oppose it as prejudicial to her own interest, consulted him on this momentous occasion; and, from a regard to his persuasions, is said to have relinquished her prior claim. On the accession of William and Mary, to whose advancement he had been zealously attached, he was admitted into high favour and confidence at court, and made clerk of the closet.

Still however the ambition of Tillotson led him no further than to solicit an exchange of his deanery for that of St. Paul's, when the latter became vacant by the promotion of Stillingfleet to the see of Worcester. This moderate wish, which tended to a diminution and not an increase of his income, was readily granted: but his majesty had higher promotion in view for this amiable and disinterested divine.

Archbishop Sancroft having refused to take the oaths of allegiance to William and Mary after their title had been recognised by parliament, his suspension became necessary; and, if he continued refractory, his removal also. The king entertained such an exalted opinion of Tillotson, that he immediately thought of making him primate. The reluctance with which Tillotson himself fell into his majesty's views, is forcibly expressed in a letter to lady Russel. He had already refused a mitre; and, of all things, his ambition seems to have been least directed to the primacy. But the earnest representations of the king, and a zeal for his service, at last overcame his resolution, and he was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury, in May, 1691. Immediately afterwards he was sworn of the privy-council; and set about the duties of his high office with the same religious zeal, tempered with moderation, as had adorned his former life.

When Dr. Tillotson refused the archbishopric, he had wisely appreciated the difficulties of the station, and the obloquy to which it would expose him. He foresaw that the successor of Sancroft, whoever he might be, would

be an object for all the virulence and malice of the nonjurors; and not long after his promotion he felt his prehension realized.

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He was insulted by incendiary letters, by the grossest libels, and the keenest invectives; yet his Christian temper never forsook him. He interceded for those who had been convicted of the most bitter calumnies against him, and on a bundle of papers found after his death was this inscription: These are libels; I pray God forgive the writers, as I do."

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That a man whose blameless life, whose exalted merit had been so long known and allowed by the public, should at once become the object of unmerited detraction, can only be accounted for from the enmity of political opposition, and that envy which ever attends high station. His mild inoffensive manners too might possibly provoke the injuries of the base. Among those who are destitute of magnanimity themselves, forbearance gives confidence to insult. How often does malice shoot its arrows at the patient spirit, while daring guilt escapes its attack! The gentle sheep is the prey of the most contemptible animals, but the lordly lion defies the approach an aggressor.

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Though the ungenerous treatment which this truly dignified character received from his enemies probably disturbed his internal quiet, it had no influence on his conduct. He pursued the suggestions of religion and virtue, and soared above the petty malice of the contemptible. He shewed no pride in his elevation, no alteration in his way of thinking or of acting; and as if he meant to read an impressive lesson to all posterity, and to correct that false estimate of life which places happiness in grandeur, he left among his papers the following reflections upon rank:-" One would be apt to wonder that Nehemiah should reckon a huge bill of fare, and a vast number of promiscuous guests, among

his virtues and good deeds, for which he desires God to remember him; but upon better consideration, besides the bounty, and sometimes charity, of a great table, provided there be nothing of vanity or ostentation in it, there may be exercised two very considerable virtues; one in temperance, and the other self-denial: in a man's being contented, for the sake of the public, to deny himself so much, as to sit down every day to a feast, and to eat continually in a crowd, and almost never to be alone, especially when (as it often happens) a great part of the company that a man must have, is the company that a man would not have. I doubt it will prove but a melancholy business when a man comes to die, to have made a great noise and bustle in the world, and to have been known far and near; but all this while to have been hid and concealed from himself. It is a very odd and fantastical sort of a life, for a man to be continually from home, and most of all a stranger at his own house, It is surely an uneasy thing to sit always in a frame, and to be perpetually upon a man's guard; not to be able to speak a careless word, or to use a negligent posture, without observation and censure. Men are apt to think that they who are in the highest places, and have the most power, have most liberty to say and do what they please: but it is quite otherwise; for they have the least liberty, because they are most observed. It is not mine own observation: a much wiser man, I mean Tully, says, In maximâ quâque fortunâ minimum licere;' that is, They that are in the highest and greatest conditions, have, of all others, the least liberty. All these, and many more, are the evils which attend on greatness; and the envy that pursues it, is the result of ignorance and vanity."

From his first advancement to the primacy, Dr. Tillotson had begun to conceive the most enlarged designs for the welfare of the church and the interest of religion;

and in these noble views he received every encourage. ment and support from the throne: but Providence, in its infinite wisdom, called him from this sublunary state before he had a full opportunity of employing the powers with which he was invested, to the best purposes for which they were given. He did not survive his advancement much more than three years; a period too small for effecting important changes, which should always be gradual and almost imperceptible. While attending divine service at Whitehall on Sunday, November 18, 1694, he was seized with the palsy. The fit was slow in its advances, but fatal in its effects. His articulation became indistinct, but his soul shone serene and calm amidst the conflict. In broken words he thanked his Maker that he felt his conscience at ease, and that he had nothing further to do but to await the will of heaven.

Though Dr. Tillotson had been so much traduced during life by the disaffected and the depraved, the minds of men now underwent such a sudden conversion, that his death created universal sorrow. Never was a subject more sincerely lamented, or a funeral more numerously attended. All ranks came forward voluntarily to pay to the memory of this good man, whose virtues and station no longer excited envy, the homage of their tears; aud to assist at the last solemnity. He was buried at the church of St. Lawrence Jewry; where he had formerly displayed his eloquence, and attracted the attention of the public.

Not only malice subsided, or was ashamed of the enmity which it had borne him, but all descriptions of men joined in his praise; and he deserved well the loudest plaudits of gratitude and virtue. His whole life was exemplary. In his domestic connexions, in his friendships, and his whole commerce with the world, he was easy and humble, frank, humane, and bountiful. He distributed his charity with such a liberal hand, and despised the accumulation of money to such a degree, that he

left nothing for his family after the payment of his debts, except the copy-right of his sermons, which was sold for two thousand five hundred guineas.

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As a theologist, archbishop Tillotson ranks very high, even in the opinion of foreign nations. His sermons have been frequently printed; and will always be read with pleasure and improvement, as long as regard shall be paid to sound divinity adorned by good sense. They have been translated into several languages, and received this deserved and appropriate panegyric from the able critic Le Clerc ;- The merit of Tillotson is above any commendation in my power to bestow; it is formed on the union of an extraordinary clearness of conception, a great penetration, an exquisite talent of reasoning, a profound knowledge of true divinity, a solid piety, a most singular perspicuity, and an unaffected elegance of style, with every other quality that was decorous in a man of his order. His pulpit harangues are for the most part exact dissertations, and are capable of bearing the test of the most rigorous examination."

JOHN LOCKE.

Born 1632.-Died 1704.

From 7th Charles I., to 2d Anne.

A PHILOSOPHER will ever attract veneration in proportion to the solidity of his principles, and the conformity that his practice bears to his doctrines. Locke, "who made the whole internal world his own," who scanned our perceptions and our powers with intuitive clearness, who fixed civil liberty on the basis of reason, and made religion appear amiable by his life and conver sation, will live to the latest ages in the grateful memory of his country and of mankind, whom he enlightened and improved.

This celebrated philosopher was descended from a