Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

The meek and learned Hooker too, almost
I'the Church's ruins over-whelm'd and loft,
Is by your pen recover'd from his duft.

And Herbert ;-he, whofe education,
Manners, and parts, by high applaufes blown,
Was deeply tainted with Ambition,

And fitted for a court, made that his aim;
At laft, without regard to birth or name,
For a poor country-cure does all disclaim;

Where, with a foul compos'd of harmonies,
Like a sweet swan, he warbles as he dies
His Maker's praife, and his own obfequies.

All this you tell us, with fo good fuccefs,
That our oblig'd pofterity fhall profefs,
T'have been your friend, was a great happiness.

And now! when many worthier would be proud
T'appear before you, if they were allow'd,

I take up room enough to ferve a crowd:

Where to commend what you have choicely writ,
Both my poor teftimony and my wit

Are equally invalid and unfit :

Yet this, and much more, is moft juftly due,

Were what I write as elegant as true,

To the best friend I now or ever knew.

But, my dear friend, 'tis fo, that you and I,

By a condition of mortality,

With all this great, and more proud world, must die:

In

1

In which eftate I afk no more of Fame,

Nor other monument of Honour claim,

Then that of your true friend, t'advance my name.

And if your many merits fhall have bred
An abler pen to write your life when dead,
I think an honester cannot be read.

JAN. 17, 1672.

CHARLES COTTON..

The author of "Scarronides, or Virgile Traveftie," and of other poems. He compofed the fecond part of "The Complete Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation;" being a continuation of Ifaac Walton's tract on the same subject. In this work he thus speaks of our Biographer: "I have the happiness to know his perfon, and to be intimately acquainted with "him, and in him to know the worthiest man, and to enjoy the best and trueft friend any "man ever had: Nay, I fhall yet acquaint you further, that he gives me leave to call him "Father, and I hope is not ashamed to own me for his adopted Son."

COPY OF A LETTER

WRIT TO

MR. IZAAK WALTON,

BY

DOCTOR KING, LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER'.

TH

HONEST IZAAK,

HOUGH a familiarity of more than forty years continuance, and the conftant experience of your love, even in the worst of the late sad times, be fufficient to endear our friendship; yet, I must confefs my affection much improved, not only by evidences of private respect to many that know and love you, but by your new demonftration of a public fpirit, testified in a diligent, true, and useful collection of fo many material paffages as you have now afforded me in the Life of venerable Mr. Hooker;

of

1 Dr. Henry King, Bishop of Chichester, son of Dr. John King, Bishop of London, and great nephew of Robert King the firft Bishop of Oxford, and the last Abbot of Ofney, was the author of a new metrical translation of the Pfalms, (of which he has given a modest account in a letter to Archbishop Ufher, dated Oct. 30, 1651. Usher's Letters, p. 567,) and alfo of poems, elegies, paradoxes, fonnets, divers Latin and Greek poems, with some fermons and religious tracts. Whilft he was Dean of Rochester, he was fufpected of favouring the Puritans: The king, defirous of gratifying that party, made him Bishop of Chichefter: But during the time of Cromwell's ufurpation, he fuffered with his brethren, and was compelled to go abroad. He returned at the Restoration, and surviving that event nine years, died Oct. 1, 1669. He was advanced to a bishopric, when Epifcopacy was in a finking ftate; "It being conceived," fays Jacob, "the moft effectual method for the refti"tution of that order, to prefer perfons not only of unblameable lives, and eminent for "their learning, but fuch as were generally beloved by all difinterested people. The king's "choice amongst these was very happy in this great divine, who lived a moft religious life, "and did not die till after his order was restored."

of which, fince defired by fuch a friend as yourself, I shall not deny to give the teftimony of what I know concerning him and his learned books; but fhall first here take a fair occafion to tell you, that you have been happy in choofing to write the Lives of three fuch perfons, as pofterity hath juft caufe to honour; which they will do the more for the true relation of them by your happy pen: of all which I shall give you my unfeigned cenfure.

