after Seventy's past and gone Can all th' Assaults of Age defie Is master still of so much youthful heat A Child so perfect and so sprightly to beget Bensted Hants Mar. 10. 1669 70. Sam Woodford THE LIFE OF Mr. RICHARD HOOKER The Introduction I Have been perswaded by a Friend whom I reverence and ought to obey to write The Life of RICHARD HOOKER the happy Author of Five if not more of the Eight learned Books of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity And though I have undertaken it yet it hath been with some unwillingness because I foresee that it must prove to me and especially at this time of my Age a work of much labour to enquire consider research and determine what is needful to be known concerning him For I knew him not in his Life and must therefore not only look back to his Death now 64 years past but almost 50 years beyond that even to his Childhood and Youth and gather thence such Observations and Prognosticks as may at least adorn if not prove necessary for the compleating of what I have undertaken This trouble I foresee and foresee also that it is impossible to escape Censures against which I will not hope my well-meaning and diligence can protect me for I consider the Age in which I live and shall therefore but intreat of my Reader a suspension of them till I have made known unto him some Reasons which I my self would now fain believe do make me in some measure fit for this undertaking and if these Reasons shall not acquit me from all Censures they may at least abate of their severity and this is all I can probably hope for My Reasons follow About forty years past for I am now past the Seventy of my Age I began a happy affinity with William Cranmer now with God grand Nephew unto the great Archbishop of that name a Family of noted prudence and resolution with him and two of his Sisters I had an entire and free friendship one of them was the Wife of Doctor Spencer a Bosom-friend and sometime Com-pupil with Mr. Hooker in Corpus-Christi Colledge in Oxford and after President of the same I name them here for that I shall have occasion to mention them in this following Discourse as also George Cranmer their Brother of whose useful abilities my Reader may have a more authentick Testimony than my Pen can purchase for him by that of our learned Cambden and others This William Cranmer and his two forenamed Sisters had some affinity and a most familiar friendship with M. Hooker and had had some part of their Education with him in his house when he was Parson of Bishops-Borne near Canterbury in which City their good father then lived They had I say a part of their Education with him as my self since that time a happy Cohabitatioâ— with them and having some years before read part of Mr. Hookers Works with great liking and satisfaction my affection to them made me a diligent Inquisitor into many things that concerned him as namely of his Person his Nature the management of his Time his Wife his Family and the Fortune of him and his Which inquiry hath given me much advantage in the knowledge of what is now under my consideration and intended for the satisfaction of my Reader I had also a friendship with the Reverend Dr. Usher the late learned Archbishop of Armagh and with Dr. Morton the late learned and charitable Bishop of Durham as also with the learned John Hales of Eaton-Colledge and with them also who loved the very name of Mr. Hooker I have had many discourses concerning him and from them and many others that have now put off Mortality I might have had more Informations if I could then have admitted a thought of any fitness for what by perswasion I have now undertaken But though that full Harvest be irrecoverably lost yet my Memory hath preserved some gleanings and my Diligence made such additions to them as I hope will prove useful to the completing of what I intend In the discovery of which I shall be faithful and with this assurance put a period to my Introduction The Life IT is not to be doubted but that Richard Hooker was born at Heavy-tree near or within the Precincts or in the City of Exeter a City which may justly boast that it was the Birth place of him and Sir Tho. Bodley as indeed the County may in which it stands that it hath furnished this Nation with Bishop Jewel Sir Francis Drake Sir Walter Raleigh and many others memorable for their Valour and Learning He was born about the Year of our Redemption 1553 and of Parents that were not so remarkable for their Extraction or Riches as for their Virtue and Industry and Gods blessing upon both by which they were enabled to educate their Children in some degree of Learning of which our Richard Hooker may appear to be one fair testimony and that Nature is not so partial as alwayes to give the great blessings of Wisdom and Learning and with them the greater blessings of Virtue and Government to those only that are of a more high and honourable Birth His Complexion if we may guess by him at the age of Forty was Sanguine with a mixture of Choler and yet his Motion was slow even in his Youth and so was his Speech never expressing an Earnestness in either of them but a Gravity sutable to the Aged And 't is observed so far as Inquiry is able to look back at this distance of Time that at his being a School-boy he was an early Questionist quietly inquisitive Why this was and that was not to be remembred Why this was granted and that denied This being mixt with a remarkable Modesty and a sweet serene quietness of Nature and with them a quick apprehension of many perplext partâ— of Learning imposed then upon him as a Scholar made his Master and others to believe him to have an inward blessed Divine Light and therefore to consider him to a little wonder For in that Children were less pregnant less confident and more malleable than in this wiser but not better Age. This Meekness and conjuncture of Knowledge with Modesty in his Conversation being observed by his Schoolmaster caused him to perswade his Parents who intended him for an Apprentice to continue him at School till he could find out some means by perswading his rich Uncle or some other charitable person to ease them of a part of their care and charge assuring them that their son was so enriched with the blessings of Nature and Grace that God seemed to single him out as a special Instrument of his Glory And the good man told them also that he would double his diligence in instructing him and would neither expect nor receive any other Reward than the content of so hopeful and happy an employment This was not unwelcome News and especially to his Mother to whom he was a dutiful and dear Child and all
that Faction given with all the Library to Hugh Peâ—ers as a Reward for his remarkable service in those sad times of the Churches Confusion and though they could hardly fall into a fouler hand yet there wanted not other Endeavours to corrupt and make them speak that Language for which the Faction then fought which indeed was To subject the Soveraign Power to the People But I need not strive to vindicate Mr. Hooker in this particular his known Loyalty to his Prince whilest he lived the Sorrow expressed by King James at his Death the Value our late Soveraign of ever-blessed Memory put upon his Works and now the singular Character of his Worth by you given in the passages of his Life especially in your Appendix to it do sufficiently clear him from that Imputation and I am glad you mention how much value Thomas Stapleton Pope Clement the VIII and other Eminent men of the Romish Perswasion have put upon his Books having been told the same in my Youth by Persons of worth that have travelled Italy Lastly I must again congratulate this Undertaking of yours as now more proper to you then any other person by reason of your long Knowledge and Alliance to the worthy Family of the Cranmers my old Friends also who have been men of noted Wisdom especially Mr. George Cranmer whose Prudence added to that of Sir Edwin Sandys proved very useful in the Completing of Mr. Hookers matchless Books one of their Letters I herewith send you to make use of if you think fit And let me say further you merit much from many of Mr. Hookers best Friends then living namely from the ever renowned Archbishop Whitgift of whose incomparable Worth with the Charactâ—â— of â—he Times you have given us a more short and significant Account then I have received from any other Pen. You have done much for Sir Henry Savile his Contemporary and familiar Friend amongst the surviving Monuments of whose Learning give me leave to tell you so two are omitted his Edition of Euclid but especially his Translation of King James his Apology for the Oath of Allegeance into elegant Latine which flying in that dress as far as Rome was by the Pope and Conclave sent to Salamanca unto Francisous Suarez then residing there as President of that Colledge with a Command to answer it When he had perfected the Work which he calls Defensio Fidei Catholicae it was transmitted to Rome for a view of the Inquisitors who according to their custom blotted out what they pleased and as Mr. Hooker hath been used since his Death added whatsoever might advance the Popes Supremacy or carry on their own Interest commonly coupling Deponere Occidere the Deposing and Killing of Princes which cruel and unchristian Language Mr. John Saltkel his Amanuensis when he wrote at Salamanca but since a Convert living long in my Fathers house often professed the good Old man whose Piety and Charity Mr. Saltkel magnified much not onely disavowed but detested Not to trouble you further your Reader if according to your desire my Approbation of your Work carries any weight will here find many just Reasons to thank you for it and for this Circumstance here mentioned not known to many may happily apprehend one to thank him who heartily wishes your happiness and is unfainedly Chichester Novem. 17. 1664. Sir Your ever-faithful and affectionate old Friend Henry Chichester THE LIFE OF D r. JOHN DONNE late Dean of S t Paul's Church LONDON The Introduction IF that great Master of Language and Art Sir Henry Wotton the late Provost of Eaton Colledge had liv'd to see the Publication of these Sermons he had presented the World with the Authors Life exactly written And 't was pity he did not for it was a work worthy his undertaking and he fit to undertake it betwixt whom and the Author there was so mutual a knowledge and such a friendship contracted in their Youth as nothing but death could force a separation And though their bodies were divided their affections were not for that learned Knight's love followed his Friends fame beyond death and the forgetful grave which he testified by intreating me whom he acquainted with his designe to inquire of some particulars that concern'd it not doubting but my knowledge of the Author and love to his memory might make my diligence useful I did most gladly undertake the employment and continued it with great content 'till I had made my Collection ready to be augmented and compleated by his curious Pen but then Death prevented his intentions When I heard that sad news and heard also that these Sermons were to be printed and want the Authors Life which I thought to be very remarkable Indignation or grief indeed I know not which transperted me so far that I reviewed my forsaken Collections and resolv'd the World should see the best plain Picture of the Authors Life that my artless Pensil guided by the hand of truth could present to it And if I shall now be demanded as once Pompey's poor bondman was The grateful wretch had been left alone on the Sea-shore with the forsaken dead body of his once glorious lord and master and was then gathering the scatter'd pieces of an old broken boat to make a funeral pile to burn it which was the custom of the Romans who art thou that alone hast the honour to bury the body of Pompey the great so who I am that do thus officiously set the Authors memorie on fire I hope the question will prove to have in it more of wonder then disdain But wonder indeed the Reader may that I who profess my self artless should presume with my faint light to shew forth his Life whose very name makes it illustrious but be this to the disadvantage of the person represented Certain I am it is to the advantage of the beholder who shall here see the Authors Picture in a natural dress which ought to beget faith in what is spoken for he that wants skill to deceive may safely be trusted And if the Authors glorious spirit which now is in Heaven can have the leasure to look down and see me the poorest the meanest of all his friends in the midst of this officious dutie confident I am that he will not disdain this well-meant sacrifice to his memory for whilst his Conversation made me and many others happy below I know his Humility and Gentleness was then eminent and I have heard Divines say those Vertues that were but sparks upon Earth become great and glorious flames in Heaven Before I proceed further I am to intreat the Reader to take notice that when Doctor Donn's Sermons were first printed this was then my excuse for daring to write his life and I dare not now appear without it The Life MAster John Donne was born in London of good and vertuous Parents and though his own Learning and other multiplyed merits may justly appear sufficient to dignifie both Himself and his Posteritie yet the
