gies revenue, no lesse then his countries safety, which he indeavoured to bring about through a reduction of Britanny into one forme of worship, by the traine of Calvine most rigidly opposed: but the two contrary factions at court, (one of them thinking all things fit to be destroyed the other laboured to preserve,) did, upon the vacancy every bishoprick, put one in sutable to their humours that had the luck to prevaile. The cause the present incumbent did, like the web of Penelope, unravell what his predecessour had with more policy and charity twisted: By which meanes, the diocesses of tical purposes, on which the following distich appeared: He who never repented of doing ill, See FULLER'S Worthies, Lancashire. The same author informs us, that, when some one shewed the primate a libel against him, " Cast it," said he, nothing moved thereat," to an hundred more that lie in a heap in my chamber." If none of them were more poignant than those quoted in the text, there was little merit in his equanimity. * The successor of Bancroft was the learned and wor of Canterbury and Yorke were at one and the same time of contrary judgments, and the best of clergy men (driven into a medium by the scorching heate of the one side, and chill indifferency of the other,) lost their labour, and all hope of preferment in thy Archbishop Abbot. Being supposed to lean as much towards the puritans as his predecessor towards the moderate catholics, the change of system which he introduced was severely censured by Clarendon, in the following account of his promotion: "He had scarce performed any part of the office of a bishop, in the diocess of London, when he was snatched from thence, and promoted to Canterbury, upon the never-enough-lamented death of Dr Bancroft, that metropolitan, who understood the church excellently, and had almost rescued it out of the hands of the Calvinian party, and very much subdued the spirit of the non-conformists, by and after the conference at Hampton-court; countenanced men of the greatest parts in learning, and disposed the clergy to a more solid course of study than they had been accustomed to; and, if he had lived, would quickly have extinguished all that fire in England, which had been kindled at Geneva; or, if he had been succeeded by Bishop Andrews, Bishop Overal, or any man who understood and loved the church, that infection would easily have been kept out, which could not afterwards be so easily expelled.”CLARENDON'S History of the Rebellion. Oxford, 1705, 8vo. vol. i. p. 88. a vaine indeavour for a reconciliation, unpossible to be brought about; the one party being fometed by hypocrisy to bear out their ignorance, and the other from power, and a feare of reverting into the primitive austerity: which held so long in this unconstant vicissitude, till what was continued meerly out of policy at court, did in a short time branch forth in city and country into divers popular differences, sutable to the mold of every head, and the interest of such persons as had the subtilty to fit them to their occasions: Zele, like lead, being as ready to drop into bulletts, as to mingle with a composition fit for medicine. So, as in those daies, it was unpossible for men in power but to be scandalous to one side or other. 13. Dispatches from the counsell table, (of which I have seene volumes,) began and held on throughout in a plaine and the same stile, not seldome admitting of severall constructions, if of any interpretation at all, where the businesse related to a thing whose consequence could not easily been seen into: as appeares at the beginning of all treaties, and especially in the two offers of marriage with France, which the queen managed with such dexterity and secrecy, that wise Walsingham, (as appeares by his letters,) through whose hands the whole businesse passed, did not know certainly whether she was reall or no; but, in what was thought proper for transaction, all things were plaine drawne in Latine: this put together, did much facilitate the office of her secretaries. 7 14. Now, as wisdome and secrecy appeared in her counsell-chamber, so hospitality, charity, and splendor, were dilated over the whole court; where, upon the least acquaintance, all strangers from the noble man to the pesant, were invited to one table or other, (of which she kept abundance, wherever she removed from one standing house to another, unlesse she returned to White-hall at night,) the least considerable. suting with three, foure, or five hundred pounds per annum expence; and for bread, beere, and wine, (commonly called by the name of budge,) though the purveyors that brought it in were called to strict accounts, such as issued them out were rarely questioned, but in case they sold it: and by this generosity, the ordinary sort of people were so indeared, as I have knowne some brag of their entertainment at court twenty yeares after; such, like dogges, seldome biting those have once fed them, though with the same meate they have been at the paines to catch themselves; it coming all out of the country mans barnes or yards, the wine being little when custome was abated. 15. Yet, though she was thus plentifully provided of all things at home, she did notseldome fetch an entertainment at such grandees houses, as were understood to be most popular: By which, she removed her subjects eyes from intending wholly the influence of these inferiour starres, and fixed them upon a greater splendor of her owne: besides her out-doing them in the art of po |