states as well as our own. He had nearly beheld all the splendour of the highest part of mankind. He had lived in the presence of princes, and familiarly conversed with greatness in all its degrees, which was necessary for one that would contemn it aright; for to scorn the pomp of the world before a man knows it, does commonly proceed rather from ill-manners than a true magnanimity.

He was now weary of the vexations and formalities of an active condition. He had been perplexed with a long compliance to foreign manners. He was satiated with the arts of court; which sort of life though his virtue had made innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. These were the reasons that moved him to forego all public employments, and to follow the violent inclination of his own mind, which in the greatest throng of his former business had still called upon him and represented to him the true delights of solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and of a moderate revenue below the malice and flatteries of fortune.

In his last seven or eight years he was concealed in his beloved obscurity, and possessed that solitude which from his very childhood he had always most passionately desired. Though he had frequent invitations to return into business, yet he never gave ear to any persuasions of profit or preferment. His visits to the city and court were very few; his stays in town were only as a passenger, not an inhabitant. The places that he chose for the seats of his declining life were two or three villages on the bank of the Thames. During this recess, his mind was rather exercised on what was to come than what was past; he suffered no more business nor cares of life to come near him than what were enough to keep his soul awake, but not to disturb it. Some few friends and books, a cheerful heart and innocent conscience, were his constant companions.

I acknowledge he chose that state of life not out of any poetical rapture, but upon a steady and sober experience of human things. But, however, I cannot applaud it in him. It is certainly a great disparagement to virtue and learning itself, that those very things which only make men useful in the world should incline them to leave it. This ought never to be allowed to good men, unless the bad had the same moderation, and were willing to follow them into the wilderness. But if the one shall contend to get out of employment, while the other strive to get into it, the affairs of mankind are like to be in so ill a posture, that even the good men themselves will hardly be able to enjoy their very retreats in security.

Lady Rachel Russell by her letters secured a place in literature, though less lofty than the niche in history she won by heroism and wifely love. Rachel Wriothesley (1636-1723) was the second daughter and co-heiress of the Earl of Southampton. In 1669, when widow of Lord Vaughan, she married Lord William Russell, the third son of the first Duke of Bedford. She was her second husband's senior by three years, yet her amiable and prudent character was said to have reclaimed him from the youthful follies into which he had plunged at the time of the Restoration. His later political career is known to every reader of English history. If ever a man

opposed the course of a government in a pure and unselfish spirit, that man was Lord William Russell. The suspicious correspondence with Barillon (see the section on ALGERNON SIdney, Vol. I. page 715) leaves him unsullied, for the ambassador distinctly mentions Russell and Lord Holles as two who would not accept bribes. When brought to trial (July 1683), under the same circumstances as those which have been related in Sidney's case—with a packed jury and a brutal judge-and refused a counsel to conduct his defence, the only grace that was allowed him was to have an amanuensis. When Lord Russell asked, 'May I have somebody to write, to assist my memory?' the Attorney-General answered, 'Yes, a servant;' and the Lord ChiefJustice added, 'Any of your servants shall assist you in writing anything you please for you.' But Lord Russell proudly replied, 'My wife is here, my lord, to do it.' And when the spectators turned their eyes and beheld the devoted lady rising to aid her lord in his uttermost distress, a thrill of sympathy ran through the assembly. Lady Russell, after the condemnation of her husband, personally pled for his pardon, but in vain. He loved her as such a wife deserved to be loved; and on taking his final farewell of her, said, 'The bitterness of death is now past!' Fifty years after Lady Russell's death appeared that collection of her Letters which entitled her to a place in our literary history. Dr Fitzwilliam, her father's chaplain, became Canon of Windsor. Lord William Cavendish, afterwards second Duke of Devonshire, married Lady Russell's daughter. Henri Massue de Ruvigny, Lady Russell's cousin, was a Huguenot noble (son of a French ambassador) who settled in England on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, took service under William III., and was made Viscount (1692) and Earl (1697) of Galway.

To Dr Fitzwilliam.

