and goodness. But for all this, I must allow a great advantage to the gentleman; and therefore prefer his station, just as the apostle Paul, who after he had humbled the Jews, that insulted upon the Christians with their law and rites, gave them the advantage upon all other nations in statutes and judgments. I must grant that the condition of our great men is much to be preferred to the ranks of inferior people. For first, they have more power to do good; and if their hearts be equal to their ability, they are blessings to the people of any country. Secondly, the eyes of the people are usually directed to them; and if they will be kind, just, and helpful, they shall have their affections and services. Thirdly, they are not under equal straits with the inferior sort; and consequently they have more help, leisure, and occasion to polish their passions and tempers with books and conversation. Fourthly, they have more time to observe the actions of other nations; to travel and view the laws, customs, and interests of other countries; and bring home whatsoever is worthy or imitable. And so an easier way is open for great men to get honour; and such as love true reputation will embrace the best means to it. But because it too often happens that great men do little mind to give God the glory of their prosperity, and to live answerable to his mercies, but on the contrary live without God in the world, fulfilling the lusts thereof, his hand is often seen either in impoverishing or extinguishing them, and raising up men of more virtue and humility to their estates and dignity. However, I must allow that among people of this rank there have been some of them of more than ordinary virtue, whose examples have given light to their families. And it has been something natural for some of their descendants to endeavour to keep up the credit of their houses in proportion to the merit of their founder. And to say true, if there be any advantage in such descent, 'tis not from blood but education; for blood has no intelligence in it, and is often spurious and uncertain; but education has a mighty influence and strong bias upon the affections and actions of men. In this the ancient nobles and gentry of this kingdom did excel; and it were much to be wisht that our great people would set about to recover the ancient ceconomy of their houses, the strict and virtuous discipline of their ancestors, when men were honoured for their atchievements, and when nothing more exposed a man to shame than his being born to a nobility that he had not a virtue to support.

The following will show the style of the maxims in Fruits of Solitude, some 850 in number:

On Temperance.

To this a spare diet contributes much. Eat therefore to live and do not live to eat. That's like a man, but this below a beast.

Have wholesome but not costly food, and be rather cleanly than dainty in ordering it.

The receipts of cookery are swelled to a volume, but a good stomach excels them all; to which nothing contributes more than industry and temperance.

If thou rise with an appetite, thou art sure to sit down with one.

Rarely drink but when thou art dry; nor then between meals, if it can be avoided.

The smaller the drink the clearer the head and the cooler the blood; which are great benefits in temper and business.

Strong liquors are good at some times and in small proportions; being better for physic than food, for cordials than common use.

The most common things are the most useful; which shews both the wisdom and goodness of the great Lord of the family of the world.

All excess is ill, but drunkenness is the worst sort; it spoils the health, dismounts the mind, and unmans men; it reveals secrets, is quarrelsome, lascivious, impudent, dangerous, and mad; in fine, he that's drunk is not a man; because he is so long void of reason, that distinguishes a man from a beast.

Penn wrote in all over forty works and pamphlets, and his collected works (1726) fill three volumes. There are Lives by Clarkson (1813), Barker (1852), Janney (1852), Hepworth Dixon (new ed. 1856), Burdette (1882), Stoughton (new ed. 1883), Sparks, Draper, Bridges, and others. And see Mr Gosse's edition of Some Fruits of Solitude (1900).

Robert Barclay (1648-90), the apologist of the Quakers, was born at Gordonstown in Morayshire, the son of Colonel David Barclay, who had served under Gustavus Adolphus, and lost but recovered his estate under Charles II. Robert was educated at the Scots College at Paris, of which his uncle was rector, but withstood, not without difficulty, the temptation to become a Catholic, and returned to his native country in 1664. Two years afterwards his father made open profession of the principles of Quakerism; and in 1667, when only nineteen years of age, Robert Barclay became 'fully convinced,' as his friend William Penn has expressed it, and publicly owned the testimony of the true light.' His first defence of the new doctrines, Truth cleared of Calumnies (1670), was a reply to a book published in Aberdeen. In 1672 Barclay walked through the streets of Aberdeenunseasonably-clothed in sackcloth and ashes, and published a Seasonable Warning and Serious Exhortation to and Expostulation with the Inhabitants of Aberdeen. Other controversial treatises followed: A Catechism and Confession of Faith (1673), and The Anarchy of the Ranters (1676). His great work, originally written and published in 1676 in Latin, appeared in English in 1678, and is entitled An Apology for the true Christian Divinity, as the same is held forth and preached by the People called in scorn Quakers, &c. His appeal in it to the king had no effect in stopping persecution; for after Barclay's return from Holland and Germany, which he visited now and later in company with Fox and Penn, he was in 1677 imprisoned along with many other Quakers at Aberdeen, through the procurement of Archbishop Sharp. In prison he wrote a treatise on Universal Love. He was soon liberated, and subsequently gained favour at court. Both Penn and he were on terms of intimacy with James II.; and just before the sailing of the Prince of Orange for England in 1688, Barclay in a private conference with His Majesty urged James to make some concessions to the people. He was one of twelve Quakers who in 1682 acquired East New Jersey, and was thereafter appointed nominal governor, with power to appoint a deputy.

