on the Prince and Princess of Orange. He had previously secured the city of Carlisle, and influenced the two counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland to declare themselves in favour of the Prince.

On the accession of King William, he was immediately appointed a Privy Councillor, and ViceChamberlain of his Majesty's Household.

In 1689, he was made Lord Lieutenant of the counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland.

In 1690, he was First Commissioner of the Treasury. Of the nature of this office, of the difficulties attending it, and of the contracted system of political economy which prevailed in his time, he thus writes: "Amongst employments in this nation, the Treasury, though one of the most honourable, yet is undoubtedly the most dangerous and uneasy: since it hath been, ever since I knew parliaments, a maxim to supply the crown narrowly, lest it should be enabled to support itself without them; whereby grievances would grow, and no means of redressing them, and liberty and property would be in danger. It is plain, that this way and rule of policy may indeed keep the state alive, and preserve to every man his own; and so life may drawl on in a kind of sleeping ease: but all that vigour and noble virtue, that tends to the glory and aggrandisement of a nation, is stifled and kept down by it, and effectually it hath been so with us for a long

time. So far have kings been from being able to build cities, as private men among the Romans and as great princes have sometimes done, for the the good of their country and perpetuating their memory, that ours can scarcely repair their palaces. King James could but get one room built; King Charles I. nothing: King Charles II. with all the violent passion he had for building, got the alterations at Windsor finished, and yet most if not all the money came from Ireland. King James II. made some alterations in Whitehall; and King William and Queen Mary repented they ever undertook Hampton Court, and at last were forced to leave it in a miserable condition, not half finished *."

In 1694 the return of a disorder, to which he was subject, compelled him to decline his attendance upon parliament for some time. He therefore retired to his seat at Lowther, where he enjoyed that happy solitude, which he called "his dearest companion and entertainment." He took great pleasure in adorning his magnificent house with paintings of the most eminent artists, and indulged his taste for rural elegance in improving the aspect of the whole country, in embellishing and enriching it's noble scenery by extensive plantations which he formed and nurtured with the tenderest care. Relieved from the toils and

* Manuscript.

fatigues of public engagements, he experienced a never-failing source of gratification in the recreation of a garden. Upon this subject, he thus expresses his sentiments in an address to his son:

"Gardens have charms indeed, that to me exceed all the pleasures of life. It was a garden, that was the earthly paradise of our first parents in the state of innocence. It was in a garden that Epicurus taught his philosophy, who is said to have understood true pleasure the best of any man. But to enlarge on this subject would seem rather poetical and romantic, than suitable to the subject I am treating of. Suffice it to say, that when you grow into years, when you begin to exercise the mind more than the body, as men, before they grow old, always do, then you will find the help of it to contemplation: then the walks, the solitude, the trees, the plants, the birds, the open air, all fellow-creatures of yours,.made together with you for his pleasure that is the Author of all things, will please you indeed; when especially the innocence, calmness, and serenity of your thoughts make you fit for so divine and ravishing an exercise*."

In the privacy of this retirement, he rendered himself no unuseful member of society, by a faithful administration of justice. The motto of his family had long been, Magistratus indicat

* Manuscript.

pirum. In the discharge of the office of a magistrate he formed himself upon the model of his instructions to his son, by strictly punishing vice and all notorious disturbers of the peace, by carefully distinguishing between the malevolence of frivolous prosecution and the effrontery of wicked offenders. If he had acted otherwise, he would have become, in his own opinion, the executioner of the iniquitous designs of bad men; an employment, which every person of worth will carefully avoid. As a magistrate and an arbitrator of justice and differences, he permitted neither application to prepossess him, nor any sinister end to incline him to do wrong, no not even the poverty of one of the parties; for that is sometimes a fault in good men, to incline to the cause of the poor against justice, as others do to the side of the rich for advantage.

Though in an almost uninterrupted state of bad health, which he attributed to excess of exercise in his youth, he uniformly enjoyed a tranquillity and composure of mind, the result of those habits of temperance in which he always persevered. He had no curiosity in his appetite for rarities in meat and drink. “The plough, the garden, and the dairy, with a cook of forty shillings a year, would provide all that he wished

for."

When he presided at his table, he was

* Apxn deinyvei Toy avopa. Aristot.

hospitable, but not luxurious; encouraging the learned and the good, but banishing with indignation the flatterer, the calumniator, and the ministers of unlawful pleasures. He seems, however, to have extended his ideas of temperance too far, when he intimates his desire of confining himself to a vegetable diet. "The herds and flocks," he "should live secure for me: no fish nor feathered fowl should lose it's life to support me: I would have nature undisturbed in the order and course, that Providence hath appointed it*"

says,

When he recommends the duty of sobriety, he enforces the recommendation by his own resolution : "Wine shall never dispossess my reason of it's dwelling, assigned it by God who gave it me. I will never expose myself to his anger, nor to a sober man's scorn upon that account. As I am a man, I know I am of the most excellent and perfect rank of creatures that this little earth is replenished with, and I will endeavour not to degrade myself into an equality with such as we esteem most sordidt."

Of pride he entertained the most sovereign contempt, while in his own demeanour he exhibited an amiable pattern of a meek and humble spirit. He has judiciously observed, that a man of birth and quality has this peculiar advantage;

* Manuscript, ↑ Manuscript.