former was conferred on him by Dr. John Bancroft, Bishop of Oxford, nephew of Richard Bancroft, the famous Archbishop of Canterbury. The Bishop had enjoyed ample opportunities of personally appreciating the exquisite genius, extensive acquirements, and sound principles of the man whom he patronized; and in bestowing this favour he acted in concert with Archbishop Laud, through whose interest Farindon was, in 1639, installed in his new office of Divinity-Reader, the duties of which no man was better qualified to discharge. That the two friends might not be far separated, in the same year a vacant canonry of Windsor was bestowed on his friend "the ever-memorable John Hales," who was empowered "to hold the same, by special dispensation, with his place in Eton.” * He had then been much engaged with the Archbishop, in preparing for the press the second edition of his famous Answer to Fisher the Jesuit; which was published in 1639, and in which the objections of A. C. against the first edition are fully confuted. Many of those refutations are attributed to Hales, not without great show of reason; his fresh patron having been at that crisis so much engrossed with public business as to find little leisure for theological studies or literary composition. Many offers of a collegeliving had previously been made to him, but he had always refused them, caring neither for money nor for preferment. "He would willingly have waved the prebend of Windsor when it was sent to him, knowing nothing of it, by Archbishop Laud; and he would have refused it, but that it was presented to him at a public dinner, among many friends, who persuaded him to the contrary. Archbishop Laud did also send for him, and told him he might have what preferment he pleased; and he answered, ‘If it please your Grace, I have what I desire.' He was made Prebendary about two years before the wars, and enjoyed it but two years." +

The few years during which Farindon held his preferments would have been among the happiest of his life, had they not been occasionally embittered by sad apprehensions of the gathering storm; forebodings of which he felt in common with every good man who reflected on the great principles and interests which were then coming into collision, and concerning the issue of which the national mind evinced the deepest anxiety. He was of a remarkably retiring disposition; and, in the preface to the first volume of his "Sermons," has given this very just description of himself: -“I, who could never yet shoulder it in a throng, but had rather quit my place than struggle for it, who am more addicted to the forest and retirement than to the city and noise, should not thus have taken myself from myself, nor taken so much pains," &c. Yet, in contemplation of trials and sufferings, this naturally timid man was enabled, by the grace of God, thus magnanimously to give utterance to his feelings:-"If God be with us, no evil can be against us. Therefore the Apostle calleth affliction 'a gift :' 'To you,' saith he, it is given not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;' (Phil. i. 29 ;) not forced upon you as a punishment, but vouchsafed you as a gift. We mistake when we call it evil. It is a donative and a largess from a royal Prince to his soldiers, who have stood it out manfully, and quitted themselves well in the day of battle. When men have been careful in their ways, and have been upright and sincere

* Heylin's Life of Archbishop Laud, p. 361.

+ Letter of Dr. N. Ingelo, Prebendary of Windsor, to Mr. Richard Marriott, the publisher of Farindon's Sermons, in the "General Dictionary," vol. viii., p. 236, article Pearson.

towards God in all their conversation, then God doth grace and honour them by making them champions for his truth, and putting them upon the brunt. He doth not lend or sell them to calamities, but appoints it to them as an office, as a high place of dignity, as a Captain's place, a witness's place, a helper's place. And how great an honour is it to fight and die for the truth! How great an honour is it to be a witness for God, and to help the Lord! First, God crowneth us with his grace and favour; and then by the grace of God we are what we are, holy and just and innocent before him and then he crowns our innocency with another crown, the crown of martyrdom. And at last he crowns us with that everlasting crown of glory. This is truly to be delivered from all evil, to be delivered that it may not hurt us, and to be delivered that it may help us."*

:

For such a spirit as his the tender charities of wedded life, and the endearments of domestic society, must have possessed many charms; and his amiable friend Hales is supposed at one time to have entertained serious thoughts about matrimony. For, in a letter dated as early as Oct. 7th, 1616, which he addressed to "good Mr. Oughtred," who solved all the emergent difficulties that he encountered in the study of the mathematics, the following passage occurs, which has generally borne this interpretation:- "For that private matter, about which you wrote, I must confess I have thought more upon it than ever I did in my life: but what the reasons are why I remain irresolute, I will thoroughly acquaint you when I can speak with you." His inclination towards a married life is confirmed by the following facetious passage in his letter to Sir Dudley Carlton, from the Synod of Dort, dated November 19th, 1618:-" But doubtless the most effectual way of all the rest to bring young persons to learn their Catechism, was that which was related by one of the Helvetian Deputies. For he told us, that in his country the manner was, that all young persons that meant to marry were to repair, both he and she, unto their Minister, a little before they meant to marry, and by him to be examined how well they had conned their Catechism. If they had not done it perfectly to his mind, he had power to defer their marriage till they had better learnt their lessons. I was much affected to this course when I heard it; and I thought that doubtless it was a speedy way to make all young persons, except myself and two or three more that mean not over-hastily to marry, to be skilful in their Catechism." Yet this piece of pleasantry, well understood by all who are acquainted with Hales's manner, is gravely quoted in the first edition of the Biographia Britannica,† in proof of his dislike to matrimony! That Hales was not inclined to be over-hasty in this matter, is the only point which can be proved by the merry caution expressed in his letter to the Ambassador.

