the age; yet, when he reflected on all his former courses, even before his mind was illuminated with better thoughts, he counted them madness and folly. But, when the powers of religion came to operate on him, then he added a deteftation to the contempt he formerly had of them, fuitable to what became a fincere penitent, and expreffed himself in fo clear and fo calm a manner, fo fenfible of his failings towards his Maker and Redeemer, that, as it wrought not a little on those that were about him, fo, I hope, the making it public may have a more general influence, chiefly on those on whom his former converfation might have had ill effects.

I have endeavoured to give his character as fully as I could take it; for I who faw him only in one light, in a fedate and quiet temper, when he was under a great decay of ftrength and loss of spirits, cannot give his picture with that life and advantage that others may who knew him when his parts were more bright and lively; yet the compofure he was then in may perhaps be fuppofed to balance any abatement of his ufual vigour, which the declination of his health brought him under. I have written this discourse with as much care, and have confidered it as narrowly as I could. I am fure I have faid nothing but truth: I have done it flowly, and often ufed my fecond thoughts in it, not being fo much

con

concerned in the cenfures which might fall on myself, as cautious that nothing fhould pafs that might ob ftruct my only defign of writing, which is the doing what I can towards the reforming a loose and lewd age. And if fuch a fignal inftance, concurring with all the evidence that we have for our most holy faith, has no effect on thofe who are running the fame course, it is much to be feared they are given up to a reprobate sense.

Some

SOME

PASSAGES

OF THE

LIFE AND DEATH

OF

JOHN EARL OF ROCHESTER.

IN WILMOT, Earl of Rochefter, was born

JOHN

in April, Anno Dom. 1648. His father was Henry Earl of Rochefter, but beft known by the title of the Lord Wilmot, who bore fo great a part in all the late wars, that mention is often made of him in the hiftory, and had the chief fhare in the honour of the preservation of his Majefty after Worcester fight, and the conveying him from place to place till he happily efcaped into France: but, dying before the king's return, he left his fon little other inheritance but the honour and title derived to him, with the pretenfions fuch eminent fervices gave him to the

king's

king's favour; thefe were carefully managed by the great prudence and difcretion of his mother, a daughter of that noble and ancient family of the St Johns, of Wiltshire: so that his education was carried on in all things fuitably to his quality.

When he was at school, he was an extraordinary proficient at his book; and thofe fhining parts, which fince have appeared with fo much luftre, began then to fhew themselves. He acquired the Latin to fuch perfection, that to his dying day he retained a great relish of the fineness and beauty of that tongue, and was exactly verfed in the incomparable authors that wrote about Auguftus's time, whom he read often with that peculiar delight which the greateft wits have ever found in those studies.

When he went to the university, the general joy which over-ran the whole nation upon his majefty's restoration, but was not regulated with that sobriety. and temperance that became a ferious gratitude to God for fo great a bleffing, produced fome of its ill effects upon him: he began to love thefe diforders too much. His tutor was that eminent and pious divine, Dr Blandford, afterwards promoted to the fees of Oxford and Worcester; and under his infpection, he was committed to the more immediate care of Mr Phineas Berry, a fellow of Wadhamcollege, a very learned and good-natured man, whom he afterwards ever ufed with much refpect,

and

and rewarded him as became a great man. But the humour of that time wrought fo much on him, that he broke off the courfe of his ftudies, to which no means could ever effectually recal him, till, when he was in Italy, his governor, Dr. Balfour, a learned and worthy man, afterwards a celebrated physician in Scotland, his native country, drew him to read such books, as were moft likely to bring him back to love learning and study: and he often acknowledged to me, in particular three days before his death, how much he was obliged to love and honour this his governor, to whom he thought he owed more than to all the world, next after his parents, for his great fidelity and care of him while he was under his truft. But no part of it affected him more fenfibly than that he engaged him by many tricks (fo he expreffed it) to delight in books and reading: so that ever after he took occafion, in the intervals of thofe woful extravagances that confumed most of his time, to read much; and, though the time was generally but indifferently employed, for the choice of the fubjects of his studies was not always good, yet the habitual love of knowledge, together with these fits of study, had much awakened his understanding, and prepared him for better things, when his mind fhould be fo far changed as to relish them.

He came from his travels in the eighteenth year of his age, and appeared at court with as great ad

vantages