As you profess, good Doctor, to take pleasure in your writings to me, from the testimony of a conscience to forward my spiritual welfare, so do I to receive them as one to me of your friendship in both worldly and spiritual concernments; doing so, I need not waste my time nor yours to tell you they are very valuable to me. That you are so contented to read mine, I make the just allowance for; not for the worthiness of them, I know it cannot be; but however, it enables me to keep up an advantageous conversation without scruple of being too troublesome. You say something sometimes, by which I should think you seasoned or rather tainted with being so much where compliment or praising is best learned; but I conclude that often what one heartily wishes to be in a friend, one is apt to believe is so. The effect is not nought towards me, whom it animates to have a true, not false title to the least virtue you are disposed to attribute to me. Yet I am far from such a vigour of mind as surmounts the secret discontent so hard a destiny as mine has fixt in my breast; but there are times the mind can hardly feel displeasure as while such friendly conversation entertaineth it; then a grateful sense moves one to express the courtesie.

If I could contemplate the conducts of Providence with the uses you do, it would give ease indeed, and no disas trous events should much affect us. The new scenes of each day make me often conclude myself very void of temper and reason, that I still shed tears of sorrow and not of joy, that so good a man is landed safe on the happy shore of a blessed eternity; doubtless he is at rest, tho' I find none without him, so true a partner he was in all my joys and griefs; I trust the Almighty will pass by this my infirmity; I speak it in respect to the world, from whose enticing delights I can now be better weaned. I was too rich in possessions whilst I possest him: all relish is now gone, I bless God for it, and pray, and ask of all good people (do it for me from such you know are so) also to pray that I may more and more turn the stream of my affections upwards, and set my heart upon the ever-satisfying perfections of God; not starting at his darkest providences, but remembering continually either his glory, justice, or power is advanced by every one of them, and that mercy is over all his works, as we shall one day with ravishing delight see in the mean time, I endeavour to suppress all wild imaginations a melancholy fancy is apt to let in, and say with the man in the gospel: 'I believe; help thou my unbelief.' . . . WOBORNE ABBY, 27th Novr. 1685.

To Lord Cavendish.

...

Tho' I know my letters do Lord Cavendish no service, yet as a respect I love to pay him, and to thank him also for his last from Limbeck, I had not been so long silent, if the death of two persons both very near and dear to me had not made me so uncomfortable to myself, that I knew I was utterly unfit to converse where I would never be ill company. The separation of friends is grievous. My sister Mountague was one I loved tenderly; my Lord Gainsborough was the only son of a sister I loved with too much passion: they both deserved to be remembered kindly by all that knew them. They both began their race long after me, and I hoped should have ended it so too; but the great and wise Disposer of all things, and who knows where 'tis best to place his creatures, either in this or in the other world, has ordered it otherwise. The best improvement we can make in these cases, and you, my dear Lord, rather than I, whose glass runs low, while you are young, and I hope have many happy years to come, is, I say, that we should all reflect there is no passing thro' this to a better world without some crosses; and the scene sometimes shifts so fast, our course of life may be ended before we think we have gone half-way; and that a happy eternity depends on our spending well or ill that time allotted us here for probation.

Live virtuously, my lord, and you can't dye too soon, nor live too long. I hope the last shall be your lot, with many blessings attending it.

29th October 1690.

To the Earl of Galway.

I have before me, my good lord, two of your letters, both partially and tenderly kind, and coming from a sincere heart and honest mind (the last a plain word, but, if I mistake not, very significant) are very comfortable to me, who, I hope, have no proud thoughts of myself as to any sort. The opinion of an esteemed friend, that one is not very wrong, assists to strengthen a weak and willing mind to do her duty towards that

Almighty Being who has from infinite bounty and goodness so checkered my days on this earth, as I can thankfully reflect I felt many, I may say as many years of pure and (I trust) innocent, pleasant content, and happy enjoyments as this world can afford, particularly that biggest blessing of loving and being loved by those I loved and respected; on earth no enjoyment certainly to be put in the ballance with it. All other are like wine, which intoxicates for a time, but the end is bitterness, at least not profitable. Mr Waller, whose picture you look upon, has, I long remember, these words:

'All we know they do above

Is that they sing and that they love.'

