verend fir, to those 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 Adieu.

men.

Weftminster, April 1, 1659.

XXIX.

To HENRY OLDENBURG.

THE indulgence which you beg for yourself, you will rather have to bestow on me, whofe turn, if I remember, it was to write. My regard for you has, believe me, fuffered no diminution; but either my ftudies 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 seem 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 those enemies could not inflict a deeper wound upon religion than we ourselves 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 suffer the machinations and the violence of our enemies to fucceed according to their expectations. I pray that the Proteftant fynod, which you say is soon 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 fhall make his appearance I request 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 accufed me of the fame offence; fo that I hardly know whether I fhould choose that you had not committed the offence or not written the apology. Never for a moment believe that I meafure your gratitude, if any gratitude be due to me, by the affiduity of your epiftolary communications. Ifhall 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 chosen 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 amusement, 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.

Westminster, Dec. 20, 1659.

VOL. I.

To

XXXI.

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

Ir is not strange 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 sprung as it feems out of a folicitude for my fafety, I confider it as no unpleafing indication of the esteem 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 praise, you seem almost to lead me to suspect 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 most in penury and diftrefs. But one of those virtues has made me but an ill return for her hofpitable reception in my breaft; for what you term policy, and which I with that you had rather called patriotic piety, has, if I may so say, 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 firft 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.

OF