IV. THE CHARACTER OF JOHN HALES.

FREQUENT mention having been necessarily made of Farindon's intimate friend, it may not be deemed improper to introduce the following character of him as given by Dr. John Pearson, afterwards the justly-celebrated Bishop of Chester, whose Exposition of the Apostles' Creed has for nearly two centuries held the precedence of every other commentary upon that ancient "form of sound words:"

"I shall speak no more than my own long experience, intimate acquaintance, and high veneration grounded upon both, shall freely and sincerely

*Vol. iv., sermon cxxix.

Edit. 1757: Article Hales, note S, p. 2488.

prompt me to. Mr. John Hales, some time Greek Professor of the University of Oxford, long Fellow of Eton College, and at last also Prebendary of Windsor, was a man, I think, of as great a sharpness, quickness, and subtilty of wit, as ever this or perhaps any nation bred. His industry did strive, if it were possible, to equal the largeness of his capacity, whereby he became as great a master of polite, various, and universal learning, as ever yet conversed with books. Proportionate to his reading was his meditation, which furnished him with a judgment beyond the vulgar reach of man, built upon unordinary notions, raised out of strange observations, and comprehensive thoughts within himself. So that he really was a most prodigious example of an acute and piercing wit, of a vast and illimited knowledge, of a severe and profound judgment.

"Although this may seem, as in itself it truly is, a grand elogium; yet I cannot esteem him less in anything which belongs to a good man, than in those intellectual perfections: and had he never understood a letter, he had other ornaments sufficient to endear him. For he was of a nature (as we ordinarily speak) so kind, so sweet, so courting all mankind, of an affability so prompt, so ready to receive all conditions of men, that I conceive it near as easy a task for any one to become so knowing as so obliging.

"As a Christian, none more ever acquainted with the nature of the Gospel, because none more studious of the knowledge of it, or more curious in the search; which, being strengthened by those great advantages before mentioned, could not prove otherwise than highly effectual. He took indeed to himself a liberty of judging, not of others, but for himself : and if ever any man might be allowed in these matters to judge, it was he who had so long, so much, so advantageously considered; and, which is more, never could be said to have had the least worldly design in his determinations. He was not only most truly and strictly just in his secular transactions, most exemplary meek and humble notwithstanding his perfections, but beyond all example charitable, giving unto all, preserving nothing but his books, to continue his learning and himself: which when he had before digested, he was forced at last to feed upon; at the same time the happiest and most unfortunate helluo of books, the grand example of learning, and of the envy and contempt which followeth it.

"This testimony may be truly given of his person, and nothing in it liable to the least exception, but this alone,-that it comes far short of him which intimation I conceive more necessary for such as knew him not, than all which hath been said."*

If, according to the proverb, a man is to be known by the company which he keeps, we must form a high opinion of the intellectual power and attainments, as well as of the moral worth, of Anthony Farindon, when we view him as the chosen friend of the devout Christian and universal scholar whom the sober and trustworthy Pearson has thus described. All that Pearson has here said concerning Hales, is confirmed by Lord Clarendon, who classes Hales among his own personal friends, and describes him as a man of a cheerful countenance and buoyant spirit, indifferent to wealth, ready to communicate the stores of knowledge which he possessed, a man of extensive and well-digested reading; in stature, one of the least men in England; in scholarship, not inferior to any man in Europe.+

* Preface to Hales's Golden Remains. Edit. 1659.

The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon, vol. i., pp. 41–43. Edit. 1760.

V. THE COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES. FARINDON EXPELLED FROM HIS VICARAGE BY IRETON. CHARACTER OF WOODWARD, ONE OF HIS SUCCESSORS IN THAT BENEFICE, AND DR. CALAMY'S BRIEF ACCOUNT OF

HIM.

