and fincerely cultivated, to which your loving anfwer will oblige. May the God of the world preferve your majefty for ever in all health and profperity. In the month Gemad, 1774. to difplace thee from the throne whereon the king is established in my hearte. The royal partner of thy bofcm, the queen, may indeed be likened unto the world, for the encompaffeth ALLY, me round with fpies, who watche Governor of the city Tunis. out for my thoughts. And though I' A genuine letter from Jane Shore to king Edward the Fourth.-Taken from a very ancient history of Jane Shore. May it please my king and master, Ouchfafe to ftayne thy royal couch with the poor inklings of thy fervant and handmaide, whome, nathleffe, thou haft moft graciously daygned to raise unto thy royal couche, as Abraham did his handmaide Hagar; though I with not to share her misfortune, and to be driven from my mafter's prefence. Could my unworthy pen give a decent colouring to thy Jane's affection, then might words, whiche be the painting of thoughtes in the true hearte, do juftice to the loyal love the beareth unto thy worthy perfonne. But how can the black rivulet, which my pen is eager to drinke, be worthily enabled to exprefs, in becomynge terrmes, the ocean of love, that aboundythe in my true hearte! Woulde to my Savioure, that this ocean of love were not troubled with winds, which blow therein, and rayfe the waves of affiction within my moody foul.-I am encompaffed by three potent enemyes; albeit, not the flesh, the worlde, and the devil, unlefs lord Haftings be refembled to the firft, for he worketh to withdraw my love from thee, and in thy abfence --- will not be fo harshe in my thought or deed, to fay thy noble brother Gloucester be, in any fhape, like unto the devil, yet I do verily believe he be more dangeroufe than the other twain, though he beareth him towardly. There be fome, and divers fome, who fay he wifheth not well unto thy government, nay unto thy children.- -Among the reft, the noble lord Haftings doubted very much, and wifheth thee long to reign, in order that thou mayeft the better furvive to establish thy royal ifiue. Believe what I write cometh from my true heart's affection, and with comfort to the wounded fpirit of thy loyal fervant, JANE SHORE. unthinking part of it, has yet been graciously pleafed, by thy undeferved grace and mercy, to preferve me from the reigning errors and herefies, and the more deplorable apoftacy and infidelity of the prefent age, and enabled me to take a conftant and ftedfaft hold on the holy author of our falvation, thy ever adorable and divine Son Jefus Chrift, our powerful and meritorious redeemer, from whofe alone and all-powerful interceffion and merits, (and not from any the least inherent righteoufnefs of my own, which I heartily abhor as filthy rags in thine all-purer eyes) I hope and beg for pardon and reconciliation, and for a happy refurrection unto that bleffed immortality to which we are redeemed by his most precious and ineftimable blood. I likewife blefs and adore thy infinite goodness for preferving me from innumerable dangers of body and foul, to which this wretched life, but more particularly by my own youthful rafhnefs and inconfideration, might have expofed me, had not thy divine Providence interpofed in fuch a wonderful manner, as juftly challenges my deepest admiration and acknowledgment: particularly I am bound to bless thee for fo timely nipping that ambition and vain-glory, which had hurried me through fuch fcenes of impiety and hypocrify, and as the moft effectual antidote against it, next to thy divine grace, haft brought me not only to prefer, but to delight in a ftate of obfcurity and lowness of circumftances, as the fureft harbour of peace and fafety; by which, though the little I have left in my poffeffion, be dwindled to fo little value as to be but a poor ac 7 knowledgment for the fervices which I have received from my friend hereafter named, to whom I can do no less than bequeath it all, yet I hope the will may be accepted for the deed, and that the divine Providence will fupply to her what is wanting in me. And now, O Father of mercies, I befeech thee for thy dear Son's fake, fo to direct me by thy grace through all thefe future concerns of this life, that, when, where, or in what manner foever it fhall please thee to call me out of it, I may be found ready and willing to refign my foul, worthlefs as it is of itself, to thee who gavest it; and my death, as well as my latter end, fhall be fuch as may tend all poffible ways to thy glory, the edification of thy church, and my own eternal comfort. And in hopes there is nothing in this my laft will that is not ageeable to thine, I leave it to be executed after my death by my worthy and pious friend Sarah Rewalling, of this parish of St. Luke, in Middlefex, in the manner hereafter mentioned, viz. I defire that my body, when or wherever I die, may be kept fo long above ground, as decency or conveniency will permit, and afterwards conveyed to the common burying ground, and there interred in fome obfcure corner of it, without any farther ceremony or formality than is ufed to the hodies of the deceafed pensioners where I happen to die, and about the fame time of the day, and that the whole may be performed in the loweft and cheapest manner. And it is my earnest request that my body be not inclosed in any kind of coffin, but only decently laid in what is called a fhell, of the loweft value, and without lid or other other covering which may hinder the natural earth from covering it all round. honefty. It is true I have long fince difclaimed even publicly all but the fhame and guilt of that vile impofition; yet as long as I knew there were ftill editions of that fcandalous romance remaining in England, befides the feveral verfions it had abroad, I thought it incumbent on me to undeceive the world, by unravelling that whole myftery of iniquity in a pofthumous work, which would be lefs liable to fufpicion, as the author would be far out of the influ The books relating to the Univerfal Hiftory, and belonging to the proprietors, are to be returned to them according to the true lift of them, which will be found in a blue paper in my account-book; all the reft, being my own property, together with all my household goods, wearing apparel, and whatever money fhall be found due to me after my deceafe, I give and bequeath to my friend Sarah Re-ence of any finifter motives that walling above-named, above-named, together with fuch manufcripts as I had written at different times, and