The best news I have heard is, you have two good companions with you, which I trust will contribute to divert you this sharp season, when, after so sore a fit as I apprehend you have felt, the air even of your improving pleasant garden can't be enjoyed without hazard. [1712.]

Richard Cumberland (1631-1718), born at London, and educated at St Paul's and at Cambridge, held various cures from 1658, and was raised by King William to the see of Peterborough in 1691. He had published, in 1672, a Latin work, De Legibus Naturæ Disquisitio Philosophica, 'A Philosophical Inquiry into the Laws of Nature; in which their form, order, promulgation, and obligation are investigated from the nature of things; and in which also the philosophical principles of Hobbes, moral as well as civil, are considered and refuted.' This erudite but verbose treatise expounds some novel views, and lays down a distinctly utilitarian criterion in ethics. The laws of nature he deduces from the results of human conduct, regarding that to be commanded by God which conduces to the happiness of man. The public good is the summum bonum, and 'universal benevolence' the fountain of all virtue. He wrote also a learned essay on Jewish Weights and Measures (1686), dedicated— oddly enough to his friend Samuel Pepys, then President of the Royal Society; and a translation of Sanchoniatho's Phænician History (translated from Eusebius, with disquisitions; not published till 1720). He was a really learned man and an acute thinker, but at best a poor writer: his sentences are involved; he lacks humour and vivacity, grace and point; and his works are hopelessly tedious even where most suggestive. In the performance of his Episcopal duties he displayed rare activity, moderation, and benevolence. When expostulated with by friends about his too great labours, he replied with the now proverbial maxim, 'I will do my duty as long as I can; a man had better wear out than rust out.' Yet he lived to the age of eighty-six, in the enjoyment of such mental vigour that he successfully studied Coptic only three years before his death. The dramatist who bore the bishop's name was his great-grandson.

There is a Life by Payne prefixed to the Sanchoniathon (1720). The De Legibus was twice translated (by Meacock in 1727, by Towers in 1750).

Tate and Brady, if they resemble Beaumont and Fletcher in nothing else, are in the mouths and memories of Englishmen as inseparably associated; it is impossible to say Tate without thinking Brady. The rather uninspired pair in whose 'New Version' the English Church and people sang the Psalms of David for more than a hundred years were both Irish-born; one was wholly, the other partly, educated in Ireland.

Nahum

Tate (1652-1715), son of a Dublin clergyman, was educated at Trinity College. He succeeded Shadwell as poet-laureate in 1690, in 1702 became also historiographer-royal, and is described by Oldys as 'a free, good-natured, fuddling companion.' His writings include ten dramatic pieces-one named from the mythical Brutus of Alba; adaptations of Shakespeare's Richard II. and Lear, and of plays by Chapman, Fletcher, and Marston. Addison denounced Tate's perversion of Lear, Johnson defended it, and it kept the stage till well into the nineteenth century. Other publications were Poems on Several Occasions (1677) and Panacea or a Poem on Tea. He wrote a second part of Absalom and Achitophel, with a very successful imitation of Dryden's manner; and two hundred lines of the continuation and many passages here and there seem to have been actually added by Dryden himself. Tate did much work in collaboration with others, and executed some translations for the booksellers. His poetical taste may be judged by his translation, with high commendation, of the extraordinary poem of Fracastoro, Syphilidis sive Morbi Gallici Libri Tres, which enriched medical science with a new term. Early poems contain verses on subjects as unscriptural as a beldame song, a bawd who sat for her picture, skating (Sliding on Skates in Hard Frost), Lesbia's sparrow from Catullus, and drunken-amorous adventures from Propertius; and some of his verses are far from contemptible. But his name survives solely by the metrical version of the Psalms (1696), executed in conjunction with Nicholas Brady, which gradually supplanted the older version of Sternhold and Hopkins (see Vol. I. .p. 150). The work as a whole was poor, but portions are not without poetic quality. The Supplement to the New Version (1703) was possibly the work of Tate alone; one thing in it, 'While shepherds watched,' has travelled over the Christian world. As pants the hart' is a rendering far above the usual level. Southey ranks Tate as poorest of the laureates after Shadwell; Ralph and Austin thought Eusden and Pye had a prior claim to come next Shadwell. Tate died in hiding from his creditors.

