his style to the facts which he records. But why do I mention this to you? When fuch is your genius that you need not my advice, and when fuch is your proficiency that if it goes on increafing you will foon not be able to confult any one more learned than yourself. To the increase of that proficiency, though no exhortations can be neceffary to ftimulate your exertions, yet that I may not seem entirely to fruftrate your expectations, I will befeech you with all my affection, all my authority, and all my zeal, to let nothing relax your diligence, or chill the ardour of your pursuit. Adieu! and may you ever fuccessfully labour in the path of wifdom and of virtue. Weftminster, July 15, 1657. XXIV. To HENRY OLDENBURG. I REJOICE to hear of your fafe arrival at Saumur, which is, I believe, the place of your deftination. You cannot doubt of the pleasure which this intelligence has given me, when you confider how much I love your virtues and approve the object of your journey. I had much rather that fome other perfon had heard in the boat of Charon than you on the waters of the Charent, that fo infamous a priest was called in to inftruct fo illuftrious a church. For I much fear that he will experience the most bitter disappointment who thinks ever to get to Heaven under the aufpices of fo profligate a guide. Alas! for that church where the minifters endeavour to please only the ear; minifters whom the church, if it defires a real reformation, ought rather to expel than to choose. You have done right, and not only according to my opinion but that of Horace, by not communicating my writings to any but to those who expreffed a defire to fee them. Do not my works, importunately rude, A learned friend of mine who paft the laft fummer at Saumur, informed me that that book was in great requeft in thofe parts. I fent him only one copy; he wrote back that the perufal of it had afforded the highest fatisfaction to fome of the learned there. If I had not thought that I fhould oblige them I fhould have spared this trouble to you and this expence to myself. If my books chance to prove a weary load, Rather than bear them further leave them on the road. I have as you defired me, prefented your kind withes to our friend Lawrence. There is nothing that I wish more than that you and your pupil may have your health and return to us foon as poffible after having effected the object of your wishes. Weftminster, Aug. 1, 1657. XXV. To the noble Youth RICHARD JONES. I REJOICE to hear that you accomplished fo long a journey with fo little inconvenience, and what redounds to much to your credit that, defpifing the luxuries of Paris, you haftened with fo much celerity where you might enjoy the pleasures of literature and the converfation of the learned. As long as you please you will there be in a haven of fecurity; in other places you will have to guard against the thoals of treachery and the fyrens' fongs. I would not with you to thirst too much after the vintage of Saumur, but refolve to dilute the Bacchanalian fiream with more than a fifth part of the Chryftal liquor of the Parnaffian fount. But in this refpect, without my injunctions, you have an excellent preceptor whom you cannot do better than obey; and by obeying whom you will give the highest fatisfaction fatisfaction to your excellent mother, and daily increase in her regard and love. That you may have power to do this you should daily afk help from above. Adieu, and endeavour to return as much improved as poffible, both in virtue and erudition. This will give me more than ordinary pleasure. Weftminster, Aug. 1, 1657. XXVI. To the illuftrious Lord HENRY DE BRAS. SOME engagements, moft noble Lord, have prevented me from anfwering your letter fo foon as I could wifh. I wished to have done it the fooner because I faw that your letter, fo full of erudition, left me less occafion for fending you my advice (which I believe that you defire more out of compliment to me than of any benefit to yourself) than my congratulations. First, I congratulate myfelf on having been fo fortunate in characterising the merits of Salluft as to have excited you to the affiduous perufal of that author, who is fo full of wisdom, and who may be read with so much advantage. Of him I will venture to affert what Quintilian faid of Cicero, that he who loves Sailuft is no mean proficient in hiftorical compofition. That precept of Ariftotle in the third book of his rhetoric, which you wish me to explain, relates to the morality of the reflections and the fidelity of the narrative. It appears to me to need little comment, except that it fhould be appropriated not to the compofitions of rhetoric but of hiftory. For the offices of a rhetorician and an hiftorian are as different as the arts which they profefs. Polybius, Halicarnaffus, Diodorus, Cicero, Lucian, and many others, whose works are interfperfed with precepts on the fubject, will better teach you what are the duties of an hiftorian. I wish you every success in your travels and pursuits. Adieu. Westminster, Dec. 16, 1657. To XXVII. To the accomplished PETER HEINBACH. I RECEIVED your letter from the Hague the 18th December, which, as your convenience feems to require, I answer the fame day on which it was received. In this letter, after returning me thanks for fome favours which I am not confcious of having done, but which my regard for you makes me with to have been real, you ask me to recommend you, through the medium of D. Lawrence, to him who is appointed our agent in Holland. This I grieve that I am not able to do, both on account of my little familiarity with those who have favours to bestow, fince I have more pleasure in keeping myself at home, and because I believe that he is already on his voyage, and has in his company a perfon in the office of fecretary, which you are anxious to obtain. But the bearer of this is on the eve of his departure. Adieu. Weftminster, Dec. 18, 1657. XXVIII. To JOHN BADIAYS, Minifter of the Church of Orange. MOST excellent and reverend fir, I believe that our friend Durius will take upon himself the blame of my not writing to you fooner. After he had showed me that paper which you wifhed me to read concerning what I had done and fuffered for the fake of the Gospel, I wrote this letter as foon as poffible, intending to fend it by the first conveyance, fince I was fearful that you might confider a longer filence as neglect. In the mean time I am under the greatest obligations to your friend Molin, for procuring me the esteem of the virtuous in thofe parts by the zeal of his friendship and the warmth of his praife; and though I am not ignorant that the conteft in which I was engaged with fo great an adverfary, that the celebrity of the fubject and the style of the compofition had far and wide diffufed my fame, yet I think that I can be famous only in proportion as I enjoy the approbation of the good. I clearly fee that you are of the fame opinion; fo many are the toils you have endured, fo many are the enemies whom you have provoked by your difinterested zeal in defence of the Chriftian doctrine; and you act with fo much intrepidity as to show, that instead of courting the applause of bad men, you do not fear to excite their moft inveterate hate and their most bitter maledictions. Oh happy are you whom, out of fo many thousands of the wife and learned, providence has rescued from the very brink of destruction, and selected to bear a distinguished and intrepid testimony to the truth of the Gofpel. I have now reasons for thinking that it was a fingular mercy that I did not write to you fooner; for when I understood by your letters that, threatened on all fides by the malice of your enemies, you were looking round for a place of refuge to which you might fly in the last extremity of danger, and you had fixed on England as the object of your wifhes, I was confiderably gratified, because it gave me the hope of enjoying your company, and because I was happy to find you think fo favourably of my country; but I lamented that, particularly owing to your ignorance of our language, I did not fee any chance of a decent provifion being made for you among us. The death of an old French minifter has fince very opportunely occurred. The principal perfons of his congregation (from whom I have received this communication) anxiously wifh, or rather invite you to be chofen in his place; they have determined to pay the expences of your journey, to provide for you as large a falary as any of the French minifters receive, and to let you want nothing which can contribute to the cheerful difcharge of your ecclefiaftical function. Fly, I befeech you, as foon as poffible, re "that verend |