Reader may be pleased to know that his Father was masculinely and lineally descended from a very antient Family in Wales where many of his name now live that deserve and have great reputation in that Countrey By his Mother he was descended of the Family of the famous and learned Sir Tho. Moor sometime Lord Chancellour of England as also from that worthy and laborious Judge Rastall who left Posterity the vast Statutes of the Law of this Nation most exactly abridged He had his first breeding in his Fathers house where a private Tutor had the care of him until the ninth year of his age and in his tenth year was sent to the University of Oxford having at that time a good command both of the French and Latine Tongue This and some other of his remarkable Abilities made one give this censure of him That this age had brought forth another Picus Mirandula of whom Story sayes That he was rather born than made wise by study There he remained in Hart-Hall having for the advancement of his studies Tutors of several Sciences to attend and instruct him till time made him capable and his learning expressed in publick exercises declared him worthy to receive his first degree in the Schools which he forbore by advice from his friends who being for their Religion of the Romish perswasion were conscionably averse to some parts of the Oath that is always tendered at those times and not to be refused by those that expect the titulary honour of their studies About the fourteenth year of his age he was transplanted from Oxford to Cambridge where that he might receive nourishment from both Soils he staid till his seventeenth year all which time he was a most laborious Student often changing his studies but endeavouring to take no degree for the reasons formerly mentioned About the seventeenth year of his age he was removed to London and then admitted into Lincolns-Inne with an intent to study the Law where he gave great testimonies of his Wit his Learning and of his Improvement in that profession which never served him for other use than an Ornament and Self-satisfaction His Father died before his admission into this Society and being a Merchant left him his portion in money it was 3000 l. His Mother and those to whose care he was committed were watchful to improve his knowledge and to that end appointed him Tutors in the Mathematicks and all the Liberal Sciences to attend him But with these Arts they were advised to instil particular Principles of the Romish Church of which those Tutors profest though secretly themselves to be members They had almost obliged him to their faith having for their advantage besides many opportunities the example of his dear and pious Parents which was a most powerful perswasion and did work much upon him as he professeth in his Preface to his Pseudo-Martyr a Book of which the Reader shall have some account in what follows He was now entered into the eighteenth year of his age and at that time had betrothed himself to no Religion that might give him any other denomination than a Christian. And Reason and Piety had both perswaded him that there could be no such sin as Schis me if an adherence to some visible Church were not necessary He did therefore at his entrance into the nineteenth year of his age though his youth and strength then promised him a long life yet being unresolved in his Religion he thought it necessary to rectifie all scruples that concerned that and therefore waving the Law and betrothing himself to no Art or Profession that might justly denominate him he begun to survey the Body of Divinity as it was then controverted betwixt the Reformed and the Roman Church And as Gods blessed Spirit did then awaken him to the search and in that industry did never forsake him they be his own words so he calls the same holy Spirit to witness this Protestationâ— that in that disquisition and search he proceeded with humility and diffidence in himself and by that which he took to be the safest way namely frequent Prayers and an indifferent affection to both parties and indeed truth had too much light about her to be hid from so sharp an Inquirer and he had too much ingenuity not to acknowledge he had found her Being to undertake this search he believed the Cardinal Bellarmine to be the best defender of the Roman cause and therefore betook himself to the examination of his Reasons The Cause was weighty and wilful delays had been inexcusable both towards God and his own Conscience he therefore proceeded in this search with all moderate haste and before the twentieth year of his age did shew the then Dean of Gloucester whose name my memory hath now lost all the Cardinals works marked with many weighty observations under his own hand which works were bequeathed by him at his death as a Legacy to a most dear Friend The year following he resolved to travel and the Earl of Essex going first the Cales and after the Island voyages he took the advantage of those opportunities waited upon his Lordship and was an eye-witness of those happy and unhappy employments But he returned not back into England till he had staid some years first in Italy and then in Spain where he made many useful observations of those Countreys their Laws and manner of Government and returned perfect in their Languages The time that he spent in Spain was at his first going into Italy designed for travelling the Holy Land and for viewing Jerusalem and the Sepulchre of our Saviour But at his being in the furthest parts of Italy the disappointment of Company or of a safe Convoy or the uncertainty of returns for Money into those remote parts denied him that happiness which he did often occasionally mention with a deploration Not long after his return into England that exemplary Pattern of Gravity and Wisdom the Lord Elsemore then Keeper of the Great Seal and Lord Chancellour of England taking notice of his Learning Languages and other Abilities and much affecting his Person and Condition took him to be his chief Secretary supposing and intending it to be an Introduction to some more weighty Employment in the State for which his Lordship did often protest he thought him very fit Nor did his Lordship in this time of Master Donne's attendance upon him account him to be so much his Servant as to forget he was his friend and to testifie it did always use him with much courtesie appointing him a place at his own Table to which he esteemed his Company and Discourse a great Ornament He continued that employment for the space of five years being daily useful and not mercenary to his Friends During which time he I dare not say unhappily fell into such a liking as with her approbation increased into a love with a young Gentlewoman that lived in that Family who was Niece to the Lady Elsemore and daughter to
think they are not wise unless they be busie about what they understand not and especially about Religion The King received this news with so much discontent and restlesness that he would not suffer the Sun to set and leave him under this doubt but sent for Dr. Donne and required his answer to the Accusation which was so clear and satisfactory that the King said he was right glad he rested no longer under the suspicion When the King had said this Doctor Donne kneeled down and thanked his Majesty and protested his answer was faithful and free from all collusion and therefore desired that he might not rise till as in like cases he always had from God so he might have from his Majesty some assurance that he stood clear and fair in his opinion Then the King raised him from his knees with his own hands and protested he believ'd him and that he knew he was an honest man and doubted not but that he loved him truly And having thus dismissed him he called some Lords of his Council into his Chamber and said with much earnestness My Doctor is an honest man and my Lords I was never better satisfied with an answer then he hath now made me and I always rejoyce when I think that by my means he became a Divine He was made Dean the fiftieth year of his age and in his fifty fourth year a dangerous sickness seized him which inclined him to a Consumption But God as Job thankfuâ—ly acknowledged preserved his spirit and keâ—t his intellectuals as clear and perfect as when that sickness first seized his body but it continued long and threatned him with death which he dreaded not In this distemper of body his dear friend Doctor Henry King then chief Residenciary of that Church and late Bishop of Chichâ—ster a man generally known by the Clergy of this Nation and as generally noted for his oâ—liging nature visited him daily and observing that his sickness rendred his recovery doubtful he chose a seasonable time to speak to him to this purpose Mr. Dean I am by your favour no stranger to your temporal estate and you are no stranger to the offer lately made us for the renewing a Lease of the best Prebends Corps belonging to our Church and you know 't was denied for that our Tenant being very rich offered to fine at so low a rate as held not proportion with his advantages but I will either raise him to an higher summe or procure that the other Residenciaries shall joyn to accept of what was offered one of these I can and will by your favour do without delay and without any trouble either to your body or mind I beseech you to accept of my offer for I know it will be a considerable addition to your present estate which I know needs it To this after a short pause and raising himself upon his bed he made this reply My most dear friend I most humbly thank you for your many favours and this in particular But in my present condition I shall not accept of your proposal for doubtless there is such a Sin as Sacriledge if there were not it could not have a name in Scripture And the Primitive Clergy were watchful against all appearances of that evil and indeed theâ— all Christians lookt upon it with horrour and detestation Judging it to be even an open defiance of the Power and Providence of Almighty God and a sad presage of a declining Religion But in stead of such Christians who had selected times set apart to fast and pray to God for a pious Clergy which they then did obey Our times abound with men that are busie and litigious about trifles and Church-Ceremonies and yet so far from scrupling Sacriledge that they make not so much as a quaere what it is But I thank God I have and dare not now upon my sick-bed when Almighty God hath made me useless to the service of the Church make any advantages out of it But if he shall again restore me to such a degree of health as again to serve at his Altar I shall then gladly take the reward which the bountiful Benefactours of this Church have designed me for God knows my Children and Relations will need it In which number my Mother whose Credulity and Charity has contracted a very plentiful to a very narrow estate must not be forgotten But Doctor King if I recover not that little worldly estate that I shall leave behind me that very little when divided into eight parts must if you deny me not so Charitable a favour fall into your hands as my most faithful friend and Executor of whose Care and Justice I make no more doubt then of Gods blessing on that which I have conscientiously collected for them but it shall not be augmented on my sick-bed and this I declare to be my unalterable resolution The reply to this was only a promise to observe his request Within a few days his distempers abated and as his strength increased so did his thankfulness to Almighty God testified in his most excellent Book of Devotions which he published at his Recovery In which the Reader may see the most secret thoughts that then possest his Soul Paraphrased and made publick a book that may not unfitly be called a a Sacred picture of Spiritual Extasies occasioned and applyable to the emergencies of that sickness which book being a composition of Meditations Disquisitions and Prayers he writ on his sick-bed herein imitating the Holy Patriarchs who were wont to build their Altars in that place where they had received their blessings This sickness brought him so near to the gates of death and he saw the grave so ready to devour him that he would often say his recovery was supernatural But that God that then restored his health continued it to him till the fifty-ninth year of his life And then in August 1630. being with his eldest Daughter Mrs. Harvy at Abury hatch in Essex he there fell into a fever which with the help of his constant infirmity vapors from the spleen hastened him into so visible a Consumption that his beholders might say as St Paul of himself Hâ—dies dayly and he might say with Job My welfare passeth away as a cloud the dayes of my affliction have taken hold of me and weary nights are appointed for me Reader This sickness continued long not onely weakning but wearying him so much that my desire is he may now take some rest and that before I speak of his death thou wilt not think it an impertinent digression to look back with me upon some observations of his life which whilst a gentle slumber gives rest to his spirits may I hope not unfitly exercise thy consideration His marriage was the remarkable errour of his life an errour which though he had a wit able and very apt to maintain Paradoxes yet he was very far from justifying it and though his wives Competent years and other reasons might be
