that they frequently resorted, and dwelt with him, as in a college situated in a purer air; so that his house was a university in a less volume; whither they came not so much for repose as study, and to examine and refine those grosser propositions which laziness and consent made current in vulgar conversation.

He was superior to all those passions and affections which attend vulgar minds, and was guilty of no other ambition than of knowledge, and to be reputed a lover of all good men; and that made him too much a contemner of those arts, which must be indulged in the transactions of human affairs. In the last short Parliament, he was a burgess in the House of Commons; and from the debates, which were there managed with all imaginable gravity and sobriety, he contracted such a reverence to Parliaments, that he thought it really impossible they could ever produce mischief or inconvenience to the kingdom; or that the kingdom could be tolerably happy in the intermission of them. And from the unhappy and unseasonable dissolution of that Convention, he harboured, it may be, some jealousy and prejudice to the Court, towards which he was not before immoderately inclined; his father having wasted a full fortune there, in those offices and employments by which other men use to obtain a greater. He was chosen again this Parliament to serve in the same place, and, in the beginning of it, declared himself very sharply and severely against those exorbitances which had been most grievous to the State; for he was so rigid an observer of established laws and rules, that he could not endure the least breach or deviation from them; and thought no mischief so intolerable as the presumption of Ministers of State to break positive rules, for reasons of state; or Judges to transgress known laws, upon the title of conveniency, or necessity.

The great opinion he had of the uprightness and integrity of those persons who appeared most active, especially of Mr. Hampden, kept him longer from suspecting any design

against the peace of the kingdom; and though he differed from them commonly in conclusions, he believed long their purposes were honest. When he grew better informed what was law, and discerned in them a desire to control that law by a vote of one or both Houses, no man more opposed those attempts, and gave the adverse party more trouble by reason and argumentation; insomuch as he was by degrees looked upon as an advocate for the Court, to which he contributed so little, that he declined those addresses, and even those invitations which he was obliged almost by civility to entertain. And he was so jealous of the least imagination that he should incline to preferment, that he affected even a moroseness to the Court and to the courtiers, and left nothing undone which might prevent and divert the king's or queen's favour towards him but the deserving it. And if anything but not doing his duty could have kept him from receiving a testimony of the king's grace and trust at that time, he had not been called to his Council; not that he was, in truth, averse from receiving public employment; for he had a great devotion to the king's person, and had before used some small endeavour to be recommended to him for a foreign negotiation, and had once a desire to be sent Ambassador into France; but he abhorred an imagination or doubt should sink into the thoughts of any man, but that in the discharge of his trust and duty in Parliament, he had any bias to the Court, or that the king himself should apprehend that he looked for a reward for being honest.

For this reason, when he heard it first whispered, that the king had a purpose to make him a Privy Councillor, for which there was, in the beginning, no other ground, but because he was known sufficient, he resolved to decline it; and at last suffered himself only to be overruled, by the advice and persuasions of his friends, to submit to it. Afterwards, when he found that the king intended to make him Secretary of State, he was positive to refuse it; declaring to his friends that he was most unfit for it, and that he must either do that

which would be great disquiet to his own nature, or leave that undone which was most necessary to be done by one that was honoured with that place; for the most just and honest men did, every day, that which he could not give himself leave to do.

And though in the end he submitted to the king's command, and became his Secretary, and that with as humble and devoted an acknowledgment of the greatness of the obligation as could be expressed, and as true a sense of it in his heart; yet two things he could never bring himself to, whilst he continued in that office, that was to his death; for which he was contented to be reproached, as for omissions in a most necessary part of his place. The one, employing of spies, or giving any countenance or entertainment to them. I do not mean such emissaries, as with danger would venture to view the enemies' camp, and bring intelligence of their number, or quartering, or any particulars that such an observation can comprehend; but those, who by communication of guilt, or dissimulation of manners, wind themselves into such trusts and secrets, as enable them to make discoveries. The other, the liberty of opening letters, upon a suspicion that they might contain matter of dangerous consequence. For the first, he would say such instruments must be void of all ingenuity, and common honesty, before they could be of use; and afterwards they could never be fit to be credited; and that no single preservation could be worth so general a wound, and corruption of human society, as the cherishing such persons would carry with it. The last he thought such a violation of the law of Nature, that no qualification by office could justify him in the trespass.

He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and so far from fear, that he was not without appetite of danger; and, therefore, upon any occasion of action, he always engaged his person in those troops which he thought, by the forwardness of the commanders, to be most like to be farthest engaged; and in all such encounters he had about him an

extraordinary cheerfulness, without at all affecting the execution that usually attended them, in which he took no delight, but took pains to prevent it, where it was not, by resistance, necessary; insomuch that at Edgehill, when the enemy was routed, he was like to have incurred great peril, by interposing to save those who had thrown away their arms, and against whom, it may be, others were more fierce for their having thrown them away; insomuch as a man might think, he came into the field only out of curiosity to see the face of danger, and charity to prevent the shedding of blood. Yet in his natural inclination he acknowledged he was addicted to the profession of a soldier; and shortly after he came to his fortune, and before he came of age, he went into the Low Countries, with a resolution of procuring command, and to give himself up to it; from which he was diverted by the complete inactivity of that summer: so he returned into England, and shortly after entered upon that vehement course of study we mentioned before, till the first alarm from the North; then again he made ready for the field, and though he received some repulse in the command of a troop of horse of which he had a promise, he went a volunteer with the Earl of Essex.

From the entrance into this unnatural war, his natural cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him, which he had never been used to yet being one of those who believed that one battle would end all differences, and that there would be so great a victory on one side, that the other would be compelled to submit to any conditions from the victor, he resisted those indispositions. But after the king's return from Brentford, and the furious resolution of the two Houses not to admit any treaty for peace, those indispositions which had before touched him grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he who had been so exactly easy, and affable to all men, became on a sudden less communicable. In his clothes and habit, which he had minded before always with more neatness,

and industry, and expense than is usual to so great a soul, he was not now only incurious, but too negligent; and in his reception of visitors, and the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quick, and sharp, and severe, that there wanted not some men (strangers to his nature and disposition) who believed him proud and imperious; from which no mortal man was ever more free.

When there was any overture, or hope of peace, he would be more erect, and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press anything which he thought might promote it, and sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence, and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, ingeminate the word Peace, Peace; and would passionately profess, 'that the very agony of the war, and the view of the calamities and desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him and would shortly break his heart. This made some think, or pretend to think, that he was so much enamoured on peace, that he would have been glad the king should have bought it at any price; which was a most unreasonable calumny. As if a man that was himself the most punctual and precise in every circumstance that might reflect upon conscience or honour, would have wished the king to have committed a trespass against either. And yet this senseless scandal made some impression upon him, or at least he used it for an excuse of the daringness of his spirit; for at the leaguer before Gloucester, when his friend passionately reprehended him for exposing his person unnecessarily to danger (for he delighted to visit the trenches and nearest approaches, and to discover what the enemy did) as being so much beside the duty of his place, that it might be understood rather to be against it, he would say merrily that his office could not take away the privilege of his age; and that a Secretary in War might be present at the greatest secret of danger; but withal alleged seriously that it concerned him to be more active in enterprises of hazard than other men; that all might see, that his impatiency for peace