Mr Lane had a niece, or very near kinswoman, who was married to a gentleman, one Mr Norton, a person of eight or nine hundred pounds per annum, who lived within four or five miles of Bristol, which was at least four or five days' journey from the place where the King then was, but a place most to be wished for the King to be in, because he did not only know all that country very well, but knew many persons very well to whom, in an extraordinary case, he durst make himself known. It was hereupon resolved that Mrs Lane should visit this cousin, who was known to be of good affections, and that she should ride behind the King, who was fitted with clothes and boots for such a service, and that a servant of her father's, in his livery, should wait upon her. A good house was easily pitched upon for the first night's lodging, where Wilmott had notice given him to meet. And in this equipage the King begun his journey, the colonel keeping him company at a distance, with a hawk upon his fist, and two or three spaniels, which, where there were any fields at hand, warranted him to ride out of the way, keeping his company still in his eye, and not seeming to be of it. And in this manner they came to their first night's lodging; and they need not now to contrive to come to their journey's end about the close of the evening, for it was now in the month of October far advanced, that the long journeys they made could not be despatched sooner. Here the Lord Wilmott found them, and their journeys being then adjusted, he was instructed where he should be every night; and so they were seldom seen together in the journey, and rarely lodged in the same house at night. And in this manner the colonel hawked two or three days, till he had brought them within less than a day's journey of Mr Norton's house, and then he gave his hawk to the Lord Wilmott, who continued the journey in the same exercise. . .

They came to Mr Norton's house sooner than usual, and it being on a holyday, they saw many people about a bowling-green that was before the door; and the first man the King saw was a chaplain of his own, who was allied to the gentleman of the house, and was sitting upon the rails to see how the bowlers played. So that William, by which name the King went, walked with his horse into the stable, until his mistress could provide for his retreat. Mrs Lane was very welcome to her cousin, and was presently conducted to her chamber, where she no sooner was, than she lamented the condition of a good youth who came with her, and whom she had borrowed of his father to ride before her, who was very sick, being newly recovered of an ague; and desired her cousin that a chamber might be provided for him, and a good fire made, for that he would go early to bed, and was not fit to be below stairs. A pretty little chamber was presently made ready, and a fire prepared, and a boy sent into the stable to call William, and to shew him his chamber; who was very glad to be there, freed from so much company as was below. . . . When it was supper-time, there being broth brought to the table, Mrs Lane filled a little dish, and desired the butler, who waited at the table, to carry that dish of porridge to William, and to tell him that he should have some meat sent to him presently. The butler carried the porridge into the chamber, with a napkin and spoon and bread, and spake kindly to the young man, who was willing to be eating. And the butler, looking narrowly

upon him, fell upon his knees, and with tears told him he was glad to see his majesty. The King was infinitely surprised, yet recollected himself enough to laugh at the man, and to ask him what he meant. The man had been falconer to Tom Jermin, and made it appear that he knew well enough to whom he spake, repeating some particulars which the King had not forgot. Whereupon the King conjured him not to speak of what he knew, so much as to his master, though he believed him a very honest man. The fellow promised, and faithfully kept his word; and the King was the better waited upon during the time of his abode there.

After some days' stay here, and communication between the King and the Lord Wilmott by letters, the King came to know that Colonel Francis Windham lived within little more than a day's journey of the place where he was, of which he was very glad. . . . At the place of meeting they rested only one night, and then the King went to the colonel's house, where he rested many days, whilst Colonel Windham projected at what place the King might embark, and how they might procure a vessel to be ready there; which was not easy to find, there being so great caution in all the ports, and so great a fear possessing those who were honest, that it was hard to procure any vessel that was outward-bound to take in any passenger.