He lived latterly at his seat of dineshire; and there too he died.

Urie in KincarThe Apology is a learned and methodical treatise, and it was read with avidity both in Britain and on the Continent. Dignified and impressive in style, it was a serious contribution to theology, though, as its name imports, it was designed specifically as an apologia, and not as a compendium of all the doctrines of the Friends. Its most characteristic theological feature is the proof that there is an internal light in man, which is better fitted to guide him aright in religious matters than even the Scriptures themselves; the genuine doctrines of which he asserts to be rendered uncertain by various readings in different manuscripts, and the fallibility of translators and interpreters :

I all these and much more which might be alleged, say, put the minds even of the learned into infinite doubts, scruples, and inextricable difficulties; whence we may very safely conclude that Jesus Christ, who promised to be always with his children, to lead them into all truth, to guard them against the devices of the enemy, and to establish their faith upon an unmovable rock, left them not to be principally ruled by that which was subject in itself to many uncertainties; and therefore he gave them his Spirit as their principal guide, which neither moths nor time can wear out, nor transcribers nor translators corrupt; which none are so young, none so illiterate, none in so remote a place, but they may come to be reached and rightly informed by it.

The dedication of the Apology to King Charles II. has always been admired for its respectful yet manly freedom of style, and for the frankness and kindliness of its allusions to His Majesty's own early troubles, as a reason for his extending mercy and favour to the persecuted Quakers :

Thou hast tasted of prosperity and adversity; thou knowest what it is to be banished thy native country, to be over-ruled as well as to rule and sit upon the throne; and being oppressed, thou hast reason to know how hateful the oppressor is to both God and man: if after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord with all thy heart, but forget him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy condemnation.

Against Titles of Honour.

As for the first, we affirm positively that it is not lawful for Christians either to give or receive these titles of honour, as Your Holiness, Your Majesty, Your Excellency, Your Eminence, &c. First, because these titles are no part of that obedience which is due to magistrates or superiors; neither doth the giving them add to or diminish from that subjection we owe to them, which consists in obeying their just and lawful commands, not in titles and designations. Secondly, we find not that in the Scripture any such titles are used, either under the law or the gospel; but that, in speaking to kings, princes, or nobles they used only a simple compellation, as, O King! and that without any further designation, save perhaps the name of the person, as, O King Agrippa, &c. Thirdly, it lays a necessity upon Christians most

frequently to lie; because the persons obtaining these titles, either by election or hereditarily, may frequently be found to have nothing really in them deserving them or answering to them: as some to whom it is said, Your Excellency, having nothing of excellency in them; and he who is called Your Grace appears to be an enemy to grace; and he who is called Your Honour is known to be base and ignoble. I wonder what law of man or what patent ought to oblige me to make a lie, in calling good evil, and evil good. I wonder what law of man can secure me in so doing from the just judgment of God, that will make me account for every idle word. And to lie is something more. Surely Christians should be ashamed that such laws, manifestly crossing the law of God, should be among them. ...