but on the Cross my cure Crucisie nature then and then implore All grace from him crucify'd there before When all is Cross and that Cross Anchor grown This seales a Catechism not a seal alone Under that little seal great gifts I send Both works prayers pawns fruits of a friend Oh may that Saint that rides on our great Seal To you that bear his name large bounty deal J. Donne In Sacram Anchoram Piscatoris Geo. Herbert Quod Crux nequibat fixa clavique additi Tenere Christum scilicet ne ascenderet Tuive Christum Although the Cross could not Christ here detain When nail'd unto 't but he ascends again Nor yet thy eloquence here keep him still But only whilest thou speak'st this Anchor will Nor canst thou be content unless thou to This certain Anchor add a seal and so The water and the earth both unto thee Do owe the Symbole of their certainty Let the world reel we and all ours stand sure This Holy Cable's from all storms secure G. Herbert I return to tell the Reader that besides these verses to his dear Mr. Herbert and that Hymne that I mentioned to be sung in the Quire of St Pauls Church he did also shorten and beguile many sad hours by composing other sacred Diâ—ties and he writ an Hymn on his death-bed which bears this title An Hymn to God my God in my sickness March 23. 1630. Since I am coming to that holy room Where with thy quire of Saints for ever more I shall be made thy musique as I come I tune my Instrument here at the dore And what I must do then think here before Since my Physitians by their loves are grown Cosmographers and I their map who lye Flat on this bed So in his purple wrapt receive me Lord By these his thorns give me his other Crown And as to other souls I preach'd thy Word Be this my text my Sermon to mine own That he may raise therefore the lord throws down If these fall under the censure of a soul whose too much mixture with earth makes it unfit to judge of these high raptures and illuminations let him know that many holy and devout men have thought the Soul of Prudentius to be most refined when not many dayes before his death he charged it to present his God each morning and evening with a new and spiritual song justified by the example of King David and the good King Hezekias who upon the renovation of his years paid his thankful vowes to Almighty God in a royal Hymn which he concludes in these words The Lord was ready to save therefore I will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the dayes of my life in the temple of my God The latter part of his life may be said to be a continued study for as he usually preached once a week if not oftner so after his Sermon he never gave his eyes rest till he had chosen out a new Text and that night cast his Sermon into a form and his Text into divisions and the next day betook himself to consult the Fathers and so commit his meditations to his memory which was excellent But upon Saturday he usually gave himself and his mind a rest from the weâ—â—y burthen of his weeks meditations and usually spent that day in visitation of friends or some other diversions of his thoughts and would say that he gave both his body and mind that refreshment that he might be enabled to do the work of the day following not faintly but with courage and chearfulness Nor was his age onely so industrious but in the most unsetled dayes of his youth his bed was not able to detain him beyond the hour of four in a morning and it was no common business that drew him out of his chamber till past ten All which time was employed in study though he took great liberty after it and if this seem strange it may gain a belief by the visible fruits of his labours some of which remain as testimonies of what is here writen for he left the resultance of 1400. Authors most of them abridged and analysed with his own hand he left also sixscore of his Sermons all written with his own hand also an exact and laborious Treatise concerning Self-murther called Biathanatos wherein all the Laws violated by that Act are diligently surveyed and judiciously censured a Treatise written in his younger dayes which alone might declare him then not onely perfect in the Civil and Canon Law but in many other such studies and arguments as enter not into the consideration of many that labour to be thought great Clerks and pretend to know all things Nor were these onely found in his study but all businesses that past of any publick consequence either in this or any of our neighbour nations he abbreviated either in Latine or in the Language of that Nation and kept them by him for useful memorials So he did the copies of divers Letters and cases of Conscience that had concerned his friends with his observations and solutions of them and divers other businesses of importance all particularly and methodically digested by himself He did prepare to leave the world before life left him making his will when no faculty of his soul was damp'd or made defective by pain or sickness or he surprized by a sudden apprehension of death but it was made with mature deliberation expressing himself an impartial father by making his childrens portions equal and a lover of his friends whom he remembred with Legacies fitly and discreetly chosen and bequeathed I cannot forbear a nomination of some of them for methinks they be persons that seem to challenge a recordation in this place as namely to his Brother-in-law Sir Th. Grimes he gave that striking Clock which he had long worn in his pocket to his dear friend and Executor Dr. King late Bishop of Chicester that model of gold of the Synod of Dcrt with which the States presented him at his last being at the Hague and the two Pictures of Padre Paulo and Fulgentio men of his acquaintance when he travelled Italy and of great note in that Nation for their remarkable learning To his ancient friend Dr. Brook that married him Master of Trinity Colledge in Cambridge he gave the Picture of the blessed Virgin and Joseph To Dr. Winniff who succeeded him in the Deanry he gave a Picture called the Sceleton To the succeeding Dean who was not then known he gave many necessaries of worth and useful for his house and also several Pictures and Ornaments for the Chappel with a desire that they might be registred and remain as a Legacy to his Successors To the Earls of Dorset and of Carlile he gave several Pictures and so he did to many other friends Legacies given rather to express his affection than to make any addition to their Estates but unto the Poor he was full of Charity and unto many others who by his constant and long
become so humble as to banish self-flattery and such weeds as naturally grow there yet they have not been able to kill this desire of glory but that like our radical heat it will both live and dye with us and many think it should do so and we want not sacred examples to justifie the desire of having our memory to out-live our lives which I mention because Dr. Donne by the persuasion of Dr. Fox easily yielded at this very time to have a Monument made for him but Dr. Fox undertook not to persuade how or what it should be that was left to Dr. Donne himself This being resolved upon Dr. Donne sent for a Carver to make for him in wood the figure of an Urn giving him directions for the compass and height of it and to bring with it a board of the height of his body These being got then without delay a choice Painter was to be in a readiness to draw his picture which was taken as followeth Several Charcole-fires being first made in his large Study he brought with him into that place his winding-sheet in his hand and having put off all his cloaths had this sheet put on him and so tyed with knots at his head and feet and his hands so placed as dead bodies are usually fitted to be shrowded and put into the grave Upon this Urn he thus stood with his eyes shut and with so much of the sheet turned aside as might shew his lean pale and death-like face which was purposely turned toward the East from whence he expected the second coming of his and our Saviour Thus he was drawn at his just hèight and when the picture was fully finished he caused it to be set by his bed-side where it continued and became his hourly object till his death and was then given to his dearest friend and Executor Dr. King who caused him to be thus carved in one entire piece of white Marble as it now stands in the Cathedral Church of St. Pauls and by Dr. Donne's own appointment these words were to be affixed to it as his Epitaph JOHANNES DONNE Sac. Theol. Professor Post varia Studia quibus ab annis tenerrimis fideliter nec infeliciter incubuit Instinctu impulsu Sp. Sancti Monitu Hortatu REGIS JACOBI Ordines Sacros amplexus Anno sui Jesu 1614. suae aetatis 42. Decanatu hujus Ecclesiae indutus 27. Novembris 1621. Exutus morte ultimo Die Martii 1631. Hic licet in Occiduo Cinere Aspicit Eum Cujus nomen est Oriens Upon Monday following he took his last leave of his beloved Study and being sensible of his hourly decay retired himself to his bed-chamber and that week sent at several times for many of his most considerable friends with whom he took a solemn and deliberate farewell commending to their considerations some sentences useful for the regulation of their lives and then dismist them as good Jacob did his sons with a spiritual benediction The Sunday following he appointed his servants that if there were any business undone that concerned him or themselves it should be prepared against Saturday next for after that day he would not mix his thoughts with any thing that concerned this world nor ever did But as Job so he waited for the appointed time of his dissolution And now he had nothing to do but to dye to do which he stood in need of no longer time for he had studied long and to so happy a perfection that in a former sickness he called God to witness he was that minute ready to deliver his soul into his hands if that minute God would determine his dissolution In that sickness he beg'd of God the constancy to be preserved in that estate for ever and his patient expectation to have his immortal soul disrob'd from her garment of mortality makes me confident he now had a modest assurance that his Prayers were then heard and his Petition granted He lay fifteen dayes earnestly expecting his hourly change and in the last hour of his last day as his body melted away and vapoured into spirit his soul having I verily believe some Revelation of the Beatifical Vision he said I were miserable if I might not dye and after those words closed many periods of his faint breath by saying often Thy Kingdom come Thy Will be done His speech which had long been his ready and faithful servant left him not till the last minute of his life and then forsook him not to serve another Master but dyed before him for that it was become useless to him that now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to do in heaven onely by thoughts and looks Being speechless he did as St. Stephen look stedfastly towards heaven till he saw the Son of God standing at the right hand of his Father and being satisfied with this blessed sight as his soul ascended and his last breath departed from him he closed his own eyes and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture as required not the least alteration by those that came to shroud him Thus variable thus vertuous was the Life thus excellent thus exemplary was the Death of this memorable man He was buried in that place of St. Pauls Church which he had appointed for that use some years before his death and by which he passed daily to pay his publick devotions to Almighty God who was then served twice a day by a publick form of Prayer and Praises in that place but he was not buried privately though he desired it for beside an unnumbred number of others many persons of Nobility and of eminency for Learning who did love and honour him in his life did shew it at his death by a voluntary and sad attendance of his body to the grave where nothing was so remarkable as a publick sorrow To which place of his Burial some mournful Friend repaired and as Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achilles so they strewed his with an abundance of curious and costly Flowers which course they who were never yet known continued morning and evening for many dayes not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Church to give his body admission into the cold earth now his bed of rest were again by the Masons art so levelled and firmed as they had been formerly and his place of Burial undistinguishable to common view Nor was this all the Honour done to his reverend Ashes for as there be some persons that will not receive a reward for that for which God accounts himself a Debtor persons that dare trust God with their Charity and without a witness so there was by some grateful unknown Friend that thought Dr. Donnes memory ought to be perpetuated an hundred Marks sent to his two faithful Friends and Executors towards the making of his Monument It was not for many years known by whom but after the death of Dr. Fox it was
