at length, in the eighth edition enlarged, published by Royston in 1672, the name of Hatton is omitted, and that of "Jer. Taylor, D.D. Chaplain to King Charles Ist. of blessed Memory," is inserted in its place. To these facts nothing can be opposed but the assertion in the preface, that its author did not "wait at the altar." But, if the work were designed to pass for Hatton's, such an expression is no more than we should expect to find; and the authenticity of the volume is now, indeed, very generally acknowledged. For most of the facts contained in the above note, I have again to acknowledge my obligations to Mr. Bonney's manuscript information. NOTE (K.) William Nicholson was the son of Christopher Nicholson, a rich clothier of Stratford, near Hadleigh, Suffolk. He was brought up as a chorister at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was afterwards bible clerk, and, eventually, became tutor to the Lord Percy, and chaplain to his father the Earl of Northumberland. In 1616, he was elected master of the free-school at Croydon, where his discipline and powers of instruction were much celebrated. He resigned this situation in 1629, when he obtained the rectory of Llandilo Vawr, in Caermarthenshire; to which were afterwards added the dignities of residentiary of St. David's and archdeacon of Brecknock. In 1643, he was named as one of the assembly of divines at Westminster, probably by the interest of the earl of Northumberland; but he never took his place among them, and his livings being shortly after sequestered, he again taught school for his maintenance, in which way of life he continued till the Re storation. In 1660-1, he was appointed bishop of Gloucester, by the interest of Lord Clarendon, whom Wood insinuates that he had bribed. But as his character appears to have stood high with all parties, and as he had a strong and legitimate claim on the patronage of government, for his unshaken loyalty, and bold and pertinacious defence of the church during its most helpless and hopeless depression, it seems most reasonable, as well as most charitable, to ascribe his preferment rather to his merits than to simony. He died Feb. 5, 1671, and was honoured with the following epitaph by the excellent George Bull, afterwards Bishop of St. David's. "Eternitati S. In spe beatæ resurrectionis, hîc reverendas exuvias deposnit Theologus insignis, Episcopus verè primitivus, Gul. Nicholson, in agro Suffolciano natus, apud Magdalenses educatus, ob fidem Regi et Ecclesiæ afflictæ præstitam, ad sedem Glocestrensem meritò promotus, anno 1660. In concionibus frequens, in scriptis nervosus, legenda scribens, et faciens scribenda. Gravitas Episcopalis in fronte emicuit, pauperibus quotidiana charitate beneficus, comitate erga clerum et liberatos admirandus, gloriæ ac dierum satur, in palatio suo, ut vixit, piè decessit, Feb. 5, Anno ætatis LXXII. Dom. MDCLXXI. Elizabetha conjux præivit, in hoc sacello sepulta, Apr. xx. An. Dom. MDCLXIII. Owenus Brigstock de Lechdenny in comitatu Caermarthen, Armiger, prædictæ Elizabethæ nepos, hoc grati animi monumentum, (executore recusante,) propriis sumptibus erexit. An. MDCLXXIX." Bishop Nicholson's published works, of which a catalogue is given by Wood, are all of a practical and useful character. That he was joined, for a time at least, with Taylor in his school at Newton, appears from the following epitaph which Mr. Bonney has published, and to which I have already alluded in the text: MS. "Griffini Lloyd, 'de Cwmgwilly, Armigeri, qui, honestis parentibus Llanarthneiæ natus, literarum tyrocinia posuit sub summis viris Gul. Nicholsono, Ep. posteà Glocestrensi, et Jer. Tayloro Ep. Dunensi, qui, grassante Cromwellii tyrannide, in hac vicinia victum queritabant.”—Bonney, P. 175. William Wyat, Taylor's other associate in this undertaking, was born at Todenham, in Gloucestershire; and, after some delay in obtaining his degrees at Oxford, through the calamities attendant on the civil war, became B. D. Sept. 12, 1661. On leaving Newton Hall, he taught at Evesham, in Worcestershire; and, afterwards, was assistant in a private school at Twickenham, kept by William Fuller, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. Under his patronage he was installed prebendary of Lidington, May 13, 1668, and precentor of Lincoln Cathedral, November 6 of the same year. The latter dignity he resigned in 1681, but retained the prebend till his death, which took place in the house of Sir Richard Newdigate, at Nuneaton, in Warwickshire. He was buried at Astley, in the same county, where, over the communion-table, is a small marble tablet, with the following quaint inscription: P. M. "Gulielmi Wyat, S.T.B. quem ab ecclesia Lincoln. (ubi Præcentor erat meritissimus,) huc traxit quietis studium et honoratæ juxta de Arburia familiæ vicinitas et patrocinium, quibus frui cætera omnia lubens desereret. Obiit 9 Septembris, 1685, in magna sua climacteria, et quia, uti vixerat, sic moreretur, omnibus numeris absolutus. Φιλοτιμείσθαι ἡσυχάζειν.” BONNEY, MS. p. 44. BROWNE WILLIS, Hist. of For Sir John Powell's epitaph I am indebted to his descendant, the Reverend Mr. Evans, of Newtown Hall, in the county of Montgomery. M. S. JOHANNIS POWELL, Equitis Aurati, Qualis fuerit, non ab exiguo Monumenti marmore, Quæras edoceri. - Bonas Artes, quibus sub optimo Præceptore, A primâ Juventute enutritus erat, In academiâ dehinc Oxoniensi, feliciter excoluit. Quæ erat ejus modestia, magis allubescerat) Et dummodo prodesset Conspici non gravatus est. Honores itaque nunquam solicitus petiit, Banci Regis et Communium Placitorum Magni Sigilli Custódiam Non dubitavit recusare, Omni scilicet Titulo superior. Quam strenuus Ecclesiæ Defensor fuerit, Hinc à Justiciaria Cathedrâ honorificè dejectus, Eandem iterum implevit. Afflicto cuique et oppresso subveniret, Anno D. 1696, æt. 63. Sir John Powell's dignified conduct on the trial of the seven Bishops is well known. Its merit is enhanced, if the tradition of his family, and of this Epitaph, be correct, that he was offered the great seal, if he would pursue a different course. NOTE (L.) 66 ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE UNDER THE LONG PARLIAMENT. "Because ye have thrown off your prelate Lord, To seize the widow'd whore Plurality From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorr'd, To force our consciences whom Christ set free, But we do hope to find out all your tricks, Your plots and packings, worse than those of Trent; May, with their wholesome and preventive shears, When they shall read this plainly in your charge, I can hardly think that Goodwin and Peters, the principal individuals who shared with Taylor the indignation of Rutherford and the Presbyterians, were men whom Milton, so ordinarily sparing of his praise, could have extolled as those whom St. Paul would have "held in high esteem." But Taylor was, beyond all comparison, the most illustrious champion of those tolerating doctrines for which Milton himself so nobly contended, and I cannot help supposing that his name was in the poet's mind, when he was thus assailing their common adversaries. Rutherford's work is perhaps the most elaborate defence of persecution which has ever appeared in a Protestant country. He justifies it from the law of nature, the Mosaic law, the analogy of the Christian religion, the practice of the patriarchs and godly princes of old time; the prophecies which foretel that the kings which have sometimes served the Babylonian harlot shall, on their repentance, burn her with fire, and eat her flesh; and the commandment of St. John, that a true believer is not to say God speed to a false teacher. They who condemn the burning of Servetus would have condemned, he tells us, on the same principles, the slaughter of the priests of Baal; and, though he seems, in one place, to have some compunctious doubts as to the propriety of fire as an instrument of conversion, and, on the whole, to give the preference to hanging, yet, he elsewhere urges that, as stoning was the punishment of idolatry under the Mosaic law, and as the despisers of the gospel are, unquestionably, worthy of a much sorer punishment, so it may be thought that burning hath something in it marvellously suited to the occasion and to the necessities of Christendom. To invade a foreign nation of idolaters with a view to apply such instruments and means of grace, he, indeed, confesses to be of doubtful morality; but it may be, he says, a most interesting and curious question, whether, such a conquest having been effected on other grounds, it is not the duty of the believing conqueror to force away the children of his new subjects, to the end that they may be brought up in the true religion? Such were the sentiments, and so far as they had the power, the practice of Rutherford himself; of Mather, who published, about the same time, a pamphlet entitled "The Tenet of Persecution washed white in the Blood of the Lamb; and of many others, who, when their own hour of trial and suffering came, were ready enough to accuse their adversaries of unchristian and inhuman severity. The arguments of Rutherford are not likely in the present day to make many converts to his opinion. But, if there are any who, from the confidence Boston N.E. × Not by Mather, but by John Cotton 1647. |