Fourthly, as to those titles of Holiness, Eminency, and Excellency, used among the Papists to the pope and cardinals, &c.; and Grace, Lordship, and Worship, used to the clergy among the Protestants, it is a most blasphemous usurpation. For if they use Holiness and Grace because these things ought to be in a pope or in a bishop, how came they to usurp that peculiarly to themselves? Ought not holiness and grace to be in every Christian? And so every Christian should say Your Holiness and Your Grace one to another. Next, how can they in reason claim any more titles than were practised and received by the apostles and primitive Christians, whose successors they pretend they are; and as whose successors (and no otherwise) themselves, I judge, will confess any honour they seek is due to them? Now if they neither sought, received, nor admitted such honour nor titles, how came these by them? If they say they did, let them prove it if they can we find no such thing in the Scripture. The Christians speak to the apostles without any such denomination, neither saying, If it please your Grace, Your Holiness, nor Your Worship; they are neither called My Lord Peter, nor My Lord Paul; nor yet Master Peter, nor Master Paul; nor Doctor Peter, nor Doctor Paul; but singly Peter and Paul; and that not only in the Scripture, but for some hundreds of years after: so that this appears to be a manifest fruit of the apostacy. For if these titles arise either from the office or worth of the persons, it will not be denied but the apostles deserved them better than any now that call for them. But the case is plain; the apostles had the holiness, the excellency, the grace; and because they were holy, excellent, and gracious, they neither used nor admitted such titles; but these having neither holiness, excellency, nor grace, will needs be so called to satisfy their ambitious and ostentatious mind, which is a manifest token of their hypocrisy.

Fifthly, as to that title of Majesty usually ascribed to princes, we do not find it given to any such in the Holy Scripture; but that it is specially and peculiarly ascribed unto God. . . . We find in the Scripture the proud king Nebuchadnezzar assuming this title to himself, who at that time received a sufficient reproof by a sudden judg ment which came upon him. Therefore in all the compellations used to princes in the Old Testament it is not to be found, nor yet in the New. Paul was very civil to Agrippa, yet he gives him no such title. Neither was this title used among Christians in the primitive times. Hence the Ecclesiastical History of the Reformation of France, relating the speech of the Lord Rochefort at the assembly of the estates of France held under Charles the Ninth in the year 1560, saith, That this harangue was

well remarked in that he used not the word Majesty, invented by flatterers of late years.' And yet this author [Beza] minded not how his master Calvin used this flattering title to Francis the First, King of France; and not only so, but calls him Most Christian King in the epistle to his Institutions; though by his daily persecuting of the Reformers it was apparent he was far from such even in Calvin's own esteem. Surely the complying with such vain titles, imposed and introduced by Antichrist, greatly tended to stain the Reformation and to render it defective in many things.

Barclay's Apology and Catechism have been often reprinted; his works were collected in 1692 (1 vol. folio), and republished in 1718.

Thomas Ellwood (1639–1713), Milton's Quaker friend, was born at Crowell in Oxford of good family, was educated mainly at the Free School of Thame, and till his conversion to Quakerism in 1659 was a sprightly and rather foppish youth: 'taking my swing,' as he writes, 'in all such vain courses as were accounted harmless recreations.' His father, as averse to the new creed as Admiral Penn, sometimes beat him with great severity, particularly when the son persisted in remaining covered in his presence. In a succession of embarrassing interviews, Squire Ellwood knocked or 'tore violently' off Thomas's head all the young man's hats, one after the other; and he seems to have been well provided. But there remained another cause of offence:

Whenever I had occasion to speak to my father, though I had no hat now to offend him, yet my language did as much; for I durst not say 'you' to him, but 'thou' or 'thee,' as the occasion required, and then he would be sure to fall on me with his fists. At one of these times, I remember, when he had beaten me in that manner, he commanded me, as he commonly did at such times, to go to my chamber, which I did, and he followed me to the bottom of the stairs. Being come thither, he gave me a parting blow, and in a very angry tone said: 'Sirrah, if ever I hear you say thou or thee to me again, I'll strike your teeth down your throat.' I was greatly grieved to hear him say so, and feeling a word rise in my heart unto him, I turned again, and calmly said unto 'Should it not be just if God should serve thee so, when thou sayest "thou" or "thee" to him?' Though his hand was up, I saw it sink, and his countenance fall, and he turned away, and left me standing there.

him:

Ellwood is specially interesting as having been a pupil of Milton, and one of those who read to the blind poet in 1662; his services as reader securing from Milton in return guidance in his own studies for two months, until they were ended by illness and a succession of imprisonments. His later life was largely spent in controversy and in suffering persecution, mainly for refusing to take the oath of allegiance. The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood: written by his own hand, but completed by a friend, was first published in 1714; and often republished (5th ed. 1855; ed. by Henry Morley, 1885; by C. G. Crump in 1900). Ellwood furnishes interesting facts about the London prisons, in which he and many of his brother Quakers were confined, and the manner in which they were

treated both there and out of doors. It is melancholy to note how very few of all the miseries of their lives would have befallen them, or how swiftly they could have been got over, had the Quakers been able to make the merely formal concession required of them-on the hat question and the thou question at home, and about taking of the oath of allegiance when brought before the magistrates. Though as a Quaker faithful unto the utmost extremity, Ellwood evidently found the old man' in him asserting itself pretty often in the way of righteous indignation and the impulse to strenuous self-defence; and unlike the stricter Friends, he had no scruples about providing for the defence of himself and comrades before the law-courts by help of professional lawyers. Besides his own Life, Ellwood wrote a score of controversial treatises, including A Seasonable Dissuasive from Persecution, A Fair Examination of a Foul Paper, Truth Defended, Sacred Histories of the Old and New Testaments, and more than one volume of poems, including a Davideis in five books. He edited the Journal of his friend George Fox.

In his Life he describes his intercourse with Milton, whose literary standing he defines in a sufficiently surprising manner, and expounds the poet's insistence on a quite un-English and a specifically Italian pronunciation of Latin:

Milton as Latin Tutor.

I mentioned before that when I was a boy I had made some good progress in learning, and lost it all again before I came to be a man; nor was I rightly sensible of my loss therein till I came among the Quakers. But then I both saw my loss and lamented it; and applied myself with utmost diligence at all leisure times to recover it; so false I found that charge to be which in these times was cast as a reproach upon the Quakers, that they despised and decried all human learning, because they denied it to be necessary to a gospel ministry, which was one of the controversies of those times. But though I toiled hard and spared no pains to regain what once I had been master of, yet I found it a matter of so great difficulty that I was ready to say as the noble eunuch to Philip in another case, 'How can I, unless I had some man to guide me?' This I had formerly complained of to my especial friend Isaac Pennington, but now more earnestly, which put him upon considering and contriving a means for my assistance.

He had an intimate acquaintance with Dr Paget, a physician of note in London, and he with John Milton, a gentleman of great note throughout the learned world for the accurate pieces he had written on various subjects and occasions. This person, having filled a public station in the former times, lived now a private and retired life in London, and having wholly lost his sight kept always a man to read to him, which usually was the son of some gentleman of his acquaintance, whom in kindness he took to improve in his learning. Thus by the mediation of my friend Isaac Pennington with Dr Paget, and of Dr Paget with John Milton, was I admitted to come to him, not as a servant (which at that time he needed not), nor to be in the house with him, but only to have the liberty

He received me courteously, as well for the sake of Dr Paget, who introduced me, as of Isaac Pennington, who recommended me, to both of whom he bore a good respect; and having inquired divers things of me, with respect to my former progressions in learning, he dismissed me, to provide myself of such accommodations as might be most suitable to my future studies. I went, therefore, and took myself a lodging as near to his house (which was then in Jewyn Street) as conveniently I could; and from thenceforward went every day in the afternoon, except on the first days of the week; and sitting by him in his dining-room, read to him such books, in the Latin tongue, as he pleased to hear me read.

At my first sitting to read to him, observing that I used the English pronunciation, he told me if I would have the benefit of the Latin tongue, not only to read and understand Latin authors, but to converse with foreigners, either abroad or at home, I must learn the foreign pronunciation. To this I consenting, he instructed me how to sound the vowels, so different from the common pronunciation used by the English (who speak Anglice their Latin) that, with some few other variations in sounding some consonants, in particular cases-as C before E or I, like Ch; Sc before I, like Sh, &c.-the Latin thus spoken seemed as different from that which was delivered as the English generally speak it, as if it was another language. I had before, during my retired life at my father's, by unwearied diligence and industry so far recovered the rules of grammar, in which I had once been very ready, that I could both read a Latin author, and after a sort hammer out his meaning. But this change of pronunciation proved a new difficulty to me. It was now harder to me to read than it was before to under

stand when read. But Labor omnia vincit improbus'Incessant pains the end obtains.' And so did I, which made my reading the more acceptable to my master. He on the other hand perceiving with what earnest desire I pursued learning, gave me not only all the encouragement but all the help he could; for having a curious ear, he understood by my tone when I understood what I read, and when I did not; and accordingly would stop me, examine me, and open the most difficult passages to me. . . .

