to a hair. Whether Holland will have peace, he knows; and on what conditions, and with what success, is familiar to him, ere it be concluded. No post can pass him without a question; and rather than he will lose the news, he rides back with him to appose him of tidings: and then to the next man he meets he supplies the wants of his hasty intelligence, and makes up a perfect tale; wherewith he so haunteth the patient auditor, that, after many excuses, he is fain to endure rather the censure of his manners in running away, than the tediousness of an impertinent discourse. His speech is oft broken off with a succession of long parentheses, which he ever vows to fill up ere the conclusion; and perhaps would effect it, if the other's ear were as unweariable as his tongue. If he sees but two men talk, and read a letter in the street, he runs to them, and asks if he may not be partner of that secret relation; and if they deny it, he offers to tell, since he may not hear, wonders: and then falls upon the report of the Scottish mine, or of the great fish taken up at Lynn, or of the freezing of the Thames; and, after many thanks and dismissions, is hardly entreated silence. He undertakes as much as he performs little. This man will thrust himself forward, to be the guide of the way he knows not; and calls at his neighbour's window, and asks why his servants are not at work. The market hath no commodity which he prizeth not, and which the next table shall not hear recited. His tongue, like the tail of Samson's foxes, carries firebrands, and is enough to set the whole field of the world on a flame. Himself begins tabletalk of his neighbour at another's board; to whom he bears the first news, and adjures him to conceal the reporter: whose choleric answer he returns to his first host, enlarged with a second edition: so, as it uses to be done in the fight of unwilling mastiffs, he claps each on the side apart, and provokes them to an eager conflict. There can

no act pass without his comment; which is ever far-fetched, rash, suspicious, delatory. His ears are long, and his eyes quick; but most of all to imperfections, which as he easily sees, so he increases with intermeddling. He harbours another man's servant; and, amidst his entertainment, asks what fare is usual at home, what hours are kept, what talk passeth their meals, what his master's disposition is, what his government, what his guests: and when he hath by curious inquiries extracted all the juice and spirit of hoped intelligence, turns him off whence he came, and works on a new. He hates constancy, as an earthen dulness, unfit for men of spirit; and loves to change his work and his place: neither yet can he be so soon weary of any place as every place is weary of him: for as he sets himself on work, so others pay him with hatred; and look, how many masters he hath, so many enemies; neither is it possible that any should not hate him but who know him not. So then he labours without thanks; talks without credit; lives without love; dies without tears, without pity; save that some say, 'It was pity he died no sooner.'

3. Common Prayer.

THE liturgy of the church of England hath been hitherto esteemed sacred, reverently used by holy martyrs, daily frequented by devout protestants, as that which more than once hath been allowed and confirmed by the edicts of religious princes, and by your own parliamentary acts, and but lately being translated into other languages, hath been entertained abroad with the great applause of foreign divines and churches; yet now begins to complain of scorn at home.

The matter is quarrelled by some; the form by others; the use of it by both.

That which was never before heard of in the church of God, whether Jewish or Christian, the very prescription of the most holy devotion offendeth. Surely our blessed Saviour and his gracious forerunner were so far from this new divinity, as that they plainly taught that which these men gainsay, a direct form of prayer; and such, as that part of the frame prescribed by our Saviour was composed of those forms of devotion then formerly usual. And God's people, ever since Moses's days, constantly practised it, and put it over unto the times of the gospel: under which, while it is said that Peter and John went up to the temple at the ninth hour of prayer, we know the prayer wherewith they joined was not of an extemporary and sudden conception, but of a regular prescription; the forms whereof are yet extant, and ready to be produced. And the evangelical church ever since thought it could never better improve her peace and happiness, than in composing those religious models of invocation and thanksgiving which they have traduced unto

us.

And can ye then with patience think that any ingenuous Christian should be so far mistransported as to condemn a good prayer because, as it is in his heart, so it is in his book too?

Far be it from me to dishearten any good Christian from the use of conceived prayer in his private devotions, and upon occasion also in the public. I would hate to be guilty of pouring so much water upon the Spirit, to which I shall gladly add oil rather. No, let the full soul freely pour out itself in gracious expressions of its holy thoughts into the bosom of the Almighty. Let both the sudden flashes of our quick ejaculations and the constant flames of our more fixed conceptions mount up from the altar of a zealous heart unto the throne of grace; and if there be some stops or solecisms

in the fervent utterance of our private wants, these are so far from being offensive, that they are the most pleasing music to the ears of that God unto whom our prayers come. Let them be broken off with sobs and sighs and incongruities of our delivery, our good God is no otherwise affected to this imperfect elocution than an indulgent parent is to the clipped and broken language of his dear child, which is more delightful to him than any other's smooth oratory. This is not to be opposed in another, by any man that hath found the true operation of this grace in himself.

VIII.

EDWARD HERBERT, LORD CHERBURY.

1581-1648.

EDWARD HERBERT was fourth in descent from Sir Richard, whose brother William was created Earl of Pembroke by Edward IV.

When twelve years old, Edward entered University College, Oxford, with some knowledge of Greek, Latin, and logic, and during the next six years pursued his studies there. He was barely twenty when he removed thence with his wife to London, where, though favourably noticed at Court by the Queen, he devoted his time to serious studies, 'the more he learned adding still a desire to know more.'

On the accession of James he was made Knight of the Bath, and a few years later visited France, and there lived much with the Constable de Montmorenci and with Casaubon.

During the campaigns of 1610 and of 1614, he served with distinction under the Prince of Orange, and he then travelled through Germany to Italy.

From 1619 he acted with dignity and spirit as English Ambassador at Paris, where in 1624 his first work, De Veritate, etc., was published, and attracted much attention.

The following year he was created a Peer of Ireland, and in 1631 of England, by the title of Lord Herbert, of Cherbury.

Lord Herbert sought at first to defend King Charles, but when the real struggle commenced he sided with the Parliament, and suffered much from the vengeance of the Royalists.

He died in 1648, knowing, as he says in the epitaph which he wrote for himself,

That his immortal soul should find above

With his Creator peace, joy, truth and love.'