THAT two eminent men, both of whom had received ecclesiastical promotion through the influence of Archbishop Laud, should escape unhurt in the earliest of those days of anarchy, was more than could be expected from the successful innovators: for the causes of the war were artfully made to hinge on Episcopacy, the overthrow of which was to cure all the evils, civil and religious, under which the nation groaned! But besides this common pretext of republican dislike to both, Farindon was doomed to suffer peculiar hardships in consequence of the affront which Ireton had received when a Gentleman Commoner of Trinity College. Immediately after the second battle of Newbury, if not sooner, when nearly the whole of Berkshire was brought into subjection by the Parliamentary forces, Ireton maltreated his former Tutor, and "revenged a piece of college discipline with a cast of his military office, in plundering him, and quartering himself in a spite (mean as himself) upon him. He was, with many children, turned out of all, likely to have been starved, had not the honourable Sir John Robinson, and his good parishioners of Milk-street, entertained him charitably in those sad times." * Ireton found the parsonage-house of Bray so comfortable a domicile, that he is reported to have kept possession of it two years. In that case Oliver himself must sometimes have been an inmate there, it being a good place of occasional rendezvous for different branches of the General's family. It might probably have been thus retained and occupied during the gradual consolidation of Cromwell's greatness; perhaps till near the time of the trial and decapitation of the King, when Woodward succeeded Brice in the living of Bray. It lay sufficiently near the metropolis, and on the side of it which was most convenient for receiving intelligence from the armies in the west; and other branches of the family were generally located in Essex, Hertfordshire, or the contiguous counties, in the best situations for the reception of early tidings from the northern provinces. According to Anthony Wood's account, Ireton seems to have considered this part of Berkshire as a favourite retreat :"His father-in-law, Cromwell, made frequent use of him when put to a push to complete his wicked designs; and, having always found him to be very capacious of overthrowing monarchy, and a thorough-paced dissembler under the mask of religion, he, with Col. John Lambert, did put him upon writing a Remonstrance on the army's behalf for justice to be done on the King. Whereupon, retiring in private for some days to WindsorCastle, as I have been informed, he drew up the Remonstrance." This document, intended to become the precursive instrument of the King's death, was published toward the close of 1648, in a quarto pamphlet, containing nine sheets.t

It was thus the misfortune of the pious and learned friends, Farindon and Hales, to live in evil times; for although they were both of them men of tolerant dispositions, and therefore disinclined to violent measures, they suffered greatly in consequence of the troubles into which men of extreme views and of unyielding temper plunged the Church and the Common

* Lloyd's "Memoires," p. 543. Edit. 1668. + Athena Oxon., vol. ii., col. 81.

wealth. At a former period in our history there was a Vicar of Bray, who has obtained an unenviable notoriety, and whose conduct has given birth to the national proverb, “The Vicar of Bray will be Vicar of Bray still." He lived "under the reign of King Henry the Eighth, King Edward the Sixth, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth; was first a Papist, then a Protestant, then a Papist, then a Protestant again. He had seen two martyrs burnt, two miles off, at Windsor, and found this fire too hot for his tender temper. This Vicar being taxed by one for being a turncoat, and an inconstant changeling; 'Not so,' said he, for I have always kept my principle, which is this, to live and die the Vicar of Bray.'"*

Very different from this supple Churchman was Anthony Farindon, as well as his friend John Hales. When Charles the First, and the Long Parliament, being unable otherwise to adjust their differences, unhappily for the nation, made an appeal to arms, these two devoted and upright friends avowed their attachment to the royal party, and to the Episcopal Church, of which they were Presbyters; and from this choice they never swerved, resolving to do what they conceived to be right, and to sacrifice all worldly good rather than violate their consciences.

Much light is shed on this part of Farindon's personal history by the subjoined account of one of his successors, which is given by Anthony Wood in his own style and manner :—

"HEZEKIAH WOODWARD, the youngest of the nine children of his father, was born in Worcestershire; and, after he had spent six years or more in a grammar-school, was sent to Oxon in the beginning of the year 1608, and settled in Balliol-College; where, being put under a careful Tutor, he took a degree in Arts in the latter end of the year 1611. Afterwards he retired to London, taught school there several years, and was esteemed eminent in his profession; but, having been always puritanically affected, he sided with the Presbyterians upon the change of the times in 1641; was a great zealot and frequent Preacher among them either at St. Mary in Aldermanbury, or near it. Afterwards he took the Covenant, and showed the use and necessity of it in his discourse and preachings: but, soon after, when he saw the Independents and other factious people to be dominant, he became one of them, and not unknown to Oliver; who, having quartered more than a year in the vicarage-house at Bray, near Maidenhead, in Berks, during the time of the Rebellion, (in which time he had opportunity to know the parish to be very large, being a whole hundred of itself,) he sent afterwards thither our author Woodward, being then his Chaplain, or, at least, favourite, under the notion of doing some eminent good to that great place, and to take care of it and the souls therein. This was about the year 1649, at which time one Mr. Brice, the then Vicar, left it, and was afterwards Minister of Henley in Oxfordshire. Here he [Woodward] continued ten years or more, and had the good opinion of the rabble and factious people; but of others of sense and judgment, not. He was always very invective in his sermons (which by the sober party were accounted dull) against the King, his followers, whom he called malignants, the Church of England, her rites, ceremonies, and all forms of worship; and it is commonly now reported among the inhabitants of Bray, that he wrote a book against the Lord's Prayer, which was answered by Brice before mentioned. He was also an eager man, and spent much time in preaching against observation of times and days, as Christmas, Easter, &c., against

* Fuller's "Worthies," vol. i., p. 113. Edit. 1840.