Some little time before I went to Aylesbury prison, I was desired by my quondam master, Milton, to take a house for him in the neighbourhood where I dwelt, that he might get out of the city for the safety of himself and his family, the pestilence then growing hot in London (1665). I took a pretty box for him in Giles Chalfont a mile from me, of which I gave him notice, and intended to have waited on him and seen him well settled in it, but was prevented by that imprisonment. But now being released and returned home, I soon made a visit to him to welcome him into the country. After some common discourses had passed between us, he called for a manuscript of his, which being brought he delivered to me, bidding me to take it home with me and read it at my leisure, and when I had so done, return it to him, with my judgment thereupon. When I came home and had set myself to read it, I found it was that excellent poem which he entituled Paradise Lost. After I had with the best attention read it through, I made him another visit and returned him his book, with due

acknowledgment for the favour he had done me in communicating it to me. He asked me how I liked it, and what I thought of it, which I modestly but freely told him; and after some further discourse about it, I pleasantly said to him: 'Thou hast said much here of Paradise lost; but what hast thou to say of Paradise found?' He made me no answer, but sat some time in a muse; then brake off that discourse, and fell upon another subject.

After the sickness was over, and the city well cleansed, and become safely habitable again, he returned thither. And when afterwards I went to wait on him there, which I seldom failed of doing whenever my occasions drew me to London, he shewed me his second poem, called Paradise Regained, and in a pleasant tone said to me: 'This is owing to you, for you put it into my head at Chalfont; which before I had not thought of.'

Dr Thomas Sprat, Bishop of Rochester (16351713), was praised by Dr Johnson as an author whose pregnancy of imagination and eloquence of language have deservedly set him high in the ranks of literature.' Lord Macaulay also eulogised him as a very great master of our language, and possessed at once of the eloquence of the orator, the controversialist, and the historian.' Born at Beaminster in Dorset, at Wadham College, Oxford, he studied mathematics under its warden, Dr Wilkins, in whose house scientific inquirers used to meet. Sprat's intimacy with Wilkins led to his election in 1663 as a member of the Royal Society; and in 1667 he published the history of that learned body, with the object of dissipating the prejudice and suspicion with which it was regarded by the public. Ordained in 1661, he was appointed chaplain to the Duke of Buckingham, whom he is said to have aided in writing the Rehearsal; in 1676 he was made chaplain to the king. Successively Canon of Westminster (1669), Canon of Windsor (1681), and Dean of Westminster (1683), he obtained the see of Rochester in 1684 Next year, by command of King Charles, he published an account of the Ryehouse Plot, for which, after the Revolution, he printed an apology; but having submitted to the new government, he was allowed, notwithstanding his attachment to the abdicated monarch, to remain unmolested in his bishopric. In 1692 he was falsely charged with joining in a conspiracy for the restoration of James, but cleared himself after a confinement of eleven days. In his earlier days Sprat wrote poems long included in collections of poetry-one on the death of the Protector (1658), and a Pindaric Ode on the Plague of Athens (1659). His reply to Sorbières' Voyage en Angleterre (1663) was a defence of England and Englishmen, ‘full of just satire and ingenuity,' as Addison said. But his best-known work was his History of the Royal Society. The Life of his friend Cowley (1667) Dr Johnson called 'a funeral oration rather than a biography. Two collections of sermons (1697 and 1710) were popular: 'his language,' said Doddridge, 'is always beautiful.' Sprat was

over-much given to hospitality, and over-profuse in expenditure.

God revealed in Experimental Philosophy. We are guilty of false interpretations of providences and wonders, when we either make those to be miracles that are none, or when we put a false sense on those that are real; when we make general events to have a private aspect, or particular accidents to have some universal signification. Though both these may seem at first to have the strictest appearance of religion, yet they are the greatest usurpations on the secrets of the Almighty, and unpardonable presumptions on his high prerogatives of punishment and reward.

And now, if a moderating of these extravagances must be esteemed profaneness, I profess I cannot absolve the experimental philosopher. It must be granted that he will be very scrupulous in believing all manner of commentaries on prophetical visions, in giving liberty to new predictions, and in assigning the causes and marking out the paths of God's judgments amongst his creatures.