There was a gentleman, one Mr Ellison, who lived near Lyme in Dorsetshire, and who was well known to Colonel Windham, having been a captain in the King's army, and was still looked upon as a very honest man. With him the colonel consulted how they might get a vessel to be ready to take in a couple of gentlemen, friends of his, who were in danger to be arrested, and transport them into France. Though no man would ask who the persons were, yet every man suspected who they were; at least they concluded that it was some of Worcester party. Lyme was generally as malicious and disaffected a town to the King's interest as any town in England could be, yet there was in it a master of a bark of whose honesty this captain was very confident. This man was lately returned from France, and had unladen his vessel, when Ellison asked him when he would make another voyage, and he answered: As soon as he could get loading for his ship.' The other asked, whether he would undertake to carry over a couple of gentlemen, and land them in France, if he might be as well paid for his voyage as he used to be when he was freighted by the merchants;' in conclusion, he told him he should receive fifty pounds for his fare. The large recompense had that effect, that the man undertook it; though he said he must make his provision very secretly, for that he might be well suspected for going to sea again without being freighted after he was so newly returned. Colonel Windham, being advertised of this, came, together with the Lord Wilmott, to the captain's house, from whence the lord and the captain rode to a house near Lyme, where the master of the bark met them; and the Lord Wilmott being satisfied with the discourse of the man and his wariness, and foreseeing suspicions which would arise, it was resolved that on such a night, which upon consideration of the tides was agreed upon, the man should draw out his vessel from the pier, and being at sea should come to such a point about a mile from the town, where his ship should remain upon the beach when the water was gone, which would take it off again about break of day the next

morning. There was very near that point, even in the view of it, a small inn, kept by a man who was reputed honest, to which the cavaliers of the country often resorted; and London road passed that way, so that it was seldom without company. Into that inn the two gentlemen were to come in the beginning of the night, that they might put themselves on board. And all things being thus concerted, and good earnest given to the master, the Lord Wilmott and the colonel returned to the colonel's house, about a day's journey from the place, the captain undertaking every day to look that the master should provide, and if any thing fell out contrary to expectation, to give the colonel notice at such a place, where they intended the King should be the day before he was to embark.

The King, being satisfied with these preparations, came at the time appointed to that house where he was to hear that all went as it ought to do; of which he received assurance from the captain, who found that the man had honestly put his provisions on board and had his company ready, which were but four men, and that the vessel should be drawn out that night; so that it was fit for the two persons to come to the aforesaid inn; and the captain conducted them within sight of it, and then went to his own house, not distant a mile from it; the colonel remaining still at the house where they had lodged the night before, till he might hear the news of their being embarked.

They found many passengers in the inn, and so were to be contented with an ordinary chamber, which they did not intend to sleep long in, but as soon as there appeared any light, Wilmott went out to discover the bark, of which there was no appearance. In a word, the sun rose, and nothing like a ship in view. They sent to the captain, who was as much amazed; and he sent to the town, and his servant could not find the master of the bark, which was still in the pier. They suspected the captain, and the captain suspected the master. ever, it being past ten of the clock, they concluded it was not fit for them to stay longer there, and so they mounted their horses again to return to the house where they had left the colonel, who they knew resolved to stay there till he were assured that they were gone.

How

The truth of the disappointment was this. The man meant honestly, and had made all things ready for his departure; and the night he was to go out with his vessel he had stayed in his own house, and slept two or three hours; and the time of the tide being come that it was necessary to be on board, he took out of a cupboard some linen and other things which he used to carry with him to sea. His wife had observed that he had been for some days fuller of thoughts than he used to be, and that he had been speaking with seamen who used to go with him, and that some of them had carried provisions on board the bark; of which she had asked her husband the reason; who had told her that he was promised freight speedily, and therefore he would make all things ready. She was sure that there was yet no lading in the ship, and therefore when she saw her husband take all those materials with him, which was a sure sign that he meant to go to sea, and it being late in the night, she shut the door, and swore he should not go out of his house. He told her he must go, and was engaged to go to sea that night, for which he should be well paid. His wife told him she was sure he was doing somewhat that would undo him, and she was

resolved he should not go out of his house; and if he should persist in it, she would call the neighbours, and carry him before the mayor to be examined, that the truth might be found out. The poor man, thus mastered by the passion and violence of his wife, was forced to yield to her, that there might be no farther noise, and so went into his bed.

And it was very happy that the King's jealousy hastened him from that inn. It was the solemn fast day, which was observed in those times principally to inflame the people against the King and all those who were loyal to him; and there was a chapel in that village and over against that inn, where a weaver, who had been a soldier, used to preach, and utter all the villainy imaginable against the order of government: and he was then in the chapel preaching to his congregation when the King went from thence, and telling the people that Charles Steward was lurking somewhere in that country, and that they would merit from God Almighty if they could find him out. The passengers who had lodged in the inn that night had, as soon as they were up, sent for a smith to visit their horses, it being a hard frost. The smith, when he had done what he was sent for, according to the custom of that people, examined the feet of the other two horses, to find more work. When he had observed them, he told the host of the house that one of those horses had travelled far, and that he was sure that his four shoes had been made in four several counties; which, whether his skill was able to discover or no, was very true. The smith going to the sermon told this story

to some of his neighbours, and so it came to the ears of the preacher when his sermon was done. And immediately he sent for an officer, and searched the inn, and inquired for those horses; and being informed that they were gone, he caused horses to be sent to follow them, and to make inquiry after the two men who rode those horses, and positively declared that one of them was Charles Steward.