Privy-Councel and by him advanced to be Lord Wotton Baron of Merley in Kent and made Lord Lieutenant of that County Sir James the second son may be numbred among the Martial men of his age who was in the 38 of Queen Elizabeths Reign with Robert Earl of Sussex Count Lodowick of Nassaw Don Christophoro son of Antonio King of Portugal and divers other Gentlemen of Nobleness and Valour Knighted in the Field near Cadiz in Spain after they had gotten great Honour and Riches besides a notable retaliation of Injuries by taking that Town Sir John being a Gentleman excellently accomplished both by Learning and Travel was Knighted by Queen Elizabeth and by her look'd upon with more then ordinary favour and intentions of preferment but Death in his younger years put a period to his growing hopes Of Sir Henry my following discourse shall give an account The descent of these fore-named Wottons were all in a direct Line and most of them and their actions in the memory of those with whom we have conversed But if I had look'd so far back as to Sir Nicolas Wotton who lived in the Reign of King Richard the second or before him upon divers others of great note in their several Ages I might by some be thought tedious and yet others may more justly think me negligent if I omit to mention Nicholas Wotton the fourth Son of Sir Robert whom I first named This Nicholas Wotton was Doctor of Law and sometime Dean of Canterbury a man whom God did not onely bless with a long life but with great abilities of mind and an inclination to imploy them in the service of his Country as is testified by his several Imployments having been sent nine times Ambassadour unto forraign Princes and being a Privy Councellor to King Henry the eighth to Edward the sixth to Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth who also after he had during the Wars between England Scotland and France been three several times and not unsuccessfully imployed in Committies for setling of peace betwixt this and those Kingdomes dyed saith learned Cambden full of Commendations for Wisdom and Piety He was also by the Will of King Henry the eighth made one of his Executors and chief Secretary of State to his Son that pious Prince Edward the sixth Concerning which Nicholas Wotton I shall say but this little more That he refused being offered it by Queen Elizabeth to be Arch-bishop of Canterbury and that he dyed not rich though he lived in that time of the dissolution of Abbeys More might be added but by this it may appear that Sir Henry Wotton was a Branch of such a kindred as left a Stock of Reputation to their Posterity such Reputation as might kindle a generous emulation in strangers and preserve a noble ambition in those of his name and Family to perform Actions worthy of their Ancestors And that Sir Henry Wotton did so might appear more perfectly then my Pen can express it if of his many surviving friends some one of higher parts and imployment had been pleased to have commended his to Posterity But since some years are now past and they have all I know not why forborn to do it my gratitude to the memory of my dead friend and the renewed request of some that still live solicitous to see this duty performed these have had a power to perswade me to undertake it which truly I have not done but with some distrust of mine own Abilities and yet so far from despair that I am modestly confident my humble language shall be accepted because I present all Readers with a Commixture of truth and Sir Henry Wotton's merits This being premised I proceed to tell the Reader that the father of Sir Henry Wotton was twice married first to Elizabeth the Daughter of Sir John Rudstone Knight after whose death though his inclination was averse to all Contentions yet necessitated he was to several Suits in Law in the prosecution whereof which took up much of his time and were the occasion of many Discontents he was by divers of his friends earnestly perswaded to a re-marriage to whom he as often answered That if ever he did put on a resolution to marry he was seriously resolved to avoid three sorts of persons namely those that had Children that had Law-suits that were of his Kindred And yet following his own Law-suits he met in Westminster-Hall with one Mistress Morton Widow to Morton of Kent Esquire who was also engaged in several suits in Law and he observing her Comportment at the time of hearing one of her Causes before the Judges could not but at the same time both compassionate her Condition and yet so affect her Person that although there were in her a concurrence of all those accidents against which he had so seriously resolved yet his affection to her grew then so strong that he resolved to solicite her for a Wife and did and obtained her By her who was the Daughter of Sir William Finch of Eastwell in Kent he had Henry his youngest son His Mother undertook to be Tutoress unto him during much of his Childhood for whose care and pains he paid her each day with such visible signes of future perfection in Learning as turned her imployment into a pleasing-trouble which she was content to continue till his Father took him into his own particular care and disposed of him to a Tutor in his own House at Bocton And when time and diligent instruction had made him fit for a removal to an higher Form which was very early he was sent to Winchester-School a place of strict Discipline and Order that so he might in his youth be moulded into a Method of living by Rule which his wise Father knew to be the most necessary way to make the future part of his life both happy to himself and useful for the discharge of all business whether publick or private And that he might be confirmed in this regularity he was at a fit age removed from that School to New-Colledge in Oxford both being founded by William Wickham Bishop of VVinchester There he continued till about the eighteenth year of his Age and was then transplanted into Queens-Colledge where within that year he was by the chief of that Colledge perswasively injoyned to write a play for their private use it was the Tragedy of Tancredo which was so interwoven with Sentences and for the Method and exact personating those humours passions and dispositions which he proposed to represent so performed that the gravest of that society declared he had in a sleight imployment given an early and a solid testimony of his future abilities And though there may be some sower dispositions which may think this not worth a memorial yet that wise Knight Baptista Guarini whom learned Italy accounts one of her ornaments thought it neither an uncomely nor an unprofitable imployment for his Age. But I pass to what will be thought more serious About the nineteenth
considered the Dream more seriously and then both joyned in praising God for it That God who tyes himself to no Rules either in preventing of evil or in shewing of mercy to those whom of his good pleasure he hath chosen to love And this Dream was the more considerable because many of the Dreams of this Thomas Wotton did most usually prove ture both in foretelling things to come and discovering things past of which I will give the Reader but one particular more namely this This Thomas a little before his death dream'd that the University Treasury was robbed by Townsmen and poor Scholars and that the number was five And being that day to write to his Son Henry at Oxford he thought it worth so much pains as by a Postscript in his Letter to make a slight inquiry of it the Letter which was writ out of Kent and dated three dayes before came to his Sons hands the very morning after the night in which the Robbery was committed and when the City and University were both in a perplext Enquest of the Thieves then did Sir H. Wotton shew his fathers Letter and by it such light was given of this work of darkness that the five guilty persons were presently discovered and apprehended without putting the Univesity to so much trouble as the casting of a Figure And it may yet be more considerable that this Nicholas and Thomas Wotton should both being men of holy lives of even tempers and much given to fasting and prayer foresee and foretell the very dayes of their own death Nicholas did so being then Seventy years of age and in perfect health Thomas did the like in the 65 year of his age who being then in London where he dyed and foreseeing his death there gave direction that his Body should be carried to Bocton and though he thought his Uncle Nicholas worthy of that noble Monument which he built for him in the Cathedral Church of Canterbury yet this humble man gave direction concerning himself to be buried privately and especially without any pomp at his Funeral BUt it may now seem more then time that I return to Sir Henry Wotton at Oxford where after his optick Lecture he was taken into such a bosom friendship with the learned Albericus Gentilis whom I formerly named that if it had been possible Gentilis would have breathed all his excellent knowledge both of the Mathematicks and Law into the breast of his dear Harry for so Gentilis used to call him and though he was not able to do that yet there was in Sir Henry such a propenfity and connaturalness to the Italian Language and those Studies whereof Gentilis was a great Master that this friendship between them did daily increase and proved daily advantagious to Sir Henry for the improvement of him in several Sciences during his stay in the University From which place before I shall invite the Reader to follow him into a forreign Nation though I must omit to mention divers persons that were then in Oxford of memorable note for Learning and Friends to Sir Henry Wotton yet I must not omit the mention of a love that was there begun betwixt him and Dr. Donne sometimes Dean of St. Pauls a man of whose abilities I shall forbear to say any thing because he who is of this Nation that pretends to Learning or Ingenuity and is ignorant of Dr. Donne deserves not to know him The friendship of these two I must not omit to mention being such a friendship as was generously elemented And as it was begun in their Youth and in an University and there maintained by correspondent Inclinations and Studies so it lasted till Age and Death forced a Separation In Oxford he stayed till about two years after his fathers death at which time he was about the two and twentieth year of his Age and having to his great Wit added the ballast of Learning and knowledge of the Arts he then laid aside his Books and betook himself to the useful Library of Travel and a more general Conversation with Mankind employing the remaining part of his Youth his industry and fortune to adorn his mind and to purchase the rich treasure of forreign knowledge of which both for the secrets of Nature the dispositions of many Nations their several Laws and Languages he was the possessor in a very large measure as I shall faithfully make to aâ—pear before I take my Pen from the following Narration of his Life In his Travels which was almost nine years before his return into England he stayed but one year in France and most of that in Geneva where he became acquainted with Theodor Bezâ— then very aged and with Isaac Causabon in whose fathers house if I be rightly informed Sir Henry Wotton was lodged and there contracted a most worthy friendship with him and his most learned Son Three of the remaining eight years were spent in Germany the other five in Italy the Stage on which God appointed he should act a great part of his life where both in Rome Venice and Florence he became acquainted with the most eminent men for Learning and all manner of Arts as Picture Sculpture Chymistry Architecture and divers other manual Arts even Arts of inferiour nature of all which he was a most dear Lover and a most excellent Judge He returned out of Italy into England about the Thirtieth year of his Age being then noted by many both for his person and comportment for indeed he was of a choice shape tall of stature and of a most perswasive behaviour which was so mixed with sweet Discourse and Civilities as gained him much love from all persons with whom he entred into an acquaintance And whereas he was noted in his Youth to have a sharp wit and apt to jest that by Time Travel and Conversation was sâ— polish'd and made so useful that his company seemed to be one of the delights of Mankind insomuch as Robert Earl of Essex then one of the darlings of fortune and in greatest favour with Queen Elizabeth invited him first into a friendship and after a knowledge of his great abilities to be one of his Secretaries the other being Mr. Henry Cuffe sometimes of Merton Colledge in Oxford and there also the acquaintance of Sir Henry Wotton in his Youth Mr. Cuffe being then a man of no common note in the University for his Learning nor after his removal from that place for the great abilities of his mind nor indeed for the fatalness of his end Sir Henry Wotton being now taken into a serviceable friendship with the Earl of Essex did personally attend his Counsels and Employments in two Voyages at Sea against the Spaniard and also in that which was the Earls last into Ireland that Voyage wherein he did so much provoke the Queen to anger then and worse at his return into England upon whose immovable favour he had built such sandy hopes as incouraged him to those undertakings which with the help
