bad, and those who served well, or those who served him ill. He loved the Dutch, and was much beloved among them; but the ill returns he met from the English nation, their jealousies of him, and their perverseness towards him, had too much soured his mind, and had in a great measure alienated him from them; which he did not take care enough to conceal, though he saw the ill effects this had upon his business. He grew, in his last years, too remiss and careless as to all affairs, till the treacheries of France awakened him, and the dreadful conjunction of the monarchies gave so loud an alarm to all Europe: for a watching over that court, and a bestirring himself against their practices, was the prevailing passion of his whole life. Few men had the art of concealing and governing passion more than he had; yet few men had stronger passions, which were seldom felt but by inferior servants, to whom he usually made such recompenses for any sudden or indecent vents he might give his anger, that they were glad at every time that it broke upon them. He was too easy to the faults of those about him, when they did not lie in his own way, or cross any of his designs; and he was so apt to think that his ministers might grow insolent, if they should find that they had much credit with him, that he seemed to have made it a maxim to let them often feel how little power they had even in small matters. His favourites had a more entire power, but he accustomed them only to inform him of things, but to be sparing in offering advice, except when it was asked. It was not easy to account for the reasons of the favour that he shewed, in the highest instances, to two persons beyond all others, the Earls of Portland and Albemarle, they being in all respects men not only of different, but of opposite characters. Secrecy and fidelity were the only qualities in which it could be said that they did in any sort agree. I have now run through the chief branches of his character. I had occasion to know him well, having observed him very carefully in a course of sixteen years. I had a large measure of his favour, and a free access to him all the while, though not at all times to the same degree. The freedom that I used with him was not always acceptable; but he saw that I served him faithfully; so, after some intervals of coldness, he always returned to a good measure of confidence in me. I was, in many great instances, much obliged by him; but that was not my chief bias to him; I considered him as a person raised up by God to resist the power of France, and the progress of tyranny and persecution. The series of the five Princes of Órange that was now ended in him, was the noblest succession of heroes that we find in any history. And the thirty years, from the year 1672 to his death, in which he acted so great a part, carry in them so many amazing steps of a glorious and distinguishing Providence, that, in the words of David, he may be called "The man of God's right hand, whom he made strong for himself.' After all the abatements that may be allowed for his errors and faults, he ought still to be reckoned among the greatest princes that our history, or indeed that any other, can afford. He died in a critical time for his own glory, since he had formed a great alliance, and had projected the whole scheme of the war; so that if it succeeds, a great part of the honour of it will be ascribed to him; and if otherwise, it will be said he was the soul of the alliance, that did both animate and knit it together, and that it was natural for that body to die and fall asunder, when he who gave it life was withdrawn. Upon his death, some moved for a magnificent funeral; but it seemed not decent to run into unneces sary expense, when we were entering on a war that must be maintained at a vast charge. So a private funeral was resolved on. But for the honour of his memory, a noble monument and an equestrian statue were ordered. Some years must shew whether these things were really intended, or if they were only spoke of to excuse the privacy of his funeral, which was scarce decent, so far was it from being magnificent.

COUNT GRAMMONT.

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In 1713 appeared a semi-historical work, relating to the court of Charles II.-the Mémoires du Comte de Grammont, translated into English in 1714, and still a popular English work. The best edition is that of 1811, which has copious notes, some of which are said to have been contributed by Sir Walter Scott. The author, ANTHONY HAMILTON (1646-1720), was related by birth to the noble Scotch family of Hamilton, and to the Irish ducal family of Ormond. His sister married Count Grammont, who arrived in England from France in 1662, and was one of the most brilliant and accomplished adventurers at Whitehall, the court of Paphos.' In his old age, it appears, the count dictated his memoirs to his brother-in-law, and the scandalous chronicle is allowed to be a truthful narrative. It exhibits

the king and court in dishabille—and something

more.

ARTHUR WILSON-SIR ANTHONY WELDONSIR RICHARD BAKER.