When they came again to the colonel, they presently concluded that they were to make no longer stay in those parts, nor any more to endeavour to find a ship upon that coast; and so, without farther delay, they rode back to the colonel's house, where they arrived in the night. Then they resolved to make their next attempt more southward, in Hampshire and Sussex.

Character of Oliver Cromwell.

He was one of those men quos vituperare ne inimici quidem possunt nisi ut simul laudent; for he could never have done half that mischief without great parts of courage and industry and judgment. And he must have had a wonderful understanding in the natures and humours of men, and as great a dexterity in the applying them, who from a private and obscure birth (though of a good family), without interest or estate, alliance or friendship, could raise himself to such a height, and compound and knead such opposite and contradictory tempers, humours, and interests into a consistence that contributed to his designs and to their own destruction; whilst himself grew insensibly powerful enough to cut off those by whom he had climbed, in the instant that they projected to demolish their own building. What Velleius Paterculus said of Cinna may very justly be said of him, Ausum eum quæ nemo auderet bonus; perfecisse que a nullo nisi fortissimo perfici possent. Without doubt, no man with more wickedness ever attempted any thing, or

brought to pass what he desired more wickedly, more in the face and contempt of religion and moral honesty ; yet wickedness as great as his could never have accomplished those trophies without the assistance of a great spirit, an admirable circumspection and sagacity, and a most magnanimous resolution. When he appeared first in the Parliament, he seemed to have a person in no degree gracious, no ornament of discourse, none of those talents which use to reconcile the affections of the standers-by: yet as he grew into place and authority, his parts seemed to be renewed, as if he had concealed faculties till he had occasion to use them; and when he was to act the part of a great man, he did it without any indecency, through the want of custom.

After he was confirmed and invested Protector by 'The humble Petition and Advice,' he consulted with very few upon any action of importance, nor communicated any enterprise he resolved upon with more than those who were to have principal parts in the execution of it; nor to them sooner than was absolutely necessary. What he once resolved, in which he was not rash, he would not be dissuaded from, nor endure any contradiction of his power and authority, but extorted obedience from them who were not willing to yield it. . . . Thus he subdued a spirit that had been often troublesome to the most sovereign power, and made Westminster Hall as obedient and subservient to his commands as any of the rest of his quarters. In all other matters which did not concern the life of his jurisdiction, he seemed to have great reverence for the law, and rarely interposed between party and party. And as he proceeded with this kind of indignation and haughtiness with those who were refractory and dared to contend with his greatness, so towards those who complied with his good pleasure and courted his protection, he used a wonderful civility, generosity, and bounty.

To reduce three nations, which perfectly hated him, to an entire obedience to all his dictates; to awe and govern those nations by an army that was indevoted to him and wished his ruin, was an instance of a very prodigious address. But his greatness at home was but a shadow of the glory he had abroad. It was hard to discover which feared him most, France, Spain, or the Low Countries, where his friendship was current at the value he put upon it. And as they did all sacrifice their honour and their interest to his pleasure, so there is nothing he could have demanded that either of them would have denied him. . . . He was not a man of blood, and totally declined Machiavell's method, which prescribes upon any alteration of a government, as a thing absolutely necessary, to cut off all the heads of those, and extirpate their families, who are friends to the old one. And it was confidently reported that in the council of officers it was more than once proposed that there might be a general massacre of all the royal party, as the only expedient to secure the government, but Cromwell would never consent to it; it may be, out of too great a contempt of his enemies. In a word, as he had all the wickednesses against which damnation is denounced, and for which hell-fire is prepared, so he had some virtues which have caused the memory of some men in all ages to be celebrated; and he will be looked upon by posterity as a brave bad man.