of his Country But the word for lye being the hinge upon which the Conceit was to turn was not so expreâ—s'd in Latine as would admit in the hands of an enemy especially so fair a construction as Sir Henry thought in English Yet as it was it slept quietly among other Sentences in this Albo almost eight years till by accident it fell into the hands of Jasper Scioppius a Romanist a man of a restless spirit and a malicious Pen who with Books against King James prints this as a Principle of that Religion professed by the King and his Embassadour Sir Henry Wotton then at Venice and in Venice it was presently after written in several Glass-Windowes and spitefully declared to be Sir Henry VVottons This coming to the knowledge of King James he apprehended it to be such an oversight such a weakness or worse in Sir Henry VVotton as caused the King to express much wrath against him and this caused Sir Henry VVotton to write two Apologies one to Velserus one of the Chiefs of Augusta in the Universal Language which he caus'd to be printed and given and scattered in the most remarkable places both of Germany and Italy as an Antidote against the venemous books of Scioppius and another Apology to King James which were both so ingenious so clear and so choicely Eloquent that his Majesty who was a pure Judge of it could not forbear at the receit thereof to declare publickly That Sir Henry VVotton had commuted sufficiently for a greater offence And now as broken bones well set become stronger so Sir Henry Wotton did not only recover but was much more confirmed in his Majesties estimation and favour then formerly he had been And as that man his friend of great wit and useful fancy gave in a Will of his a Will of conceits his Reputation to his Friends and his Industry to his Foes because from thence he received both so those friends that in this time of tryal labored to excuse this facetious freedom of Sir Henry Wottons were to him more dear and by him more highly valued and those acquaintance that urged this as an advantage against him caused him by this errour to grow both more wise and which is the best fruit errour can bring forth for the future to become more industriously watchful over his tongue and pen. I have told you a part of his imployment in Italy where notwithstanding the accusation of Scioppius his interest still increas'd with this Duke Leonardo Donato after whose death as though it had been an intail'd love it was still found living in the succeeding Dukes during all the time of his imployment to that State which was almost Twenty years All which time he studied the dispositions of those Dukes and the other Consultors of State well knowing that he who negotiates a continued business and neglects the study of dispositions usually fails in his proposed ends But this Sir Henry Wotton did not for by a fine sorting of fit Presents curious and not costly entertainments alwayes sweetned by various and pleasant discourse with which and his choice application of stories and his so elegant deliver'd of all these even in their Italian Language he first got and still preserv'd such interest in the State of Venice that it was observ'd such was either his merit or his modesty they never denyed him any request But all this shewes but his abilities and his fitness for that Imployment 'T will therefore be needful to tell the Reader what use he made of the Interest which these procured him and that indeed was rather to oblige others then to enrich himself he still endeavouring that the reputation of the English might be maintain'd both in the German Empire and in Italy where many Gentlemen whom Travel had invited into that Nation received from him chearfull Entertainments advice for their behaviour and shelter or deliverance from those accidental storms of adversity which usually attend upon Travel And because these things may appear to the Reader to be but Generals I shall acquaint him with two particular Examples one of his merciful disposition and one of the Nobleness of his Mind which shall follow There had been many English Souldiers brought by Commanders of their own Country to serve the Uenetians for pay against the Turk and those English having by Irregularities or Improvidence brought themselves into several Gallies and Prisons Sir Henry Wotton became a Petitioner to that State for their Lives and Inlargement and his request was granted so that those which were many hundreds and there made the sad Examples of humane misery by hard imprisonment and unpitied poverty in a strange Nation were by his means released relieved and in a comfortable Condition sent to thank God and him for their Lives and Libertyes in their own Country And this I have observed as one testimony of the compassionate Nature of him who was during his stay in those parts as a City of Refuge for the Distressed of this and other Nations And for that which I offer as a Testimony of the Nobleness of his mind I shall make way to the Readers clearer understanding of it by telling him that Sir Henry Wotton was sent thrice Embassadour to the Republick of Uenice and that at his second going thither he was employed Embassador to several of the German Princes and to the Emperour Ferdinando the second and that his employment to him and those Princes was to incline them to equitable Conditions for the restauration of the Queen of Rohemia and her Descendents to their Patrimonial Inheritance of the Palatinate This was by his eight months constant endeavours and attendance upon the Emperour his Court and Counsel brought to the probability of a succesful Conclusion without bloodshed there being at that time two opposite armies in the field but as they were treating the Armies met and there was a battle fought the managery whereof was so full of miserable errours on the one side so Sir Henry Wotton expresses it in a dispatch to the King and so advantagious to the Emperour as put an end to all Hopes of a succcessful Treaty so that Sir Henry seeing the face of Peace altered by that Victory prepared for a Removal from that Court and at his departure from the Emperour was so bold as to remember him That the Events of every Battel move â—n the unseen wheels of Fortune which are this moment up and down the next and therefore humbly advised him to use his Victory so soberly as still to put on thoughts of Peace Which advice though it seemed to be spoke with some Passion his dear Mistress the Queen of Bohemia being concerned in it was yet taken in good part by the Emperour who was much pleased with his carriage all the time that he resided in his Court and said That the King his Master was look'd on as an Abettor of his Enemy the Palsgrave but yet he took him to be a Person of much Honour and
Merit and did therefore desire him to accept of that Jewel as a Testimony of his good opinion of him which was a Jewel of Diamonds of more value then a thousand pounds This was received with all Circumstances and terms of Honour by Sir Henry Wotton but the next morning at his departing from Vienna at his taking leave of the Countess of Sabrina an Italian Lady in whose House the Emperour had appointed him to be lodg'd and honourably entertained He acknowledged her Merits and besought her to accept of that Jewel as a testimony of his gratitude for her Civilities presenting her with the same that was given him by the Emperour which being suddenly discovered by the Emperour was by him taken for a high affront and Sir Henry Wotton told so To which he replyed That though he received it with thankfulness yet he found in himself an indisposition to be the better for any gift that came from an Enemy to his Royal Mistress the Queen of Bohemia for so she was pleased he should alwayes call her Many other of his services to his Prince and this Nation might be insisted upon as namely his procuration of Priviledges and courtesies with the German Princes and the Republick of Venice for the English Merchants and what he did by direction of King James with the Venetian State concerning the Bishop of Spalato's return to the Church of Rome But for the particulars of these and many more that I mean to make known I want a view of some papers that might inform me his late Majesties Letter-Office having suffered a strange alienation and indeed I want time too for the Printers Press-stayes so that I must haste to bring Sir Henry Wotton in an instant from Venice to London leaving the Reader to make up what is defective in this place by this small supplement of the inscription under his Armes which he left at all those houses where he rested or lodged when he returned from his last Embassie into England Henricus Wottonius Anglo-Cantianus Thomae optimi viri filius natu minimus a serenissimo Jacobo I. Mag. Britt Rege in equestrem titulum adscitus ejusdemque ter ad Rempublicam Venetam Legatus Ordinarius semel ad confaederatarum Provinciarum Ordines in Juliacensi negotio Bis ad Carolum Emanuel Sabaudiae Ducem semel ad unitos superioris Gâ—rmaniae Principes in Conventu Heilbrunensi postremo ad Archiducem Leopoldum Ducem Wittembergensem Civitates imperiales Argentinam Ulmamque ipsum Romanorum Imperatorem Ferdinandum secundum Legatus Extraordinarius tandem hoc didicit Animas fieri sapientiores quiescendo To London he came that year in which King James dyed who having for the reward of his forreign service promised him the reversion of an Office which was fit to be turned into present money for a supply of his present necessities and also granted him the reversion of the Master of the Rolls place if he out-lived charitable Sir Julius Caesar who then possessed it and then grown so old that he was said to be kept alive beyond Natures Course by the prayers of those many poor which he daily relieved But these were but in hope and his condition required a present support For in the beginning of these imployments he sold to his elder brother the Lord Wotton the Rent-charge left by his good Father and which is worse was now at his return indebted to several persons whom he was not able to satisfie but by the Kings payment of his Arrears due for his forreign Imployments He had brought into England many servants of which some were German and Italian Artists this was part of his condition who had many times hardly sufficient to supply the occasions of the day For it may by no means be said of his providence as himself said of Sir Philip Sidney's wit That it was the very measure of congruity He being alwayes so careless of money as though our Saviours wores Care not for to morrow were to be literally understood But it pleased God that in this juncture of time the Provostship of His Majesties Colledge of Eaton became void by the death ofâ— Murray for which there were as the place deserv'd many earnest and powerful Suiters to the King Sir Henry who had for many years like Siciphus rolled the restless stone of a State imployment and knowing experimentally that the great blessing of sweet content was not to be found in multitudes of men or business and that a Colledge was the fittest place to nourish holy thoughts and to afford rest both to his body and mind which his age being now almost threescore years seemed to require did therefore use his own and the interest of all his friends to procure it By which means and quitting the King of his promised reversionary Offices and a piece of honest policy which I have not time to relate he got a Grant of it from His Majesty And this was a fair settlement for his mind but money was wanting to furnish him with those necessaries which attend removes and a settlement in such a place and to procure that he wrote to his old friend Mr. Nicholas Pey for his assistance of which Nicholas Pey I shall here say a little for the clearing of something that I shall say hereafter He was in his youth a Clerk or in some such way a servant to the Lord Wotton Sir Henry's brother and by him when he was Comptroller of the Kings Houshold was made a great Officer in His Majesties house This and other favours being conferred upon Mr. Pey in whom was a radical honesty were alwayes thankfully acknowledged by him and his gratitude exprest by a willing and unwearied serviceableness to that Family even till his death To him Sir Henry Wotton wrote to use all his inâ—â—â—â— at Court to procure Five hundred pounds of his Arrears for less would not settle him â—â—â— Colledge and the want of it wrinkled â—â—â—â—â— with care 't was his own expression and thâ—r being procured he should the next day after find him in his Colledge and Invidiae remedium writ over his Study door This money being part of his Arrears was by his own and the help of honest Nicholas Pey's interest in Court quickly procured him and he as quickly in the Colledge the place where indeed his happiness then seemed to have its beginning the Colledge being to his mind as a quiet Harbor to a Sea-faring-man after a tempestuous voyage where by the bounty of the pious Founder his very Food and Rayment were plentifully provided for him in kind where he was freed from all corroding cares and seated on such a Rock as the waves of want could not probably shake where he might sit in a Calm and looking down behold the busie multitude turmoyl'd and tossed in a tempestuous Sea of dangers And as Sir William Davenant has happily exprest the like of another person Laugh at the graver business of the State Which speaks men rather wise than
