IT is not to be doubted, that the intellectual character of man is influenced equally by time as by place, and that each age has its peculiar features, as well as each climate. Nor need we wonder at this, if we consider how naturally, though perhaps insensibly, our habits, nay, our very principles, conform themselves to those of our associates. It is easily conceivable, that a few master-spirits, men of that commanding genius, which enables them to turn even the opposition with which their opinions are met, into the very impetus by which their career is urged, may so dictate to the understandings, and prejudices, of those within the circle of their influence, as continually to become in society, what the key-note is in music, that from which all the rest are harmonized, according to their several distances, and by which alone the other and more subservient tones receive their determinate character and value.

In no period of our history was this identity of character more displayed than in the seventeenth century, an era, of which it may be said, as it was originally of Sir Walter Raleigh, one of its ornaments, that it was consecrated "tam morti quam mercurio." It might be successfully traced through all the religious chivalry of the times of the civil war, especially in the character of the Parliamentarian generals, a species of soldiery unknown to any precedCONG. MAG. No. 73.

[VOL. VII.

ing, or succeeding ages. It was equally apparent in the higher rank of private gentlemen of that period, amongst whom there generally prevailed a more exact, and more laborious, investigation into the nature, both of the doctrines and discipline of religion, than either the priestly jealousy of former times had permitted, or than the indifference and lukewarmness, of any following years have prompted them to exercise. Did we think that our assertion required more proof than the memory of our intelligent readers will immediately furnish, we would readily add to the names of Sir Charles Wolseley, Lord Brooke, Sir Edward Dering, Sir Thomas Widrington, Robert Boyle, Edward Polhill, Sir William Morice, &c. so many, and such respectable vouchers, that we might sooner encumber our pages, and weary our readers, than exhaust our stock of evidence. In this class, Sir William Morice held a very honourable station, and though we are ready to concede that he was surpassed by some of his compeers, in those qualities which make excellency conspicuous, we fear not to challenge for him a very considerable portion of those solid, and really estimable, endowments, which, while they require investigation, that their value may be known, will also endure it, without any hazard of being found superficial.

Sir William Morice was born in Exeter, in the year 1602. His

B

father, Dr. Evan, or John Morice, chancellor of the diocese of Exeter, descended from an ancient equestrian family, in Caernarvonshire. His mother was of the family of Castle, in Devonshire. Dr. Morice dying, in 1606, his widow married Sir Nicholas Prideaux. After the preliminary course of education, Mr. Morice, in 1620, was entered of Exeter College, Oxford, where he had for tutor the learned Nathaniel Carpenter. Such was the diligence manifested by Mr. Morice, at this early age, that Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Prideaux, used to say of him, "that though he was but little in stature,* yet, in time, he would come to be great in the state." Having commenced Bachelor of Arts, he retired to his paternal estate, where he prosecuted his studies with unremitting attention, as we may readily infer from his publications, which bear the most ample testimony that they proceed from a mind, not only vigorous by nature, but enriched by a very extensive and judicious course of reading, and matured, by severe discipline, to the closest and most subtle reasoning. Prince, in his "Worthies of Devon," says, that, in his younger years, he was very much addicted to poetry, and apothegmatical learning." In this interval, between the completion of his academical studies, and the commencement of his public life, he married a granddaughter of Sir Nicholas Prideaux. He took no part in those convul

Clarendon says, in some part of his history, that this period (that of the civil war) was remarkable for the number of great characters it produced, who were ere small in stature. We have particularly noticed, in the course of our reading, that Laud, Chillingworth, Lord Falkland, Blake, Clement Walker, Milton, and Sir William Morice, come under the force of this remark. Of Blake, in particular, it is recorded, that he was refused admission into Merton College, Oxford, being under five feet six inches, the height required by the college statute !

his

sions of the state, which now commenced, though it is highly probable that he was a moderate royalist in sentiment, and though he could not be ignorant of those encroachments on the subject's liberty which were then practised under the pretence of the prerogative, nor indifferent to them, yet he inclined to more lenient remedies than the Parliamentarians thought fit to apply. We find that, in 1645, his reputation stood so high, that, though unsolicited on part, the honor of representing his native county in Parliament was conferred on him, by the general voice of his countrymen; but he refused to sit in that house, till the members, secluded by the army-faction, were restored by Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, his relation by marriage. In 1651, he was appointed high sheriff for the county of Devon. On the return of Monk to England, and the restoration of the secluded members, Mr. Morice took his seat in the house, where he was in high estimation for his learning, and, in the words of Anthony Wood, on this account "being esteemed a Presbyterian❞

the great masters at Westminster being mostly of that persuasion. This favourable opinion of Mr. Morice was owing principally to the publication of his work, entitled "Coena quasi koLYN," in which he had very learnedly defended a more general admission to the Lord's supper than was practised by the Independents of those days, and in particular had opposed the opinions of Mr. Humphry Sanders, an Independent minister at Holdsworthy, in Devonshire, who answered Mr. Morice in a piece, called "Antidiatribe, or an Apology for Administering the Lord's Supper to a Select Company." 8vo. 1655. As we shall have occasion to make a more distinct reference to Mr. Morice's work in the course of this article,