found, yet have extracted great varieties by that labour, excellent demonstrations by that work. It is the way in part to resume the image wee have lost, for that was not an outward figure, but a resemblance in virtue. If that similitude was laid in virtue, it cannot so aptly be repaired as by the imitation of the Deity, in whom the exactness of all virtue does remain. This help philosophy does give us in the speculation of eternity ;- and likewise it derives to our present view and prospect the knowledge of all antiquity, in what their happiness consisted, what were the ingredients of that compound, and how it was lost at first, whence the judgement may resolve, what is true happinesse to us." On the second head, however, Eliot immediately subjoins : - "But if so, - if philosophy and contemplation have this fruit, - that these degrees of happinesse be in them, and so direct a way to happinesse itself, how is it that we involve us in such toils, such anxieties and perplexities, to acquire it? It is a vanity, and folly, by such hard labour to effect, when a less trouble, a less travail, comes so near? If philosophy and contemplation can procure it, those sweet and gentle motions of the soul, what need the co-operations of the body, those actions and those passions, which virtue does require, and which so often force distraction, nay, destruction upon men? Yet they are needful, for without virtue, true happinesse cannot be, and these compose the other half of virtue. For contemplation and action make the whole. Virtue consists only in both, and in part there is no perfection. Therefore to contemplation, action also must be joined, to make a compleat virtue, and by that virtue only true happinesse may be had." And, careful not to be misunderstood in what he had said before of the supremacy of contemplation, he adds (with an intimation that he will discuss the matter more fully in a future treatise a project stopped by death!) that contemplation must be considered the chiefe, for "contemplation is the beginning of all action, the principle of that motion: action but a derivative of that, and no derivation can be equal to the primative, no second comparable with the first. All actions are but the emanation of the will, and the will receives her instance from the apprehension of the mind. But still," he adds, "both must

be concurrent. Virtue is a composition of them both. Contemplation must prepare the matter of our happinesse, action dispose, and order it."

Eliot's great purpose now accomplished, he closes his labours with an exalted eulogy on the Independence and Superiority of the Mind. I present it to the reader entire. It is worthy to have closed a work of such nobility in conception, and power in execution.

" This makes up that perfection of our monarchy - that happinesse of the mind, which, being founded upon these grounds, built upon these foundations, no power or greatness can impeach. Such is the state and majesty, that nothing can approach it, but by the admission of these servants; such is the safety and security, that nothing can violate or touch it, but by these instruments and organs; such is the power and dignity, that all things must obey it. All things are subject to the mind, which, in this temper, is the commander of them all. No resistance is against it. It breaks through the orbes and immense circles of the heavens, and penetrates down to the centre of the earth! It opens the fountains of antiquity, and runs down the streams of time, below the period of all seasons ! It dives into the dark counsels of eternity, and into the abstruse secrets of nature! It unlocks all places, and all occasions are alike obvious to it! It does observe those subtil passages in the air, and the unknown paths, and traces, in the deeps! There is that great power of operation in the mind, that quickness and velocity of motion, that in an instant it does passe from extremity to extremity, from the lowest to the highest, from the extremest point of the west, to the horoscope and ascendant in the east. It measures in one thought the whole circumference of heaven, and by the same line it takes the geography of the earth. The air, the fire, all things of either, are within the comprehension of the mind. It has an influence on them all, whence it takes all that may be useful, and that may be helpful in its government. No limitation is prescribed it, no restriction is upon it, but in a free scope it has liberty upon all. And in this liberty is the excellence of the mind, in this power and composition of the mind, is the perfection of the man,-in that perfection is the happinesse wee look for, - when in all sovereignty it reigns, comanding, not commanded, - when at home, the subjects are subject and obedient, not refractory and factious, when abroad, they are as servants, serviceable and in readiness, without hesitation or reluctance, when to the resolutions of the counsell, to the digests of the laws, the actions and affections are inclined - this is that summum bonum, and chiefe good, which in this state and condition is obtain'd! The mind for this has that transcendence given it, that man, though otherwise the weakest, might be the strongest and most excellent of all creatures. In that only is the excellence we have, and thereby are we made superior to the rest. For in the habits of the body, in all the faculties thereof, man is not comparable to others, in sense and motion far inferior to many. The ancients suppose it the indiscretion of Epimetheus, having the first distribution of the qualities, to leave us so defective, when to the rest he gave an excellence in their kinds. As swiftness and agility to some, strength and fortitude to others; and whom he found weakest, these he made most nimble, as in the fowls and others it is seen; and whom he found most slow, to these he gave most strength, as bulls and elephants do expresse it; and so all others in their kinds have some singularity and excellence, wherein there is a compensation for all wants; some being armed offensively and defensive, and in that having a provisional security. But man only he left naked, more unfurnished than the rest: in him there was neither strength nor agility, to preserve him from the danger of his enemies -multitudes exceeding him in either, many in both - to whom he stood obnoxious and exposed, having no resistance, no avoidance for their furies! But in this case and necessity, to relieve him upon this oversight and improvidence of Epimetheus, Prometheus, that wise statesman, whom Pandora could not cozen, having the present apprehension of the danger by his quick judgement and intelligence, secretly passes into heaven, steals out a fire from thence, infuses it into man, by that inflames his mind with a divine spirit and wisdom, and therein gives him a full supply for all! For all the excellence of the creatures he had a far more excellence in this. This one was for them all. No strength nor agility could match it. All motions and abilities came short of this perfection. The most

choice armes of nature, haue their superlative in its arts. All the arts of Vulcan and Minerva have their comparative herein. In this divine fire and spirit, this supernatural influence of the mind, all excellence organical is surpast; it is the transcendant of them all; nothing can come to match it; nothing can impeach it; but man therein is an absolute master of himself; his own safety and tranquility by God (for so we must remember the Ethicks did expresse it) are made dependant on himself. And in that self-dependance, in the neglect of others, in the entire rule and dominion of himself, the affections being composed, the actions so directed, is the perfection of our government, that summum bonum in philosophy, the bonum publicum in our policy, the true end and object of this MONARCHY OF MAN."

THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF
STRAFFORD.

1593-1641.

THOMAS WENTWORTH was born on the 13th of April, 1593, in Chancery-lane, at the house of his mother's father, Mr. Robert Atkinson, a bencher of Lincoln's Inn.1 He was the eldest of twelve children, and the heir of

an estate, which descended to him through a long train of ancestors, who had matched with many heiresses of the best families in the North, worth at that time 6000l. a year." 2 His father, sir William Wentworth, continued to hold a manor which his ancestors had held from the time of the Conquest downwards.3

The youth of Wentworth was passed, and his mind received its earliest and strongest impressions, in the midst of the aristocratic influences. And he was by no means taught to disregard them. He must have considered the various ramifications of the family pedigree with a very early pride and zeal, to have been so well prepared, on his sudden elevation to the peerage, with the formidable list of progenitors that were cited in his patent. It was there set forth, among other grand and notable things, that he was lineally descended from John of Gaunt, and from the ancient barons of Newmark, Oversley, and so forth; and that his ancestors, either by father or mother, had matched with divers houses of honour; as with Maud countess of