The best edition of the History is that by W. Dunn Macray (6 vols. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1888). There are also twenty-five

essays by Clarendon, his Contemplations on the Psaims (begun in 1647, and finished, like the Life, during his second exile), several controversial writings, and 3 vols. of his State Papers (1767-86; calendared, 1872-76). See Ranke's able analysis of the History: the Hon. Agar-Ellis's Historical Inquiry respecting the Character of Clarendon (1827); Lady Theresa Lewis's Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries of Clarendon (3 vols. 1852); two articles by Peter Bayne in the Contemporary Review (1876); the Life of Clarendon, by T. H. Lister (3 vols. 1838); and Gardiner's History of the Great Civil War (1886-91).

Sir Matthew Hale (1609-76), one of the most upright of judges, acquired credit also by his writings. He avoided identifying himself with either party in the Civil War, and was a judge both during the Commonwealth and under Charles II.; he was appointed ChiefBaron of the Exchequer in 1660, and Lord ChiefJustice of the King's Bench eleven years afterwards. Amidst the corruptions of Charles II.'s reign, Sir Matthew Hale stands out with peculiar lustre as an impartial, incorruptible, and determined administrator of justice; and he sought to mitigate the severity of such laws as the Conventicle Act. Yet one of his most notable acts was the condemnation of two old women accused of witchcraft at Bury St Edmunds in 1662-for he was a devout believer in witches. His works bear on natural philosophy, divinity, and law-on gravitation, the Torricellian experiment, The Pleas of the Crown, The Primitive Origination of Mankind. Several of his works were published after his death; many of his MSS. were never printed. His best-known work, the Contemplations, Moral and Divine-meditations or discourses of the chief end of man, of contentation, of humility, of afflictions, of the great audit, and the like, with two devotional poems-was in the press at his death. The letter of advice to his children, of which the following is part, was written about the year 1662:

On Speech.

CHILDREN-I thank God I came well to Farrington this Saturday, about five of the clock, and because I have some leisure time at my inn, I could not spend that time more to my own contentment, and your benefit, than by my letter to give you all good Counsel: the subject whereof, at this time, shall be concerning Speech; because much of the good or evil that befalls persons doth occasionally happen by the well or ill managing of that part of human conversation.-I shall, as I have leisure and opportunity, at other times, give you my directions concerning other subjects.

And herein I shall advise you, First, how you are to entertain the Speeches of others, according to the divers varieties thereof. Secondly, how you are to manage and order your own Speech. . . . Now, as concerning your own Speech, and how you are to manage it, something may be collected out of what goes before; but I shall add some things else.

Let your Speech be true. Never speak any thing for a Truth which you know or believe to be false: it is a great sin against God, that gave you a tongue to speak your mind, and not to speak a lie: it is a great offence against Humanity itself; for where there is no truth, there can be no safe society between man and man:

and it is an injury to the speaker, for besides the base disreputation it casts upon him, it doth in time bring a man to that baseness of mind, that he can scarce tell how to tell truth, or to avoid lying, even when he hath no colour of necessity for it; and in time, he comes to such a pass, that as another man cannot believe he tells a truth, so he himself scarce knows when he tells a lie. And observe it, a Lie ever returns, with discovery and shame at the last.

As you must be careful not to lie, so you must avoid coming near it. You must not equivocate: you must not speak that absolutely which you have but by hearsay or relation: you must not speak that as upon knowledge which you have but by conjecture or opinion only. . . Be not over-earnest, loud, or violent in Talking, for it is unseemly; and earnest and loud talking make you overshoot and lose your business: when you should be considering and pondering your thoughts, and how to express them significantly and to the purpose, you are striving to keep your tongue going, and to silence an opponent, not with reason but with noise.

Be careful not to interrupt another in his talk. Hear him out you will understand him the better, and be able to give him the better answer. It may be, if you will give him leave, he will say somewhat more than you have yet heard or well understood, or that which you did not expect.

Always, before you speak, especially where the business is of moment, consider before-hand; weigh the sense of your mind which you intend to utter; think upon the expressions you intend to use, that they be significant, pertinent, and inoffensive: and whereas it is the ordinary course of inconsiderate persons to speak their words, and then to think; or not to think till they speak; think first, and speak after, if it be in any matter of moment or seriousness. . . . Avoid swearing in your ordinary communication, unless called to it by the magistrate and not only the grosser oaths, but the lesser; and not only oaths, but imprecations, earnest and deep protestations. As you have the commendable example of good men to justify a solemn oath before a magistrate, so you have the precept of our Saviour forbidding it otherwise. . . . If there be occasion for you to speak in any company, always be careful, if you speak at all, to speak latest; especially if strangers are in company : for by this means you will have the advantage of knowing the sense, judgment, temper, and relations of others, which may be a great light and help to you in ordering your speech; and you will better know the inclination of the company, and speak with more advantage and acceptation, and with more security against giving offence.