I fhall begin with my moft dear and incomparable friend Dr. Donne, late Dean of St. Paul's church, who not only trufted me as his executor, but three days before his death, delivered into my hands thofe excellent Sermons of his, now made public; profeffing before Dr. Winniff", Dr. Monford", and, I think, yourself then present at his bed-fide, that it was by my restlefs importunity, that he had prepared them for the prefs; together with which (as his best legacy) he gave me all his fermon-notes, and his other papers, containing an extract of near fifteen hundred authors. How these

were

m Dr. Thomas Winniff, fucceffively Dean of Gloucester and of St. Paul's, was promoted to the bishopric of Lincoln in 1641, on the tranflation of Dr. Williams to York. His mildness, meekness, and humility, were equalled only by his learning, integrity, and eloquence. He experienced vexation and trouble in his promotion, and was under the neceffity of retiring to a country parish, Lambourn in Effex, where he died in 1654. A monument was there erected to his memory, on which he is described as one "Ex eorum numero Epifcoporum, quibus "incumbebat nutantis Epifcopatûs molem pietatis ac probitatis fuæ Fulcimine fuftentare." He has been cenfured, along with Ufher, Prideaux, and others, for the moderation which he always difplayed towards the Puritans, and indeed towards all those who were not well affected to the church of England. But furely fuch a moderation is more commendable than the harshness and acrimony of intemperate zeal. Lord Clarendon naming four other divines, who were appointed bishops at the fame time with Dr. Winniff, characterises them as "of "great eminency in the church, frequent preachers, and not a man to whom the faults of "the then governing clergy were imputed, or against whom the leaft objection could be "made."

[ocr errors]

Dr. Thomas Mountfort, a Refidentiary of St. Paul's, died Feb. 27, 1632. It appears from Strype's Life of Whitgift, that this perfon was fufpended for having clandeftinely married Edward, Earl of Hertford, and Frances Pranel, widow of Henry Pranel, Efq. without bans or licenfe.. Upon his fubmiflion and earnest desire to be abfolved, he obtained absolution from Archbishop Whitgift himself.

were got out of my hands, you, who were the meffenger for them, and how loft both to me and yourself, is not now feasonable to complain: But, fince they did mifcarry, I am glad that the general demonftration of his worth was fo fairly preferved, and represented to the world by your pen in the history of his life; indeed fo well, that befide others, the best critic of our later time (Mr. John Hales of Eaton College) affirmed to me, he had not seen a life written with more advantage to the subject, or more reputation to the writer, than that of Dr. Donne's"..

After the performance of this task for Dr. Donne, you undertook the like office for your friend Sir Henry Wotton; betwixt which two there was a friendship begun in Oxford, continued in their various travels, and more confirmed in the religious friendship of age: and doubtlefs this excellent person had writ the life of Dr. Donne, if death had not prevented him; by which means his and your pre-collections for that work fell to the happy menage of your pen: a work which you would have declined, if imperious perfuafions had not been stronger than your modeft refolutions against it. And I am thus far glad, that the first life was fo impofed upon you, because it gave an unavoidable caufe of writing the fecond: If not; it is too probable, we had wanted both, which had been a prejudice to all lovers of honour and ingenious learning. And let me not leave my friend Sir Henry, without this teftimony added to yours; that he was a man of as florid a wit, and as elegant a pen, as any former (or ours, which in that kind is a most excellent,) age hath ever produced.

And.

• The ever memorable John Hales, Greek Profeffor in the University of Oxford, and after- ward Fellow of Eton College, from his vaft erudition, called "The Walking Library," was esteemed to be one of the greatest scholars in Europe. Having attended the Ambaffador of James I. to the Synod of Dort, he compofed, in a series of letters, a regular and most faithful narrative of the proceedings of that affembly. His adherence to the royal caufe, involved him in diftrefs. Obliged to fell his most valuable collection of books at a low price, he died in extreme mifery, May 19, 1656, aged 72 years. It is juftly remarked, that "it was none of the least injuries of thofe times, that fo eminent a man as Hales fhould live and die un-der fuch neceffities as he did, by which his life was shortened."

P This was fpoken of the first edition of Ifaac Walton's Life of Dr. Donne, which was. printed in 1640; and not, as Wood affirms, in 1653

H

« AnteriorContinuar »