Some inferior historians, annalists, and antiquaries may here be noticed. They may be considered as the pioneers or camp-attendants of the regular acknowledged historians.

ARTHUR WILSON (1596–1652) was secretary to Robert, Earl of Essex, the Parliamentary general in the Civil Wars; and afterwards became steward to the Earl of Warwick. He left in manuscript a work on The Life and Reign of King James I. which was published in 1653. A comedy of his, entitled The Inconstant Lady, was printed at Oxford, edited by Dr Bliss, in 1814. Arthur Wilson's work on the reign of James I. is termed by Heylin' a most famous pasquil.'

A more unfavourable picture of the same period is given in the Court and Character of King James, Written and Taken by Sir A. W. being an Eye and Ear Witness, 1650. The writer, SIR ANTHONY WELDON, had been Clerk of the Kitchen to the king, and accompanied him to Scotland in 1617, but, writing a depreciatory account of Scotland, he was dismissed from office. He revenged himself by drawing up this sketch of the court and its monarch, in which a graphic, though overcharged description of James-his personal appearance, habits, oddities, &c.-is presented.

SIR RICHARD BAKER (1568-1645) was author of a Chronicle long popular in England, particularly among country gentlemen. Addison makes it the favourite book of Sir Roger de Coverley. Baker was knighted by James I. in 1603, and in 1620 became high-sheriff for Oxfordshire, in which he possessed considerable property. Afterwards, having imprudently engaged for the payment of debts contracted by his wife's family, he became insolvent, and spent several years in the Fleet Prison, where he died in 1645. While in durance, he wrote Meditations and Disquisitions on portions of Scripture, translated Balzac's Letters and Malvezzi's Discourses on Tacitus, and composed two pieces in defence of the theatre. His principal work, however, was that already referred to, entitled A Chronicle of the Kings of England, from the Time of the Romans Government unto

the Death of King James. This work, which appeared in 1641, the author complacently declares to be 'collected with so great care and diligence, that if all other of our chronicles were lost, this only would be sufficient to inform posterity of all passages memorable or worthy to be known.' Notwithstanding such high pretensions, the Chronicle was afterwards proved by Thomas Blount, in Animadversions published in 1672, to contain many gross errors. The style of Baker, which is superior to his matter, is described in a letter written to him by his former college-friend, Sir Henry Wotton, as 'full of sweet raptures and of researching conceits; nothing borrowed, nothing vulgar, and yet all flowing from you, I know not how, with a certain equal facility."

DUGDALE-ANTHONY À WOOD-ASHMOLE.

SIR WILLIAM DUGDALE (1605-1686) was highly distinguished for his knowledge of heraldry and antiquities. His work, entitled The Baronage of England, is esteemed as without a rival in its own department; and his Antiquities of Warwickshire Illustrated (1656) has been placed in the foremost rank of county histories. He published also a History of St Paul's Cathedral; and three volumes of a great work, entitled Monasticon Anglicanum (1655–1673), intended to embrace the history of the monastic and other religious foundations which existed in England before the Reformation. Besides several other publications, Dugdale left a large collection of manuscripts, | which are now to be found in the Bodleian Library at Oxford and at the Heralds' College.-ANTHONY A WOOD (1632-1695), a native of Oxford, was attached to similar pursuits. He published, in 1691, a well-known work, entitled Athena Oxonienses, being an account of the lives and writings of almost all the eminent authors educated at Oxford, and many of those educated at the university of Cambridge. Wood appears to have been a diligent and careful collector, though frequently misled by narrow-minded prejudices and hastily formed opinions. He compiled also a work on the History and Antiquities of the University of Oxford, which was published only in Latin, the translation into that language being made by Dr Fell, bishop of Oxford.-ELIAS ASHMOLE (1617-1692), a famous antiquary and virtuoso, was a friend of Sir William Dugdale, whose daughter he married. In the earlier part of his life he was addicted to astrology and alchemy, but afterwards devoted his attention more exclusively to antiquities, heraldry, and the collection of coins and other rarities. His most celebrated work, entitled The Institution, Laws, and Ceremonies of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, was published in 1672. A collection of relics, books, and manuscripts, which he presented to the university of Oxford, constituted the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum.

