verend fir, to thofe who are fo defirous of feeing you, and where you will reap a harvest, not rich indeed in temporal delights, but in numerous opportunities to improve the hearts and to fave the fouls of men; and be affured that your arrival is warmly defired by all good men. Adieu.

Weftminster, April 1, 1659.

XXIX.

To HENRY OLDENBURG.

THE indulgence which you beg for yourself, you will rather have to beftow on me, whofe turn, if I remember, it was to write. My regard for you has, believe me, fuffered no diminution; but either my studies or my domeftic cares, or perhaps my indolence in writing, have made me guilty of this omiffion of duty. I am, by God's help, as well as ufual. I am not willing, as you with me, to compile a hiftory of our troubles; for they feem rather to require oblivion than commemoration; nor have we fo much need of a perfon to compofe a history of our troubles as happily to fettle them. I fear with you left our civil diffentions, or rather maniacal agitation, fhould expofe us to the attack of the lately confederated enemies of religion and of liberty; but thofe enemies could not inflict a deeper wound upon religion than we ourfelves have long fince done by our follies and our crimes. But whatever difturbances kings and cardinals may meditate and contrive, I trust that God will not fuffer the machinations and the violence of our enemies to fucceed according to their expectations. I pray that the Proteftant fynod, which you fay is foon to meet at Leyden, may have a happy termination, which has never yet happened to any fynod that has ever met before. But the termination of this might be called happy, if it decreed nothing else but the expulfion of

More.

More. As foon as my pofthumous adversary shall make his appearance I requeft you to give me the earliest information. Adieu.

Westminster, Dec. 20, 1659.

XXX.

To the noble Youth RICHARD JONES.

You fend me a moft modeft apology for not writing fooner, when you might more juftly have accused me of the fame offence; fo that I hardly know whether I should choose that you had not committed the offence or not written the apology. Never for a moment believe that I measure your gratitude, if any gratitude be due to me, by the affiduity of your epiftolary communications. I fhall perceive all the ardour of your gratitude, fince you will extol the merit of my fervices, not fo much in the frequency of your letters as in the excellence of your habits, and the degree of your moral and intellectual proficiency. On the theatre of the world on which you have entered, you have rightly chofen the path of virtue; but know there is a path common to virtue and to vice; and that it behoves you to advance where the way divides. Leaving the common track of pleasure and amufement, you should cheerfully encounter the toils and the dangers of that steep and rugged way which leads to the pinnacle of virtue. This, believe me, you will accomplish with more facility fince you have got a guide of fo much integrity and fkill. Adieu.

XXXI.

To the accomplished PETER HEINBACH, Counsellor to the Elector of Brandenburgh.

It is not ftrange as you write that report should have induced you to believe, that I had perifhed among the numbers of my countrymen who fell in a year fo fatally vifited by the ravages of the plague. If that rumour fprung as it feems out of a folicitude for my fafety, I confider it as no unpleafing indication of the efteem in which I am held among you. But by the goodness of God, who provided for me a place of refuge in the country, I yet enjoy both life and health; which, as long as they continue, I fhall be happy to employ in any useful undertaking. It gives me pleafure to think, that after fo long an interval I have again occurred to your remembrance; though, owing to the luxuriance of your praife, you seem almoft to lead me to fufpect that you had quite forgotten one in whom you say that you admire the union of fo many virtues; from fuch an union I might dread too numerous a progeny if it were not evident that the virtues flourish moft in penury and diftrefs. But one of thofe virtues has made me but an ill return for her hofpitable reception in my breast; for what you term policy, and which I with that you had rather called patriotic piety, has, if I may fo fay, almoft left me, who was charmed with fo fweet a found, without a country. The other virtues harmoniously agree. Our country is wherever we are well off. I will conclude after first begging you if there be any errors in the diction or the punctuation to impute them to the boy who wrote this, who was quite ignorant of Latin, and to whom I was, with no little vexation, obliged to dictate not the words, but, one by one,

the

the letters of which they were compofed. I rejoice to find that your virtues and talents, of which I faw the fair promise in your youth, have raised you to fo honourable a fituation under the prince; and I wish you every good which you can enjoy. Adieu,

London, Aug. 15, 1666.

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