He cannot suddenly conclude all extraordinary events to be the immediate finger of God; because he familiarly beholds the inward workings of things, and thence perceives that many effects, which use to affright the ignorant, are brought forth by the common instruments of nature. He cannot be suddenly inclined to pass censure on men's eternal condition from any temporal judgments that may befall them; because his long converse with all matters, times, and places has taught him the truth of what the Scripture says, that 'all things happen alike to all.' He cannot blindly consent to all imaginations of devout men about future contingencies, seeing he is so rigid in examining all particular matters of fact. He cannot be forward to assent to spiritual raptures and revelations; because he is truly acquainted with the tempers of men's bodies, the composition of their blood, and the power of fancy, and so better understands the difference between diseases and inspirations.

But in all this he commits nothing that is irreligious. 'Tis true, to deny that God has heretofore warned the world of what was to come, is to contradict the very Godhead itself; but to reject the sense which any private man shall fasten to it, is not to disdain the Word of God, but the opinions of men like ourselves. To declare against the possibility that new prophets may be sent from heaven, is to insinuate that the same infinite Wisdom which once shewed itself that way is now at an end. But to slight all pretenders that come without the help of miracles, is not a contempt of the Spirit, but a just circumspection that the reason of men be not overreached. To deny that God directs the course of human things is stupidity; but to hearken to every prodigy that men frame against their enemies, or for themselves, is not to reverence the power of God, but to make that serve the passions, the interests, and revenges of men.

It is a dangerous mistake into which many good men fall, that we neglect the dominion of God over the world if we do not discover in every turn of human actions many supernatural providences and miraculous events. Whereas it is enough for the honour of his government that he guides the whole creation in its wonted course of causes and effects: as it makes as much for the reputation of a prince's wisdom, that he can rule his subjects peaceably by his known and standing laws, as that he is

often forced to make use of extraordinary justice to punish or reward.

Let us then imagine our philosopher to have all slowness of belief and rigour of trial, which by some is miscalled a blindness of mind and hardness of heart. Let us suppose that he is most unwilling to grant that anything exceeds the force of nature but where a full evidence convinces him. Let it be allowed that he is always alarmed, and ready on his guard, at the noise of any miraculous event, lest his judgment should be sur prised by the disguises of faith. But does he by this diminish the authority of ancient miracles? or does he not rather confirm them the more, by confining their number, and taking care that every falsehood should not mingle with them? Can he by this undermine Christianity, which does not now stand in need of such extraordinary testimonies from heaven? or do not they rather endanger it who still venture its truths on so hazardous a chance, who require a continuance of signs and wonders, as if the works of our Saviour and his apostles had not been sufficient? Who ought to be esteemed the most carnally minded-the enthusiast that pollutes religion with his own passions, or the experi menter that will not use it to flatter and obey his own desires, but to subdue them? Who is to be thought the greatest enemy of the gospel-he that loads men's faiths by so many improbable things as will go near to make the reality itself suspected, or he that only admits a few arguments to confirm the evangelical doctrines, but then chooses those that are unquestionable?

By this I hope it appears that this inquiring, this scrupulous, this incredulous temper, is not the disgrace but the honour of experiments. And therefore I will declare them to be the most seasonable study for the present temper of our nation. This wild amusing men's minds with prodigies and conceits of providence has been one of the most considerable causes of those spiritual distractions of which our country has long been the theatre. This is a vanity to which the English seem to have been always subject above others. There is scarce any modern historian that relates our foreign wars but he has this objection against the disposition of our countrymen, they used to order their affairs of the greatest importance according to some obscure omens or predictions that passed amongst them on little or no foundations. And at this time, especially this last year [1666], this gloomy and ill-boding humour has prevailed. So that it is now the fittest season for experiments to arise, to teach us a wisdom which springs from the depths of knowledge, to shake off the shadows and to scatter the mists which fill the minds of men with a vain consternation. This is a work well becoming the most Christian profession. For the most apparent effect which attended the passion of Christ was the putting of an eternal silence on all the false oracles and dissembled inspirations of ancient times.

Cowley's Love of Retirement.

Upon the king's happy restoration, Mr Cowley was past the fortieth year of his age; of which the greatest part had been spent in a various and tempestuous condition. He now thought he had sacrificed enough of his life to his curiosity and experience. He had enjoyed many excellent occasions of observation. He had been present in many great revolutions, which in that tumultuous time disturbed the peace of all our neighbour