AUBREY-RYMER.

JOHN AUBREY (1626-1700) studied at Oxford, and, while there, aided in the collection of materials for Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum; at a later period, he furnished valuable assistance to Anthony à Wood. His only published work is a collection of popular superstitions relative to dreams, portents, ghosts, witchcraft, &c. under

the title of Miscellanies. His manuscripts, of which many are preserved in the Ashmolean Museum and the library of the Royal Society, prove his researches to have been very extensive, and have furnished much useful information to

nature or substance, spirits; for their quality or property, glorious; for their place or abode, heavenly; for their durance or continuance, immortal.

And what is the seed of Abraham, but as Abraham himself? And what is Abraham? Let him answer Abraham? Let one answer in the persons of all the himself; I am dust and ashes. What is the seed of rest; dicens putredini, &c. saying to rottenness, thou art my mother, and to the worms, ye are my brethren. They are spirits; now what are we, what is the seed of Abraham? Flesh. And what is the very harvest of this seed of flesh? What but corruption, and rottenness, and worms. There is the substance of our bodies. 2. They glorious spirits; we vile bodies (bear with it, it is the Holy Ghost's own term, who shall change our vile bodies). And not only base and vile, but filthy and unclean: ex immundo conceptum semine, conceived of unclean seed: there is the metal. And the mould is base, filthy, and unclean. There is our quality. no better, the womb wherein we were conceived, vile,

later antiquaries. Aubrey has been too harshly
censured by Gifford as a credulous fool; yet it
must be admitted that his power of discrimination
was small. His Letters, consisting chiefly of
biographical facts, communicated to Anthony
à Wood, were published in three volumes in 1813.
THOMAS RYMER (circa 1638-1713), appointed
royal historiographer in 1692, published the
Fœdera, a most valuable collection of public
treaties and compacts, filling fifteen folio volumes,
to which ROBERT SANDERSON (1660-1741) made
a continuation, extending the work to twenty vol-
umes (1704-1735). Rymer began his career as a
dramatist and critic, but nothing can be worse
in taste or judgment than his remarks on Shak-
speare and other poets. 'I have thought,' he says,
our poetry of the last age as rude as our architec-et
ture, and he speaks of 'that Paradise Lost of
Milton's, which some are pleased to call a poem !'

THEOLOGIANS.

BISHOP ANDREWS.

In 1631, 'by his majesty's special commandment,' were published Ninety-six Sermons by DR LANCELOT ANDREWS or ANDREWES (1555-1626), bishop of Winchester, and a privy-councillor-a prelate who had the singular good fortune to enjoy the favour of three successive sovereigns, and whose death was mourned by the youthful muse of Milton. Andrews was the most learned divine of his day, excepting Usher, and was styled Stella Prædicantium-the star of preachers. When the Jesuit Bellarmin attacked King James's treatise on the Rights of Kings, the duty of defending the royal author devolved on Andrews, who acquitted himself so much to the satisfaction of James, that he appointed him to the see of Chichester, and made him his almoner. As a prelate, Andrews was in favour of the high-church doctrines and ceremonial, of which Laud became the representative, but he was more noted for his learning, his wit, charity, and munificence.* His sermons are deformed by pedantry and conceit, but display a lively fancy and power of ingenious exposition and illustration. In patristic theology, or knowledge of the early Fathers of the church, Andrews was unrivalled in his day. The following extracts shew his peculiar style:

Angels and Men.

1. What are angels? Surely they are spirits, glorious spirits, heavenly spirits, immortal spirits. For their

3. They heavenly spirits, angels of heaven: that is, their place of abode is in heaven above, ours is here below in the dust; inter pulices, et culices, tineas, araneas, vermes; our place is here among fleas and flies, moths, and spiders, and crawling worms. There is our place of dwelling.

