tervals and fevere reflections on them: and, though then he had not these awakened in him by any deep principle of religion, yet the horror that nature raised in him, especially in fome fickneffes, made him too eafy to receive fome ill principles which others endeavoured to poffefs him with; fo that he was too foon brought to fet himself to fecure and fortify his mind against that, by difpoffeffing it all he could of the belief or apprehenfions of religion. The licentiousness of his temper, with the brifknefs of his wit, difpofed him to love the converfation of thofe who divided their time between lewd actions and irregular mirth. And fo he came to bend his wit, and direct his ftudies and endeavours, to fupport and strengthen thefe ill principles in himself and others.

An accident fell out after this which confirmed him more in these courfes. When he went to fea in the year 1665, there happened to be, in the fame fhip with him, Mr. Montague and another gentleman of quality. These two, the former especially, feemed perfuaded that they fhould never return into England: Mr. Montague said he was fure of it; the other was not fo pofitive. The earl of Rochefter and the last of these entered into a formal engagement, not without ceremonies of religion, that, if either of them died, he should appear, and give the other notice of the future ftate, if there was any; but Mr. Montague would not enter into the bond. When

the

the day came that they thought to have taken the Dutch fleet in the port of Bergen, Mr. Montague, though he had such a strong prefage in his mind of his approaching death, yet he generously staid all the while in the place of greatest danger. The other gentleman fignalized his courage in a most undaunted manner till the end of the action, when he fell on a fudden into fuch a trembling that he could fcarce ftand; and, Mr. Montague going to him to hold him up, as they were in each other's arms, a cannonball killed him outright, and carried away Mr. Montague's belly, fo that he died within an hour after. The earl of Rochefter told me that thefe prefages they had in their minds made fome impreffion on him, that there were feparated beings; and that the foul, either by a natural fagacity, or fome fecret notice communicated to it, had a fort of divination. But that gentleman's never appearing was a great fnare to him during the rest of his life; though when he told me this, he could not but acknowledge it was an unreasonable thing for him to think, that beings in another ftate are not under fuch laws and limits that they could not command their own motions but as the Supreme Power fhould order them; and that one, who had fo corrupted the natural principles of truth as he had, had no reason to expect that fuch an extraordinary thing fhould be done for his conviction.

He told me of another odd prefage that one had of his approaching death in the lady Warre's, his mother-in-law's, houfe. The chaplain had dreamt that fuch a day he fhould die; but, being by all the family put out of the belief of it, he had almost forgot it; till, the evening before, at fupper, there being thirteen at table, according to a fond conceit that one of these must foon die, one of the young ladies pointed to him that he was to die. He, remembering his dream, fell into fome diforder; and, the lady Warre reproving him for his fuperftition, he faid he was confident he was to die before morning; but he being in perfect health, it was not much minded. It was Saturday night, and he was to preach next day. He went to his chamber, and fat up late, as appeared by the burning of his candle; and he had been preparing his notes for his fermon; but was found dead in his bed the next morning. These things, he faid, made him inclined to believe the foul was a substance distinct from matter; and this often returned into his thoughts. But that which perfected his perfuafion about it was, that, in the ficknefs which brought him fo near death before I firft knew him, when his fpirits were fo low and spent that he could not move nor ftir, and he did not think to live an hour, he faid his reafon and judgment were fo clear and ftrong, that from thence he was fully perfuaded that death was

not

not the spending or diffolution of the foul, but only the separation of it from matter. He had in the fick nefs great remorfes for his paft life; but he afterwards told me, they were rather general and dark horrors than any conviction of finning againft God. He was forry he had lived fo as to wafte his strength fo foon, or that he had brought fuch an ill name upon himself; and had an agony in his mind about it which he knew not well how to exprefs; but at fuch times, though he complied with his friends in fuffering divines to be fent for, he said he had no great mind to it, and that it was but a piece of his breeding to defire them to pray by him, in which he joined little himself.

As to the Supreme Being, he had always fome impreffion of one; and profeffed often to me, that he had never known an entire atheift, who fully believed there was no God. Yet, when he explained his notion of this Being, it amounted to no more than a vaft power, that had none of the attributes of goodness or justice we afcribe to the Deity. These were his thoughts about religion, as himself told me. For morality, he freely owned to me, that, though he talked of it as a fine thing, yet this was only because he thought it a decent mode of speaking; and that, as they went always in clothes, though in their frolics they would have chofen fometimes to have gone naked, if they had not feared the people,-fo B 3

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fome of them found it neceffary, for human life, to talk of morality, yet he confelled they cared not for it, farther than the reputation of it was neceffary for their credit and affairs; of which he gave me many inftances as their profeffing and fwearing friendfhip where they hated mortally; their oaths and imprecations on their addresses to women, which they intended never to make good; the pleasure they took in defaming innocent perfons, and spreading false reports of fome, perhaps in revenge, because they could not engage them to comply with their ill defigns; the delight they had in making people quarrel; their unjust usage of their creditors, and putting them off by any deceitful promife they could invent that might deliver them from prefent importunity. So that, in deteftation of thefe courfes, he would often break forth into fuch hard expreffions, concerning himself, as would be indecent for another to repeat.

Such had been his principles and practices in a course of many years, which had almost quite extinguished the natural propenfities in him to justice and virtue. He would often go into the country, and be for fome months wholly employed in ftudy, or the fallies of his wit, which he came to direct chiefly to fatire. And this he often defended to me, by faying there were fome people that could not be kept in order or admonished but in this way. I replied, that

it