The following is in quite a different rhythm and tone from the Psalms:

On a Diseased Old Man who Wept at the Thought of Leaving the World. Shame on thy Beard! that thou canst Bug-bears dread, Fear Death whom thou so oft hast seen, So oft his Guest at Funerals hast been;

Thy self, I mean thy Better Half, already Dead!
The Tears were just which at thy Birth did flow,
For then, alass! thou cams't t'engage

The Miseries of Life, but now
Thou art allowed to quit the Tragick Stage;
Now to be careful to prolong the scene,

And act thy Troubles o'er agen,

Is Folly not to be forgiv'n even in thy doating Age.

Can Cramps, Catarrhs, and Palsies be
Such charming Company?

What Pleasures can the grave deprive
Thy Senses of? what Inconvenience give,
From which thou art exempted while alive?
At worst thou canst but have

Cold lodging in the grave,
Nor ly'st thou warmer now, tho' cover'd o'er
In Furr, till thy faint limbs can bear no more.

Thou sleeps't each night in so much Sear-cloth bound, Thou 'dst need no more to lodge thee underground.

Nicholas Brady (1659-1726), born at Bandor, was educated at Westminster, Christ Church (Oxford), and Dublin, and held from 1696 to his death the living of Richmond, along with Stratfordon-Avon and Clapham in succession. He also kept a school at Richmond. The metrical version of the Psalms by him and Tate was authorised in 1696. His tragedy, The Rape, on a plot from the history of the Goths and Vandals, his blankverse Æneid, his Ode for St Cecilia's Day, and his sermons have long since sunk into deserved oblivion.

Thomas Tenison (1636-1715), Archbishop of Canterbury, born at Cottenham in Cambridgeshire, studied at Corpus Christi, Cambridge, and was made Bishop of Lincoln by William III. in 1691, and primate of all England in 1694. He was a favourite at court, crowned Queen Anne and George I., and strongly supported the Hanoverian succession. His works comprise anti-papal tracts, sermons, and a criticism of Hobbes; but though Swift was unfair when he said he was a very dull man, the Archbishop was not a power in literature, and his books are not read.

Matthew Henry (1662-1714) was born at Broad Oak farmhouse, Malpas, Flintshire, the son of Philip Henry, a pious and learned minister, just ousted by the Act of Uniformity. He entered as a student of law in Gray's Inn; but, yielding to a strong desire for the office of the ministry, he soon abandoned the pursuit of the law, and turned his attention to theology, which he studied with great diligence and zeal. In 1687 he was chosen pastor of a Nonconformist congregation at Chester, whence he removed in 1712 to Hackney. Of a variety of theological works published by him, the largest and best known is his Exposition of the Old and New Testaments (1710), which he did not live to complete, the Commentary on the Epistles being added by various divines. The work has little exegetical value, and is far from being a safe guide

to the actual meaning of the sacred text; but as a treasury of practical religion and manual of hints for pulpit use, it soon secured a place in the very first class of expository works. Robert Hall for the last two years of his life read daily two chapters of Matthew Henry's Commentary, increasingly delighted with the copiousness, variety, and pious ingenuity of the thoughts; the simplicity, strength, and pregnancy of the expressions. Chalmers was a warm admirer of Henry; and for nearly two centuries the Commentary was the constant study companion and vade-mecum of a very large proportion of evangelical preachers of all denominations in English-speaking countries and colonies. The following extract from the exposition of Matthew vi. 24 may be taken as a specimen of the nervous and pointed remarks with which the work abounds:

'Ye cannot serve God and Mammon.' Mammon is a Syriack word that signifies gain, so that whatever it is in this world that is, or that we account to be gain to us (as St Paul speaks, Phil. iii. 7), that's mammon. 'Whatever is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life,' it is mammon. To some their belly is their mammon, and they serve that; to others, their ease, their sports and pastimes, are their mammon; to others, worldly riches; to others, honours and preferments: the praise and applause of men was the Pharisees' mammon; in a word, self, the unity in which the world's trinity centres, sensual secular self, is the mammon which cannot be served in conjunction with God; for if it be served, 'tis in competition with him, and in contradiction to him. He does not say we must not, or we should not, but we cannot serve God and mammon; we cannot love both, or hold to both, or hold by both, in observance, obedience, attendance, trust, and dependence, for they are contrary the one to the other. God saith: 'My son, give me thine heart;' Mammon saith: 'No, give it me.' God saith: 'Be content with such things as ye have ;' Mammon saith: Grasp at all that ever thou canst "Rem, rem, quocunque modo rem." God saith: 'Defraud not; never tell a lye; be honest and just in all thy dealings;' Mammon saith: 'Cheat thy own father if thou canst get by it.' saith: Be charitable ;' Mammon saith: Hold thy own; this giving undoes us all.' God saith: 'Be careful for nothing;' Mammon saith: 'Be careful for everything.' God saith: Keep holy the Sabbath-day;' Mammon saith: 'Make use of that day, as well as any other, for the world.' Thus inconsistent are the commands of God and Mammon, so that we cannot serve both. Let us not, then, halt between God and Baal, but 'chuse you this day whom ye will serve,' and abide by your choice.

God

Henry Aldrich (1647-1710), born at Westminster, passed in 1662 from Westminster School to Christ Church, Oxford, of which he became a canon in 1682, and dean in 1689. He it was who urged Charles Boyle to edit the Epistles of Phalaris (see Vol. I. p. 754), and so started a memorable controversy. He designed the Peckwater Quadrangle, wrote the well-known

catch, 'Hark, the bonny Christ Church Bells,' and a 'smoking catch' for four smokers, set English words to Italian anthems and songs, and indited Latin verses and epigrams; but he is less remembered as architect, verse-writer, composer, or inveterate smoker than as the author of the Artis Logica Compendium (1691), which was long a standard text-book, and of which, though it is a by no means brilliant performance, a new edition appeared in 1862.

In

Humphrey Prideaux (1648-1724), born at Padstow, from Westminster passed to Christ Church, Oxford. His Marmora Oxoniensia (1676), an account of the Arundel Marbles, procured for him patronage through which he was in 1679 appointed rector of St Clement's, Oxford, and erelong a canon of Norwich. 1688 he became Archdeacon of Suffolk, and in 1702 Dean of Norwich. His nine works include a Life of Mahomet (1697), Directions to Churchwardens (1701; 15th ed. 1886), and The Old and New Testament connected in the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations (1715-17; 27th ed. 1876). See Prideaux's Letters to John Ellis (Camden Soc. 1875). In virtue of the first and last named books he long ranked as a historian. The Life of Mahomet is wholly polemical, levelled as much against the English deists as against the Arabian impostor. But Prideaux's Connection, as the more important work was generally called, was a solid contribution to the knowledge of the subject, though in nowise profound or original; and was only superseded in general use by more scholarly works a century and a half after its appearance.

Sir George Etherege, the Restoration dramatist who in England founded the comedy of intrigue, was born probably in 1634. He lived much in his early life at Paris, studied law, had an intrigue with the actress Mrs Barry (on whose daughter he afterwards settled £6000), was knighted and married a wealthy widow, and in 1686 was Resident at the Imperial court at Ratisbon. He varied the monotony of what he regarded as banishment with coursing, drinking, play, flirtation with actresses, and correspondence with Middleton, Dryden, Betterton, and others. He seems to have died in Paris in 1691, and not, as used to be said, by falling downstairs after a banquet at Ratisbon. He sought his inspiration in Molière, and out of his comedy of intrigue grew the legitimate comedy of manners that culminated in Congreve and rendered possible the dramatic triumphs of Goldsmith and Sheridan. The Jonsonian types and 'humours' made way for real characters, sketched from the life even when the portraiture is but superficial; his fops are unsurpassed. He is less brutal and more sprightly and frivolous than Wycherley, but not so eminent a master of theatrical effect; several of his characters are more perfectly individualised, more