to foretell his death for which he seemed to those many friends that observed him to be well prepared and still free from all fear and chearful as several Letters writ in his bed and but a few dayes before his death may testifie And in the beginning of December following he fell again into a Quartan Fever land in the tenth fiâ— his better part that part of Sir Henry Wotton which could not dye put off Mortality with as much content and chearfulness as humane frailty is capable of he being in perfect peace with God and man And thus the Circle of his Life that Circle which began at Bocton and in the Circumference thereof did first touch at Winchester-School then at Oxford and after upon so many remarkable parts and passages in Christendom That Circle of his Life was by Death thus closed up and compleated in the seventy and second year of his Age at Eaton Colledge where according to his Will he now lies buried dying worthy of his Name and Family worthy of the love and favour of so many Princes and Persons of eminent Wisdom and Learning worthy of the trust committed unto him for the Service of his Prince and Country And all Readers are requested to believe that he was worthy of a more worthy Pen to have preserved his Memory and commended his Merits to the imitation of Posterity AN ELEGIE ON Sir HENRY WOTTON WRIT By Mr ABRAM COWLEY WHat shall we say since silent now is he Who when he spoke all things woul'd silent be Who had so many languages in store That only fame shall speak of him in more Whom England now no more return'd must see He 's gone to Heaven on his fourth Embassie On Earth he travail'd often not to say H 'ad been abroad to pass loose time away For in what ever land he chanc'd to come He read the men and manners bringing home Their Wisdom Learning and their Pietie As if he went to Conquer not to see So well he understood the most and best Of Tongues that Babel sent into the West Spoke them so truly that he had you 'd swear Not only liv'd but been born every where Justly each Nations speech to him was known Who for the World was made not us alone Nor ought the Language of that man be less Who in his brest had all things to express We say that Learning 's endless and blame Fate For not alowing life a longer date He did the utmost bounds of Knowledg finde And found them not so large as was his minde But like the brave Pellean youth did mone Because that Art had no more Worlds then one And when he saw that he through all had past He dy'd least he should Idle grow at last A. Cowley FINIS M r RICHARD HOOKER Author of those Learned Bookes of Ecclesiasticall pollitie The LIFE OF Mr. RICH. HOOKER THE AUTHOR of those Learned Books OF THE Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity Psal. 145. 4. One generation shall praise thy works to another Prov. 2. 15. The tongue of the wise useth knowledge rightly LONDON Printed by Tho Newcomb for Rich Marriot sold by most Booksellers M.DC.LXX To his very Worthy Friend Mr. Isaac Walton upon his Writing and Publishing the Life of the Venerable and Judicious Mr. Richard Hooker I. HAyle Sacred Mother British Church all hayle From whose fruitful Loyns have sprung Of Pious Sons so great a throng That Heav'nt oppose their force of strength did fail And let the mighty Conquerors o're Almighty arms prevail How art thou chang'd from what thou wert a late When destitute and quite forlorn And scarce a Child of thousands with thee left to mourn Thy veil all rent and all thy garments torn With tears thou didst bewail thine own and childrens fate Too much alas thou didst resemble then Sion thy pattern Sion in ashes laid Despis'd Forsaken and betray'd Sion thou dost resemble once agen And rais'd like her the glory of the World art made Threnes only to thee could that time belong Bâ—t now thou art the lofty Subject of my Song II. Begin my Verse and where the doleful Mother sate As it in Vision was to Esdras shown Lamenting with the rest her dearest Son Blest CHARLES who his Forefathers has outgon And to the Royal join'd the Martyrs brighter Crown Let a new City rise with beautious state And beautious let its Temple be and beautiful the Gate Lo how the Sacred Fabrick up does rise The Architects so skilful All So grave so humble and so wise The Axes and the Hammers noise Is drown'd in silence or in numbers Musicall 'T is up and at the Altar stand The Reverend Fathers as of Old With Harps and Incense in their hand Nor let the pious service grow or stiff or cold Th' inferiour Priests the while To Praise continually imploy'd or Pray Need not the weary hours beguile Enough 's the single Duty of each day Thou thy self Woodford on thy humbler Pipe must play And tho but lately entred there So gracious those thou honour'st all appear So ready and attent to hear An easie part proportion'd to thy skill may'st bear III. But where alas where wilt thou fix thy choice The Subjects are so noble all So great their beauties and thy art so small They 'll judge I fear themselves disparag'd by thy voyce Yet try and since thou canst not take A nameâ— so despicably low But 't will exceed what thou canst do Tho thy whole Mite thou away at once shouldst throw Thy Poverty a vertue make And that thou may'st Immortal live Since Immortality thou canst not give From one who has enough to spare be ambitious to receive Of Reverend and Judicious Hooker sing Hooker does to th' Church belong The Church and Hooker claim thy Song And inexhausted Riches to thy Verse will bring So far beyond it self will make it grow That life his gift to thee thou shalt again on him bestow IV. How great blest Soul must needs thy Glories be Thy Joyes how perfect and thy Crown how fair Who mad'st the Church thy chiefest care This Church which owes so much to thee That all Her Sons are studious of thy memory 'T was a bold work the Captiv'd to redeem And not so only but th'Oppress'd to raise Our aged Mother to that due Esteem She had and merited in her younger dayes When Primitive Zeal and Piety Were all her Laws and Policy And decent Worship kept the mean It 's too wide stretch't Extreams between The rudely scrupulous and extravagantly vain This was the work of Hookers Pen With Judgement Candor and such Learning writ Matter and Words so exactly fit That were it to be done agen Expected 't would be as its Answer hitherto has been RITORNATA To Chelsea Song there tell Thy Patrons Friend The Church is Hookers Debtor Hooker His And strange 't would be if he should Glory miss For whom two such most powerfully contend Bid him chear up the Day 's his own And he shall never die Who
his hand a Walking-staff with which he professed he had travelled through many parts of Germany and he said Richard I do not give but lend you my Horse be sure you be honest and bring my Horse back to me at your return this way to Oxford And I do now give you Ten Groats to bear your charges to Exeter and here is Ten Groats more which I charge you to deliver to your Mother and tell her I send her a Bishops Benediction with it and beg the continuance of her prayers for me And if you bring my Horse back to me I will give you Ten Groats more to carry you on foot to the Colledge and so God bless you good Richard And this you may believe was performed by both Parties But alas the next News that followed Mr. Hooker to Oxford was that his learned and charitable Patron had changed this for a better life Which may be believed for that as he lived so he dyed in devout meditation and prayer and in both so zealously that it became a religious question Whether his last Ejâ—culations or his Soul did first enter into Heaven And now Mr. Hooker became a man of sorrow and fear of sorrow for the loss of so dear and comfortable a Patron and of fear for his future subsistence But Dr. Cole raised his spirits from this dejection by bidding him go chearfully to his Studies and assuring him he should neither want food nor rayment which was the utmost of his hopes for he would become his Patron And so he was for about nine months and not longer for about that time this following accident did befall Mr. Hooker Edwin Sandys then Bishop of London and after Archbishop of York had also been in the dayes of Queen Mary forced by forsaking this to seek safety in another Nation where for some Years Bishop Jewell and he were Companions at Bed and Board in Germany and where in this their Exile they did often eat the bread of sorrow and by that means they there began such a friendship as lasted till the death of Bishop Jewell which was in September 1571. A little before which time the two Bishops meeting Jewell began a story of his Richard Hooker and in it gave such a Character of his Learning and Manners that though Bishop Sandys was educated in Cambridge where he had oblieged and had many Friends yet his resolution was that his Son Edwin should be sent to Corpus-Christi Colledge in Oxford and by all means be Pupil to Mr. Hooker though his Son Edwin was not then much yonger for the Bishop said I will have a Tutor for my Son that shall teach him Learning by Instruction and Vertue by Example and my greatest care shall be of the last and God willing this Richard Hooker shall be the Man into whose hands I will commit my Edwin And the Bishop did so about twelve moneths or not much longer after this resolution And doubtless as to these two a better choice could not be made for Mr. Hooker was now in the nineteenth year of his age had spent five in the University and had by a constant unwearied diligence attained unto a perfection in all the learned Languages by the help of which an excellent Tutor and his unintermitted Study he had made the subtilty of all the Arts easie and familiar to him and usefull for the discovery of such Learning as lay hid from common Searchers so that by these added to his great Reason and his Industry added to both He did not onely know more of Causes and effects but what he knew he knew better then other men And with this Knowledge he had a most blessed and clear Method of Demonstrating what he knew to the great advantage of all his Pupils which in time were many but especially to his two first his dear Edwin Sandys and his as dear George Cranmer of which there will be a fair Testimony in the ensuing Relation This for his Learning And for his Behaviour amongst other Testimonies this still remains of him That in four years he was but twice absent from the Chappel prayers and that his Behaviour there was such as shewed an awful reverence of that God which he then worshipped and prayed to giving all outward testimonies that his Affections were set on heavenly things This was his Behaviour towards God and for that to Man it is observable that he was never known to be angry or passionate or extream in any of his Desires never heard to repine or dispure with Providence but by a quiet gentle submission and resignation of his will to the Wisdome of his Creator bore the burthen of the day with patience never heard to utter an uncomly word and by this and a grave Behaviour which is a Divine Charm he begot an early Reverence unto his Person even from those that at other times and in other companies took a liberty to cast off that strictness of Behaviour and Discourse that is required in a Collegiate Life And when he took any liberty to be pleasant his Wit was never blemisht with Scoffing or the utterance of any Conceit that border'd upon or might beget a thought of Looseness in his hearers Thus milde thus innocent and exemplary was his Behaviour in his Colledge and thus this good man continued till his death still increasing in Learning in Patience and Piety In this nineteenth year of his age he was December 24. 1573 admitted to be one of the twenty Scholars of the Foundation being elected and so admitted as born in Devon or Hantshire out of which Countries a certain number are to be elected in Vacancies by the Founders Statutes And now as he was much encouraged so now he was perfectly in oâ—porated into this beloved Colledg which was then noted for an eminent Library strict students and remarkable â—cholars And indeed it may glory that it had Cardinal Poole Bishop Jewel Doctor John Reynolds and Doctor Thomas Jackson of that Foundation The First famous for his Learned Apology for the Church of England and his Defence of it against Harding The Second for the learned and wise Menage of a publique Dispute with John Hart of the Romish perswasion about the Head and Faith of the Church and then printed by consent of both parties And the Third for his most excellent Exposition of the Creed and other Treatises All such as have given greatest satisfaction to men of the greatest Learning Nor was this man more Note-worthy for his Learning than for his strict and and pious Life testified by his abundant love and charity to all men And in the year 1576. Febr. 23. Mr. Hookers Grace was given him for Inceptor of Arts Doctor Herbert Westphaling a man of note for Learning being then Vice-chancellour And the Act following he was compleated Master which was Anno 1577. his Patron Doctor Cole being Vice-chancellour that year and his dear friend Henry Savill of Merton Colledge being then one of the Proctors 'T was that