4. They are immortal spirits; that is their durance. Our time is proclaimed in the prophet, flesh, all flesh is grass, and the glory of it as the flowers of the field (from April to June). The scythe cometh; nay, the wind but bloweth, and we are gone, withering sooner than the grass, which is short: nay, fading sooner than the flower of the grass, which is much shorter: nay, saith Job, rubbed in pieces more easily than any moth.

This we are to them if you lay us together; and if you weigh us upon the balance, we are altogether lighter than vanity itself: there is our weight. And if you value us, man is but a thing of nought there is our worth. Hoc is omnis homo; this is Abraham, and this is Abraham's seed: and who would stand to compare these with angels? Verily, there is no comparison; they are incomparably far better than the best of us.

Do Good.

I see there is a strange hatred and a bitter gainsaying everywhere stirred up against unpreaching prelates (as you term them) and pastors that feed themselves only: and they are well worthy. If I might see the same hatred begun among yourselves, I would think it sincere. But that I cannot see. For that which a slothful divine is in things spiritual, that is a rich man for himself and nobody else in things carnal: and they are not pointed at. But sure you have your harvest, as well as ours, and that a great harvest. Lift up your eyes, and see the streets round about you; the harvest is verily great, and the labourers few. Let us pray (both) that the Lord would thrust out labourers into both these harvests: that the treasures of knowledge being opened, they may have the bread of eternal life; and the treasures of welldoing being opened, they may have the bread of this life; and so they may want neither.

ARCHBISHOP Usher.

JAMES USHER or USSHER, the celebrated archBacon quotes some of the lively sayings of Andrews, and bishop of Armagh, was born in Dublin, January Walker relates the following anecdote of the popular prelate. Dr 4, 1580 (0.s.), son to one of the clerks in Neile, bishop of Durham, and Andrews were standing behind the Chancery. He would have devoted himself king's chair at dinner, when James suddenly turned to them and said: My lords, cannot I take my subjects' money when I want to law, had not the death of his father, whose it, without all this formality in parliament? Neile replied: God wishes pointed to that profession, allowed him forbid, sir, but you should; you are the breath of our nostrils." to follow his The king then addressed Andrews: 'Well, my lord, and what say own inclination for theology. you?' Sir,' replied Andrews, 'I have no skill to judge of parlia. He succeeded to his father's estate, but, wishmentary cases.' The king answered: No puts-off, my lording to devote himself uninterruptedly to study, gave it up to his brother, reserving for himself only

answer me presently.' 'Then, sir,' said he, I think it lawful for you to take my brother Neile's money, for he offers it.'

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a sufficiency for his maintenance at college and the purchase of books. In 1606 he visited England, and became intimate with Camden and Sir Robert Cotton, to the former of whom he communicated some valuable particulars about the ancient state of Ireland and the history of Dublin: these were afterwards inserted by Camden in his Britannia. For thirteen years subsequently to 1607, Usher filled the chair of Divinity in the university of Dublin, in performing the duties of which he confined his attention chiefly to the controversies between the Protestants and Catholics. At the convocation of the Irish clergy in 1615, when they determined to assert their independence as a national church, the articles drawn up on the occasion emanated chiefly from his pen; and by asserting in them the Calvinistic doctrines of election and reprobation in their broadest aspect, as well as by his advocacy of the rigorous observance of the Sabbath, and his known opinion that bishops were not a distinct order in the church, but only superior in degree to presbyters, he exposed himself to the charge of being a favourer of Puritanism. Having been accused as such to the king, he went over to England in 1619, and, in a conference with his majesty, so fully cleared himself, that he was erelong appointed to the see of Meath, and in 1624 to the archbishopric of Armagh. During the political agitation of Charles's reign, Usher, in a treatise entitled The Power of the Prince, and Obedience of the Subject, maintained the absolute unlawfulness of taking up arms against the king. The Irish rebellion, in 1641, drove him to England, where he settled at Oxford, then the residence of Charles. Subsequently, the Civil War caused him repeatedly to change his abode, which was finally the Countess of Peterborough's seat at Ryegate, where he died in 1656, at the age of seventyfive. Most of his writings relate to ecclesiastical history and antiquities, and were mainly intended to furnish arguments against the Catholics; but the production for which he is chiefly celebrated is a great chronological work, entitled Annales, or 'Annals,' the first part of which was published in 1650, and the second in 1654. It is a chronological digest of universal history, from the creation of the world to the dispersion of the Jews in Vespasian's reign. The author intended to add a third part, but died before accomplishing his design. In this work, which was received with great applause by the learned throughout Europe, and has been several times reprinted on the continent, the author, by fixing the three epochs of the deluge, the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, and their return from Babylon, reconciled the chronologies of sacred and profane history; and down to the present time, his chronological system is that which is generally received. Usher conformed strictly to the Hebrew chronology in scriptural dates; the Septuagint version and the Samaritan Pentateuch differ greatly from it; and the most judicious inquirers into ancient history, according to Hallam, 'have of late been coming to the opinion, that, with certain exceptions, there are no means of establishing an entire accuracy in dates before the Olympiads. A posthumous work, which Usher left unfinished, was printed in 1660, under the title of Chronologia Sacra; it is considered a valuable production, as a guide to the study of sacred history, and as shewing the grounds and calculations of the principal epochs of the Annals.