human, concrete, and living than either Wycherley's or Congreve's, though Congreve's work shows more power. Rochester lamented that Etherege's indolence checked the productiveness of a man 'who had as much sense, fancy, judgment, and wit as any writer of the day.' His three plays are The Comical Revenge; or, Love in a Tub (1664); She Would if She Could (1668); and The Man of Mode; or, Sir Fopling Flutter (1676)—all highly popular in their day. The first is mainly a farce; the second has serious scenes and a good deal of buffoonery; the third is the best and most readable. Dorimant, accepted as a sketch of Rochester, and Sir Fopling a study of the then famous Beau Hewitt, with points taken from Etherege himself, passed into literature as striking characterisations. Medley was Sir Charles Sedley. With all his grossness, 'gentle George' shows both restraint and a certain distinction.

From The Man of Mode.'

Medley. Is it not great indiscretion for a man of credit, who may have money enough on his word, to go and Ideal with Jews, who for little sums make men enter into bonds, and give judgment?

Bellair. Preach no more on this text; I am determin'd, and there is no hope of my conversion.

Dorimant. Leave your unnecessary fiddling; a wasp that's buzzing about a man's nose at dinner, is not more troublesome than thou art. [To HANDY.

sir.

Handy. You love to have your cloaths hang just,

Dor. I love to be well dress'd, sir; and think it no scandal to my understanding.

Handy. Will you use the essence, or orange-flower water?

Dor. I will smell as I do to day, no offence to the ladies' noses.

Handy. Your pleasure, sir.

Dor. That a man's excellency shou'd lye in neatly tying of a ribbond, or a cravat! How careful's nature in furnishing the world with necessary coxcombs !

Bell. That's a mighty pretty suit of yours, Dorimant. Dor. I am glad 't has your approbation.

Bell. No man in town has a better fancy in his cloaths than you have.

Dor. You will make me have an opinion of my genius.

Med. There is a great critick, I hear, in these matters lately arriv'd piping hot from Paris.

Bell. Sir Fopling Flutter, you mean.

Med. The same.

Bell. He thinks himself the pattern of modern gallantry.

Dor. He is indeed the pattern of modern foppery. Med. He was yesterday at the play, with a pair of gloves up to his elbows, and a perriwig more exactly curl'd than a lady's head newly dress'd for a ball.

Bell. What a pretty lisp he has !

Dor. Ho! that he affects in imitation of the people of quality in France.

Med. His head stands for the most part on one side, and his looks are more languishing than a lady's when she lolls at stretch in her coach, or leans her head carelessly against the side of a box i' the play-house.

Dor. He is a person indeed of great acquir'd follies. Med. He is like many others, beholden to his education for making him so eminent a coxcomb; many a fool had been lost to the world, had their indulgent parents wisely bestow'd neither learning nor good breeding on

'em.

Bell. He has been, as the sparkish word is, brisk upon the ladies already; he was yesterday at my aunt Townley's, and gave Mrs Loveit a catalogue of his good qualities, under the character of a complete gentleman, who, according to Sir Fopling, ought to dress well, dance well, fence well, have a genius for love-letters, an agreeable voice for a chamber, be very amorous, something discreet, but not over constant.

Med. Pretty ingredients to make an accomplish'd person.

Dor. I am glad he pitch'd upon Loveit.

Med. Ever well dress'd, always complaisant, and seldom impertinent; you and he are grown very intimate, I see.

Dor. It is our mutual interest to be so; it makes the women think the better of his understanding, and judge more favourably of my reputation; it makes him pass upon some for a man of very good sense, and me upon others for a very civil person.

Med. What was that whisper?

Dor. A thing which he wou'd fain have known, but I did not think it fit to tell him; it might have frighted him from his honourable intentions of marrying.

Med. Emilia, give her her due, has the best reputation of any young woman about the town, who has beauty enough to provoke detraction; her carriage is unaffected, her discourse modest, not at all censorious, nor pretending like the counterfeits of the age.

See Gosse's Seventeenth Century Studies (1883), and the edition of Etherege's works by A. W. Verity (1888).