all her Church-cares by his wise Menage of them he gave her faithful and prudent Counsels in all the Extremities and Dangers of her Temporal Affairs which were many he lived to be the Chief Comfort of her Life in her Declining age to be then most frequently with her and her Assistant at her private Devotions to be the greatest Comfort of her Soul upon her Death-bed to be present at the Expiration of her last Breath and to behold the closing of those Eyes that had long looked upon him with Reverence and Affection And let this also be added that he was the Chief Mourner at her sad Funeral nor let this be forgotten that within a few hours after her death he was the happy Proclaimer that King James her peaceful Successour was Heir to the Crown Let me beg of my Reader to allow me to say a little and but a little more of this good Bishop and I shall then presently lead him back to Mr. Hooker and because I would hasten I will mention but one part of the Bishops Charity and Humility but this of both He built a large Almes-house near to his own Palace at Croyden in Surry and endowed it with Maintenance for a Master and twenty eight poor Men and Women which he visited so often that he knew their Names and Dispositions and was so truly humble that he called them Brothers and Sisters and whensoever the Queen descended to that lowlines to dine with him at his Palace in Lambeth which was very often he would usually the next day shew the like lowliness to his poor Brothers and Sisters at Croydon and dine with them at his Hospital at which time you may believe there was Joy at the Table And at this place he built also a fair Free-School with a good Accommodation and Maintenance for the Master and Scholars Which gave just occasion for Boyse Sisi then Embassadour for the French King and Resident here at the Bishops death to say The Bishop had published many learned Books but a Free-school to train up Youth and an Hospital to lodge and maintain aged and poor People were the best Evidences of Christian Learning that a Bishop could leave to Posterity This good Bishop lived to see King James settled in Peace and then fell sick at his Palace in Lambeth of which when the King had notice he went to visit him and found him in his Bed in a declining condition and very weak and after some short discourse betwixt them the King at his departure assured him He had a great Affection for him and a very high value for his Prudence and Vertues and would indeavour to beg his life of God To which the good Bishop replied Pro Ecclesia Dei Pro Ecclesia Dei which were the last words he ever spake therein testifying that as in his Life so at his Death his chiefest care was of Gods Church This John Whitgift was made Archbishop in the year 1583. In which busie place he continued twenty years and some moneths and in which time you may believe he had many Tryals of his Courage and Patience but his Motto was Vincit qui patitur And he made it good Many of his many Trials were occasioned by the then powerful Earl of Leicester who did still but secretly raise and cherish a Faction of Non-conformists to oppose him especially one Thomas Cartwright a man of noted Learning sometime Contemporary with the Bishop in Cambridge and of the same Colledge of which the Bishop had been Master in which place there began some Emulations the particulars I forbear and at last open and high Oppositions betwixt them and in which you may believe Mr. Cartwright was most faulty if his Expulsion out of the University can incline you to it And in this discontent after the Earls death which was 1588 Mr. Cartwright appeared a chief Cherisher of a Party that were for the Geneva Church-government and to effect it he ran himself into many dangers both of Liberty and Life appearing at the last to justifie himself and his Party in many Remonstrances which he caused to be printed and to which the Bishop made a first Answer and Cartwright replyed upon him and then the Bishop having rejoyned to his first Reply Mr. Cartwright either was or was perswaded to be satisfied for he wrote no more but leftâ— the Reader to be judge which had maintained their Cause with most Charity and Reason After some silence Mr. Cartwright received from the Bishop many personal Favours and retired himself to a more private Living which was at Warwick where he was made Master of an Hospital and lived quietly and grew rich and where the Bishop gave him a Licence to Preach upon promises not to meddle with Controversies but incline his Hearers to Piety and Moderation and this Promise he kept during his Life which ended 1602 the Bishop surviving him but some few moneths each ending his daies in perfect Charity with the other And now after this long Digression made for the Information of my Reader concerning what follows I bring him back to venerable Mr. Hooker where we left him in the Temple and where we shall find him as deeply engaged in a Controversie with Walter Trevers a Friend and Favorite of Mr. Cartwrights as the Bishop had ever been with Mr. Cartwright himself and of which I shall proceed to give this following account And first this That though the Pens of Mr. Cartwright and the Bishop were now at rest yet there was sprung up a new Generation of restless men that by Company and Clamours became possest of a Faith which they ought to have kept to themselves but could not men that were become positive in asserting That a Papest cannot be saved insomuch that about this time at the Execution of the Queen of Scots the Bishop that preached her Funeral Sermon which was Doctor Howland then Bishop of Peterborough was reviled for not being positive for her Damnation And beside this Boldness of their becoming Gods so far as to set limits to his Mercies there was not onely one Martin Mar-prelate but other venemous Books daily printed and dispersed Books that were so absurd and scurrilous that the graver Divines disdained them an Answer And yet these were grown into high esteem with the Common people till Tom Nash appeared against them all who was a man of a sharp wit and the Master of a scoffing Satyrical merry Pen which he imployed to discover the Absurdities of those blind malitious sensless Pamphlets and Sermons as sensless as they Nash his Answer being like his Books which bore these Titles An Almond for a Parrot A Fig for my God-son Come crack me this Nut and the like so that his merry Wit made such a discovery of their Absurdities as which is strange he put a greater stop to these malicious Pamphlets than a much wiser man had been able And now the Reader is to take notice That at the Death of Father Alvie who was
in memory of Mr. Hooker by Sir William Cooper who also built him a fair Monument in Borne Church and acknowledges him to have been his Spiritual Father THough nothing can be spoke worthy his fame Or the remembrance of that precious name Judicious Hooker though this cost be spent On him that hath a lasting Monument In his own Books yet ought we to express If not his Worth yet our Respectfulness Church-Ceremonies he maintain'd then why Without all Ceremony should be dye Was it because his Life and Death should be Both equal patterns of Humility Or that perhaps this only glorious one Was above all to ask why had he none Yet he that lay so long obscurely low Doth now preferr'd to greater Honours go Ambitious men learn hence to be more wise Humility is the true way to rise And God in me this Lesson did inspire To bid this humble man Friend sit up higher AN APPENDIX To the LIFE of Mr. RICH. HOOKER ANd now having by a long and laborious search satisfied my self and I hope my Reader by imparting to him the true Relation of Mr. Hookers Life I am desirous also to acquaint him with some observations that relate to it and which could not properly fall to be spoken till after his death of which my Reader may expect a brief and true account in the following Appendix And first it is not to be doubted but that he dyed in the Forty-seventh if not in the Forty-sixth year of his Age which I mention because many have believed him to be more aged but I have so examined it as to be confident I mistake not and for the year of his death Mr. Cambden who in his Annals of Queen Elizabeth 1599. mentions him with a high commendation of his life and learning declares him to dye in the year 1599. and yet in that Inscription of his Monument set up at the charge of Sir William Cooper in Borne Church where Mr. Hooker was buried his death is said to be in Anno 1603. but doubtless both mistaken for I have it attested under the hand of William Somner the Archbishops Register for the Province of Canterbury that Richard Hookers Will bears date Octob. 26. in Anno 1600. and that it was prov'd the third of December following And that at his death he left four Daughters Alice Cicily Jane and Margaret that he gave to each of them an hundred pound that he left Jone his Wife his sole Executrix and that by his Inventory his Estate a great part of it being in Books came to 1092 l. 9 s. 2 d. which was much more than he thought himself worth and which was not got by his care much less by the good huswifery of his Wife but saved by his trusty servant Thomas Lane that was wiser than his Master in getting money for him and more frugal than his Mistress in keeping of it of which Will I shall say no more but that his dear friend Thomas the father of George Cranmer of whom I have spoken and shall have occasion to say more was one of the witnesses to it One of his elder Daughters was married to one Chalinor sometime a School-master in Chichester and both dead long since Margaret his youngest Daughter was married unto Ezekiel Chark Batchelor in Divinity and Rector of St. Nicholas in Harble down near Canterbury who dyed about 16 years past and had a son Ezekiel now living and in Sacred Orders being at this time Rector of Waldron in Sussex she left also a Daughter with both whom I have spoken not many months past and find her to be a Widow in a condition that wants not but far from abounding and these two attested unto me that Richard Hooker their Grandfather had a Sister by name Elizabeth Harvey that liv'd to the Age of 121 Years and dyed in the month of September 1663. For his other two Daughters I can learn little certainty but have heard they both dyed before they were marriageable and for his Wife she was so unlike Jeptha's Daughter that she staid not a comely time to bewail her Widdow-hood nor liv'd long enough to repent her second Marriage for which doubtless she would have found cause if there had been but four months betwixt Mr. Hookers and her death But she is dead and let her other infirmities be buried with her Thus much briefly for his Age the Year of his Death his Estate his Wife and his Children I am next to speak of his Books concerning which I shall have a necessity of being longer or shall neither do right to my self or my Reader which is chiefly intended in this Appendix I have declared in his Life that he proposed eight Books and that his first four were printed Anno 1594. and his fifth Book first printed and alone Anno 1597. and that he liv'd to finish the remaining three of the proposed eight but whether we have the last three as finish't by himself is a just and material Question concerning which I do declare that I have been told almost 40 Years past by one that very well knew Mr. Hooker and the affairs of his Family that about a month after the death of Mr. Hooker Bishop Whitgift then Archbishop of Canterbury sent one of his Chaplains to enquire of Mrs. Hooker for the three remaining Books of Polity writ by her Husband of which she would not or could not give any account and that about three months after the Bishop procured her to be sent for to London and then by his procurement she was to be examined by some of Her Majesties Council concerning the disposal of those Books but by way of preparation for the next dayes examination the Bishop invited her to Lambeth and after some friendly questions she confessed to him That one Mr. Charke and another Minister that dwelt near Canterbury came to her and desired that they might go into her Husbands Study and look upon some of his Writings and that there they two burnt and tore many of them assuring her that they were Writings not fit to be seen and that she knew nothing more concerning them Her lodging was then in King-street in Westminster where she was found next morning dead in her Bed and her new Husband suspected and questioned for it but declared innocent of her death And I declare also that Dr. John Spencer mentioned in the life of Mr. Hooker who was of Mr. Hookers Colledge and of his time there and betwixt whom there was so friendly a friendship that they continually advised together in all their Studies and particularly in what concern'd these Books of Polity This Dr. Spencer the three perfect Books being lost had delivered into his hands I think by Bishop Whitgift the imperfect Books or first rough draughts of them to be made as perfect as they might be by him who both knew Mr. Hookers hand writing and was best acquainted with his intentions And a fair Testimony of this may appear by an Epistle first and