I have but little more to write at this time, but to wish and command you to remember my former counsels that I have often given you. Begin and end the day with private prayers to God, upon your knees; read the Scriptures, often and seriously; be attentive to the public worship of God in the church; keep yourselves still in some good employment; for idleness is the devil's opportunity, and the nursery of vain and sinful thoughts, which corrupt the mind and disorder the life. Let the Girls take care of such business of my family as is proper for them; and their recreations may be walking abroad in the fields, in fair or frosty mornings, some work with their needle, reading of history or herbals, setting of flowers or herbs, practising their music, and such inno

cent and harmless exercises. Let the Boys be diligent at their books, and when they have performed their tasks, I do not deny them such recreations as may be healthy, safe, and harmless. Be you all kind and loving one to another, honcuring your minister, not bitter or harsh to my servants. Be respectful to all. Bear my absence patiently, cheerfully, and faithfully. Do all things as if I were present among you, and beheld you; for you have a greater Father than I am, that always and in ail places beholds you, and knows your hearts and thoughts. Study to requite the love and care and expense of your father for you, with dutifulness, observance, and obedi ence to him; and account it an honour that God hath given you an opportunity, in my absence, by your care, faithfulness, and industry, to pay some part of that debt that by the laws of nature and gratitude you owe unto Be frugal in my family, but let there be no want : provide conveniently for the poor that come to my door. And I pray God to fill all your hearts with his grace, fear, and love; and to let you see the advantage and comfort of serving him; and that his blessing, and presence, and comfort, and direction, and providence be with you and over you all.-I am your ever loving father, MATTHEW HALE.

me.

Richard Baxter (1615–91), born at Rowton, in Shropshire, was educated chiefly at the endowed school of Wroxeter, leaving with some Latin, a smattering of Greek, no Hebrew, and no mathematics. 'My faults,' he said, ‘are no disgrace to any university, for I was of none; I have little but what I had out of books, and inconsiderable helps of country tutors. Weakness and pain helped me to study how to die; that set me on studying how to live.' In 1638 he was ordained, and was appointed master of the Free School of Dudley. From 1640 to 1642 he was pastor of Kidderminster, beloved and revered. During the Civil War he sided with the Parliament, and as chaplain in the army was present at the sieges of Bridgwater, Exeter, Bristol, and Worcester. He was disgusted with extreme views, political and religious, and vehement disputes about liberty of conscience, and was glad to leave the army and return to his old parishioners of Kidderminster, amongst whom, in spite of feeble health, he laboured with great success for fourteen years. Whilst there, during his recovery from a severe illness, he wrote his work The Saints' Everlasting Rest (1650). When Cromwell assumed the supreme power Baxter openly expressed his disapprobation, and in a conference with the Protector told him that the honest people of the land took their ancient monarchy to be a blessing and not an evil. He was always opposed to intolerance. 'We intended not,' he said, 'to dig down the banks, or pull up the hedge, and lay all waste and common, when we desired the prelates' tyranny might cease.' Presbyterian though he was, he was not hostile to a modified Episcopacy. After the Restoration he was appointed one of the royal chaplains, but, like Owen, refused a bishopric offered him by Clarendon. The Act of Uniformity in 1662

drove him out of the Established Church, and he retired to Acton, in Middlesex, where, in spite of hardship and persecution, he spent several years in study and literary labour. The Act of Indulgence in 1672 allowed him to settle in London and divide his time between preaching and writing. In 1685 he published a Paraphrase on the New Testament, a practical treatise, in which certain passages were held to be seditious, and Baxter was tried and condemned by the infamous Jeffreys. When Baxter endeavoured to speak, Richard! Richard!' ejaculated the Judge, 'dost thou think we 'll hear thee poison the court? Richard, thou art an old fellow, an old knave; thou hast written books enough to load a cart. Hadst thou been whipt out of thy writing trade forty years ago, it had been happy.' He was sentenced to pay five hundred marks, and in default to be imprisoned in the King's Bench until it was paid. Through the generous exertions of a Catholic peer, Lord Powis, the fine was remitted, and after eighteen months' imprisonment Baxter was set at liberty. He had now five years of tranquillity, dying 'in great peace and joy' on the 8th of December 1691.