defigned to be made public, if they fhall be deemed worthy of it, they confifting of fundry effays on fome difficult parts of the Old Teftament, and chiefly written for the ufe of a young clergyman in the country, and fo unhappily unacquainted with that kind of learning, that he was likely to become the butt of his fceptical parifhioners, but being by this furnished with proper materials, was enabled to turn the tables upon thein. means But the principal manufcript I thought myfelf in duty bound to leave behind, is a faithful narrative of my education, and the fallies of my wretched youthful years, and the various ways by which I was in fome meature unavoidably led into the bafe and hameful impofture of paffing up on the world for a native of Formofa, a convert to Chriftianity, and backing it with a fictitious account of that ifland, and of my own travels, converfion, &c. all or most of it hatched in my own brain, without regard to truth and might induce him to deviate from the truth. All that I fhall add concerning it is, that it was begun above twenty-five years ago with that view, and no other, during a long recefs in the country, accompanied with a threatening dif eafe, and fince then continued in my moft ferious hours, as any thing new presented itself; so that it hath little elfe to recommend itfelf but its plainnefs and fincerity, except here and there fome ufeful obfervations and inuendos on those branches of learning in which I had been concerned, and particularly with fuch excellent improvements as might be made in the method of learning of Hebrew, and in producing a more perfect body of univerfal history, and more anfwerable to its title than that which hath already palled a fecond edition. And thefe, I thought, might be more deferving a place in that narrative, as the usefulness of them would, in a great measure, make amends for the fmall charge of the whole. If it therefore shall be judged worth printing, I defire it may be fold to the highest bidder, in order to pay my arrears for my lodgings, and to defray my fu neral; neral; and I farther request that it be printed in the plain and undifguifed manner in which I have written it, without alteration or embellishment. I hope the whole is written in the true fincere fpirit of a perfon awakened, by a miracle of mercy, unto a deep fenle of his folly, guilt, and danger, and is defirous, above all things, to give God the whole glory of fo gracious a change, and to thew the various fteps by which his divine Providence brought it about. The whole of the account contains 14 pages of preface, and about 93 more of the faid relation, written in my own hand with a proper title, and will be found in the deep drawer on the right hand of my white cabinet. However, if the obfcurity I have lived in, during fuch a feries of years, fhould make it needlefs to revive a thing in all likelihood fo long fince forgot, I cannot but with that fo much of it was published in fome weekly paper, as might inform the world, efpecially thofe who have ftill by them the above-mentioned fabulous account of the island of Formofa, &c. that I have long fince owned, both in converfation and in print, that it was no other than a mere forgery of my own devifing, a fcandalous impofition on the public, and fuch as I think myfelf bound to beg God and the world pardon for writing, and have been long fince, as I am to this day, and fhall be, as long as I live, heartily forry for, and ashamed of. Thefe I do hereby folemnly declare and teftify to be my laft will and teftament, and in witness there of have thereto set my name, on the 23d day of April, in the year character, and far lefs to the ambitious views his father had of difpofing of him in fuch a marriage, as would have been a confiderable addition to the fortune and grandeur of his illuftrious family. However difappointed the earl of Wharton might be in his fon's marrying beneath his quality, yet that amiable lady, who became his daughter-in-law, deferved infinitely more felicity than fhe met with by an alliance with his family; and the young lord was not fo unhappy through any mifconduct of bers, as by the death of his father, which this precipitate marriage is thought to have haftened. The duke being fo early freed from paternal reftraints, plunged himfelf into thofe numberlets exceffes, which became at laft fatal to him; and he proved, as Pope expreffes it, A tyrant to the wife his heart ap prov'd, A rebel to the very king he lov'd. The young lord, in the begin ning of the year 1716, indulged his defire of travelling, and finifhing his education abroad; and as he was defigned to be inftructed in the ftricteft Whig principles, Geneva was judged a proper place for his refidence. He took the route of Holland, and vifited feveral courts of Germany, that of Hanover in particular. The marquis being arrived at Geneva, he conceived fo great a difguft to the dogmatical precepts of his governor, that he fell upon a fcheme of avoiding thefe intolerable incumbrances, left him at Geneva, and fet out poft for Lyons, where he arrived about the middle of October, 1716. His lordship fomewhere or other had picked up a bear's cub, of which he was very fond, and car ried it about with him. But when he was determined to abandon his tutor, he left the cub behind him, with the following addrefs to him: "Being no longer able to bear with your ill ufage, I think proper to be gone from you; however, that you may not want company, I have left you the bear, as the most fuitable companion in the world, that could be picked out for you.” When the marquis was at Lyons, he took a very ftrange ftep, little expected from him. He wrote a letter to the chevalier de St. George, then refiding at Avignon, to whom he presented a very fine ftone horse. Upon receiving this prefent, the chevalier fent a man of quality to the marquis, who carried him privately to his court, where he was received with the greatest marks of efteem, and had the title of duke of Northumberland conferred upon him. He remained there, however, but one day, and then returned poft to Lyons, from whence he fet out for Paris. He likewife made a vifit to the queen dowager of England, confort to king James II. then refiding at St. Germains, to whom he paid his court, purfuing the fame rash measures as at Avignon. During his ftay at Paris, his winning addrefs, and aftonishing parts, gained him the esteem and admiration of all the British fubjects of both parties, who happened to be there. The earl of Stair, then, the English amballador there, not |