usually printed before Mr. Hookers five Books but omitted I know not why in the last impression of the eight printed together in Anno 1662. in which the Publishers seem to impose the three doubtful as the undoubted Books of Mr. Hooker with these two Letters J. S. at the end of the said Epistle which was meant for this John spencer in which Epistle the Reader may find these words which may give some Authority to what I have here written And though Mr. Hooker hastened his own death by hastening to give life to his Books yet he held out with his eyes to behold these Benjamins these sons of his right hand though to him they prov'd Benonies sons of pain and sorrow But some evil disposed minds whether of malice or covetousness or wicked blind zeal it is uncertain as soon as they were born and their father dead smother'd them and by conveying the perfect Copies left unto us nothing but the old imperfect mangled draughts dismembred into pieces no favour no grace not the shadow of themselves remaining in them had the father lived to behold them thus defaced he might rightly have named them Benonies the sons of sorrow but being the learned will not suffer them to dye and be buried it is intended the world shall see them as they are the learned will find in them some shadows and resemblances of their fathers face God grant that as they were with their Brethren dedicated to the Church for messengers of peace so in the strength of that little breath of life that remaineth in them they may prosper in their work and by satisfying the doubts of such as are willing to learn they may help to give an end to the calamities of these our Civil Wars J. S. And next the Reader may note that this Epistle of Dr. Spencers was writ and first printed within four years after the death of Mr. Hooker in which time all diligent search had been made for the perfect Copies and then granted not recoverable and therefore endeavoured to be compleated out of Mr. Hookers rough draughts as is exprest by the said Dr. Spencer since whose death it is now 50 Years And I do profess by the faith of a Christian that Dr. Spencers Wife who was my Aunt and Sister to George Cranmer of whom I have spoken told me forty Years since in these or in words to this purpose That her Husband had made up or finish't Mr. Hookers last three Books and that upon her Husbands Death-bed or in his Last Sickness he gave them into her hand with a charge they should not be seen by any man but be by her delivered into the hands of the then Archbishop of Canterbury which was Dr. Abbot or unto Dr. King then Bishop of London and that she did as he injoin'd her I do conceive that from Dr. Spencers and no other Copy there have been divers Transcripts and were to be found in several places as namely Sir Thomas Bodlies Library in that of Dr. Andrews late Bishop of Winton in the late Lord Conwayes in the Archbishop of Canterburies and in the Bishop of Armaghs and in many others and most of these pretended to be the Authors own hand but much disagreeing being indeed altered and diminisht as men have thought fittest to make Mr. Hookers judgement suit with their fancies or give authority to their corrupt designs and for proof of a part of this take these following Testimonies Dr. Barnard sometime Chaplain to Dr. Usher late Lord Archbishop of Armagh hath declar'd in a late Book called Clavi Trebales printed by Richard Hodgkinson Anno 1661. that in his search and examination of the said Bishops Manuscripts he found the three written Books which were supposed the 6 7 and 8 of Mr. Hookers Books of Ecclesiastical Polity and that in the said three Books now printed as Mr. Hookers there are so many omissions that they amount to many Paragraphs and which cause many incoherencies the omissions are by him set down at large in the said printed Book to which I refer the Reader for the whole but think fit in this place to insert this following short part of them First as there could be in Natural Bodies no Motion of any thing unless there were some first which moved all things and continued unmoveable even so in Politick Societies there must be some unpunishable or else no man shall suffer punishment for sith punishments proceed alwayes from Superiors to whom the administration of justice belongeth which administration must have necessarily a fountain that deriveth it to all others and receiveth not from any because otherwise the course of justice should go infinitely in a Circle every Superior having his Superior without end which cannot be therefore a Well-spring it followeth there is a Supreme head of Justice whereunto all are subject but it self in subjection to none Which kind of preheminency if some ought to have in a Kingdom who but the King shall have it Kings therefore or no man can have lawful power to judge If private men offend there is the Magistrate over them which judgeth if Magistrates they have their Prince if Princes there is Heaven a Tribunal before which they shall appear on Earth they are not accomptable to any Here sayes the Doctor it breaks off abruptly And I have these words also attested under the hand of Mr. Fabian Philips a man of Note for his useful Books I will make Oath if I shall be required that Dr. Sanderson the late Bishop of Lincoln did a little before his death affirm to me he had seen a Manuscript affirmed to him to be the hand-writing of Mr. Richard Hooker in which there was no mention made of the King or Supreme Governours being accomptable to the People this I will make Oath that that good man attested to me Fabian Philips So that there appears to be both Omissions and Additions in the said last three printed Books and this may probably be one reason why Dr. Sanderson the said learned Bishop whose Writings are so highly and justly valued gave a strict charge near the time of his Death or in his last Will That nothing of his that was not already printed should be printed after his Death It is well known how high a value our learned King James put upon the Books writ by Mr. Hooker as also that our late King Charles the Martyr for the Church valued them the second of all Books testified by his commending them to the reading of his Son Charles that now is our gracious King and you may suppose that this Charles the First was not a stranger to the pretended three Books because in a Discourse with the Lord Say when the said Lord required the King to grant the truth of his Argument because it was the judgement of Mr. Hooker quoting him in one of the three written Books the King replied They were not allowed to be Mr. Hookers Books but however he would allow them to be Mr. Hookers
return into England he had by the death of his father or an elder brother an Estate left him that enabled him to buy Land to the value of 500 l. a year the greatest part of which Land was at Little Gidden four or six miles from Huntington and about 18 from Cambridge which place he chose for the privacy of it and the Hall which had the Parish-Church or Chappel belonging and adjoining near to it for Mr. Farrer having seen the manners and vanities of the World and found them to be as Mr. Herbert sayes A nothing between two Dishes he did so contemn the World that he resolv'd to spend the remainder of his life in mortifications and in devotion and charity and to be alwayes prepar'd for Death And his Life was spent thus He and his Family which were like a little Colledge and about Thirty in number did most of them keep Lent and all Ember-weeks strictly both in fasting and using all those prayers that the Church hath appointed to be then used and he and they did the like on Fridayes and on the Vigils or Eves appointed to be fasted before the Saints dayes and this frugality and abstinence turn'd to the relief of the Poor but this was but a part of his charity none but God and he knew the rest This Family which I have said to be in number about Thirty were a part of them his Kindred and the rest chosen to be of a temper fit to be moulded into a devout life and all of them were for their dispositions serviceable and quiet and humble and free from scandal Having thus fitted himself for his Family he did about the year 1630. betake himself to a constant and methodical service of God and it was in this manner He did himself use to read the Common prayers for he was a Deacon every day at the appointed hours of ten and four in the Church which was very near his House and which he had both repair'd and adorn'd for it was fall'n into a great ruine by reason of a depopulation of the Village before Mr. Farrer bought the Mannor And he did also constantly read the Mattins every morning at the hour of six either in the Church or in an Oratory which was within his own House And many of the Family did there continue with him after the Prayers were ended and there they spent some hours in singing Hymns or Anthems sometimes in the Church and often to an Organ in the Oratory And they sometimes betook themselves to meditate or to pray privately or to read a part of the New Testament or to continue their praying or reading the Psalms and in case the Psalms were not all read in the day then Mr. Farrer and others of the Congregation did at Night at the ring of a Watch-bell repair to the Church or Oratory and there betake themselves to prayers and lauding God and reading the Psalms that had not been read in the day and when these or any part of the Congregation grew weary or faint the Watch-bell was rung sometimes before and sometimes after Midnight and then a part of the Family rose and maintain'd the Watch sometimes by praying or singing Lands to God or reading the Psalms and when after some hours they also grew weâ—â—y or â—aâ—nt then they rung the Watch-bell and were reliev'd by some of the former or by a new part of the Society which continueâ— their devotions as hath been mentioned until morning And it is to be noted that in this continued serving of God the Psalter or whole Book of Psalms was in every four and twenty hours sung or read over from the first to the last verse and this done as constantly as the Sun runs his Circle every day about the World and then begins it again the same instant that it ended Thus did Mr. Farrer and his happy Family serve God day and night Thus did they alwayes behave themselves as in his presence And they did alwayes eat and drink by the strictest rules of Temperance eat and drink so as to be ready to rise at Midnight or at the call of a Watch-bell and perform their devotions to God And 't is fit to tell the Reader that many of the Clergy that were more inclin'd to practical prety and devotion then to doub ful and needless Disputations did often come to Gidden Hall and make themselves a part of that happy Society and stay a week or more and join with Mr. Farrer and the Family in these Devotions and assist and ease him or them in their Watch by Night and these various Devotions had neverless than two of the domestick Family in the Night and the Watch was alwayes kept in the Church or Oratory unless in extreme cold Winter-nights and then it was maintain'd in a Parlor which had a fire in it and the Parlor was fitted for that purpose and this course of piety and great liberality to his poor Neighbours Mr. Farrer maintain'd till his death which was in the year 1639. Mr. Farrers and Mr. Herberts devout lives were both so noted that the general report of their sanctity gave them occasion to renew that slight acquaintance which was begun at their being Contemporaries in Cambridge and this new holy friendship was maintain'd without any interview but only by loving and endearing Letters And one testimony of their friendship and pious designs may appear by Mr. Farrers commending the considerations of John Valdesso a Book which he had met with in his Travels and Translated out of Spanish into English to be examin'd and censur'd by Mr. Herbert which Book Mr. Herbert did read and return back with many marginal Notes as they be now printed with that excellent Book and with them Mr. Herberts affectionate Letter to Mr. Farrer This John Valdesso was a Spaniard and was for his Learning and Vertue much valued and lov'd by the great Emperour Charles the fifth whom Valdesso had followed as a Cavalier all the time of his long and dangerous Wars and when Valdesso grew old and weary of the World he took his fair opportunity to declare to the Emperour that his resolution was to decline His Majesties Service and betake himself to a quiet and contemplative life because there ought to be a vacancy of time betwixt fighting and dying The Emperor had himself for the same or other reasons put on the same resolutions but God and himself did then only know them and he did for those or other reasons desire Valdesso to consider well of what he had said but keep his purpose within his own breast till they two had another like opportunity of a friendly Discourse which Valdesso promis'd In the mean time the Emperour appoints privately a day for him and Valdesso to receive the Sacrament publickly and appointed an eloquent and devout Fryer to preach a Sermon of contempt of the World and of the happiness sand benefit of a quiet and contemplative life which the Fryer did most affectionately