Baxter was one of the most eloquent and moving preachers of his time, and a most voluminous writer; he wrote, Orme reports, no less than one hundred and sixty-eight separate works or publications, from folios to pamphlets. His practical treatises are still read and republished, especially his Saints Everlasting Rest (1650) and Call to the Unconverted (1657) -the latter so popular that twenty thousand copies have been sold in one year. His Life of Faith (1670), Reasons of the Christian Religion (1672), Christian Directory (1675), are only less well known. His Catholic Theology (1675) and Methodus Theologiæ Christianæ (1681) are controversial works on religious subjects. In 1696 appeared the Reliquia Baxteriana: Mr Richard Baxter's Narrative of the most Memorable Passages of his Life and Times, an autobiography which, like Baxter's writings generally, was a favourite book with Dr Johnson. In the next century it had no less warm an admirer in Coleridge, who terms it an inestimable work;' adding, 'I may not unfrequently doubt Baxter's memory, or even his competence, in consequence of his particular modes of thinking; but I could almost as soon doubt the Gospel verity as his veracity.' Another Churchman, Isaac Barrow, said that 'his practical writings were never mended, and his controversial seldom confuted.' His catholicity and tolerance led some to upbraid him as an Arminian, while others denounced him as a Calvinist. Though a keen controversialist, he was a singularly largehearted man he had come, he said in 1675, after a lifetime of study, to 'perceive that most of the doctrinal controversies among Protestants are far more about equivocal words than matter; and it wounded my soul to perceive what work both

tyrannical and unskilful disputing clergymen had made these thirteen hundred years in the world!' Of his Poetical Fragments the best known is the hymn, 'Lord, it belongs not to my care,' still a favourite; the great physicist, Professor ClerkMaxwell, used often to repeat it. The following extracts are all from his Reliquiæ :

The Country Clergy in 1620.

:

:

We lived in a country that had but little preaching at all in the village where I was born there was four readers successively in six years time, ignorant men, and two of them immoral in their lives; who were all my school-masters. In the village where my father lived, there was a reader of about eighty years of age that never preached, and had two churches about twenty miles distant his eyesight failing him, he said commonprayer without book; but for the reading of the psalms and chapters, he got a common thresher and day-labourer one year, and a taylor another year (for the clerk could not read well) and at last he had a kinsman of his own (the excellentest stage-player in all the country, and a good gamester and good fellow), that got orders and supplied one of his places! After him another younger kinsman, that could write and read, got orders and at the same time another neighbour's son that had been a while at school turn'd minister, and who would needs go further than the rest, ventur'd to preach (and after got a living in Staffordshire), and when he had been a preacher about twelve or sixteen years, he was fain to give over, it being discovered that his orders were forged by the first ingenious stage-player. After him another neighbour's son took orders, when he had been a while an attorney's clerk, and a common drunkard, and tipled himself into so great poverty that he had no other way to live it was feared that he and more of them came by their orders the same way with the forementioned person: these were the school-masters of my youth (except two of them), who read common prayer on Sundays and holy-days, and taught school and tipled on the week-days, and whipt the boys when they were drunk, so that we changed them very oft. Within a few miles about us, were near a dozen more ministers that were near eighty years old apiece, and never preached; poor ignorant readers, and most of them of scandalous lives only three or four constant competent preachers lived near us, and those (though conformable all save one) were the common marks of the people's obloquy and reproach, and any that had but gone to hear them, when he had no preaching at home, was made the derision of the vulgar rabble, under the odious name of a Puritane.

Youthful Faults.

I was much addicted to the excessive gluttonous eating of apples and pears: which I think laid the foundation of that imbecillity and flatulency of my stomach which caused the bodily calamities of my life. To this end, and to concur with naughty boys that gloried in evil, I have oft gone into other men's orchards, and stoln their fruit, when I had enough at home.

Special Mercies.

And yet two wonderful mercies I had from God: that I was never overwhelm'd with real melancholy. My distemper never went so far as to possess me with any inordinate fancies, or damp me with sinking sadness,