JOHN HALES.

JOHN HALES (1584-1656), surnamed 'the Evermemorable,' is usually classed with Chillingworth, as a prominent defender of rational and tolerant principles in religion. He was highly distinguished for his knowledge of the Greek language, of which he was appointed professor at Oxford in 1612. Six years afterwards, he went to Holland as chaplain to Sir Dudley Carleton, he attended the meetings of the famous Synod of ambassador at the Hague; and on this occasion Dort, the proceedings of which are recorded in his held the Calvinistic opinions in which he had been published letters to Sir Dudley. Till this time, he educated; but the arguments of the Arminian champion Episcopius, urged before the synod, made him, according to his own expression, 'bid John Calvin good-night.' His letters from Dort memorial of the ignorance, and passion, and aniare characterised by Lord Clarendon as 'the best mosity, and injustice of that convention.' Although the eminent learning and abilities of Hales would certainly have led to high preferment in the church, he chose rather to live in studious retirement, and accordingly withdrew to Eton College, Sir Henry Saville as provost. Of this, after the where he had a private fellowship under his friend defeat of the royal party, he was deprived for refusing to take the 'engagement,' or oath of fidelity lished without a king or House of Lords. By to the Commonwealth of England, as then estabcutting off the means of subsistence, his ejection reduced him to such straits, that at length he was his library, on which he had expended £2500, for under the necessity of selling the greater part of less than a third of that sum.

This he did from a

spirit of independence which refused to accept the pecuniary bounty liberally offered by his friends. Besides sermons and miscellanies the former of which compose the chief portion of his works-he Schismatics (1628), in which the causes of religious wrote a famous Tract concerning Schism and disunion, and in particular the bad effects of episCopal ambition, are freely discussed. This tract having come to the hands of Archbishop Laud, addressed a letter in defence of it to the primate, who was an old acquaintance of the author, Hales who, having invited him to a conference, was so well satisfied, that he forced, though not without difficulty, a prebendal stall of Windsor on the The learning, abilities, and amiable disposition of acceptance of the needy but contented scholar. John Hales are spoken of in the highest terms, Dr Heylin, Andrew Marvel, and Bishop Stillingnot only by Clarendon, but by Bishop Pearson, fleet. He is styled by Anthony à Wood a walking library;' and Pearson considered him to be a man of as great a sharpness, quickness, and subtilty His industry did strive, if it were possible, to equal of wit, as ever this or perhaps any nation bred. the largeness of his capacity, whereby he became as great a master of polite, various, and universal learning, as ever yet conversed with books.'* His extensive knowledge he cheerfully communicated to others; and his disposition being liberal, obliging, and charitable, made him, in religious matters, a determined foe to intolerance, and, in society, a

Preface to The Golden Remains of the Ever-memorable Mr

John Hales, 1659.

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