Part 29 (1/2)

Savile was appointed Warden of Merton in 1585 and Provost of Eton in 1596, and continued to hold both posts at the same time till his death in 1622.

Page 171, ll. 8-12. Compare the verse epistle in Suckling's _Fragmenta Aurea_, which was manifestly addressed to Hales, though his name is not given (ed. 1648, pp. 34-5):

Whether these lines do find you out, Putting or clearing of a doubt; ... know 'tis decreed You straight bestride the Colledge Steed ...

And come to Town; 'tis fit you show Your self abroad, that men may know (What e're some learned men have guest) That Oracles are not yet ceas't ...

News in one day as much w' have here As serves all Windsor for a year.

In Suckling's _Sessions of the Poets_, 'Hales set by himselfe most gravely did smile'.

ll. 14 ff. Compare the story told by Wood: 'When he was Bursar of his Coll. and had received bad money, he would lay it aside, and put good of his own in the room of it to pay to others. Insomuch that sometimes he has thrown into the River 20 and 30_l_. at a time. All which he hath stood to, to the loss of himself, rather than others of the Society should be endamaged.'

l. 19. Reduced to penury by the Civil Wars, Hales was 'forced to sell the best part of his most admirable Library (which cost him 2500_l_.) to Cornelius Bee of London, Bookseller, for 700_l_. only'. But Wood also says that he might be styled 'a walking Library'. Another account of his penury and the sale of his library is found in John Walker's _Sufferings of the Clergy_, 1714, Part II, p. 94.

l. 24. _syded_, i.e. stood by the side of, equalled, rivalled.

Page 173, ll. 1 ff. His _Tract concerning Schisme and Schismaticks_ was published in 1642, and was frequently reissued. It was written apparently about 1636, and certainly before 1639. He was installed as canon of Windsor on June 27, 1639.

52.

Clarendon, MS. Life, pp. 58-9; _Life_, ed. 1759, pp. 28-30.

Clarendon clearly enjoyed writing this character of Chillingworth. The shrewd observation is tempered by subdued humour. Looking back on his friends.h.i.+p at a distance of twenty years, he felt an amused pleasure in the disputatiousness which could be irritating, the intellectual vanity, the irresolution that came from too great subtlety.

Chillingworth was always 'his own convert'; 'his only unhappiness proceeded from his sleeping too little and thinking too much'. But Clarendon knew the solid merits of _The Religion of Protestants_ (_History_, vol. i, p. 95); and he felt bitterly the cruel circ.u.mstances of his death.

Page 174, ll. 17-19. Compare the character of G.o.dolphin, p. 96, ll. 1 ff.

Page 176, l. 14. _the Adversary_, Edward Knott (1582-1656), Jesuit controversialist.

l. 29. _Lugar_, John Lewgar (1602-1665): see Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_, ed. Bliss, vol. iii, cols. 696-7.

Page 177, l. 24. This Engine is described in the narrative of the siege of Gloucester in Rushworth's _Historical Collections_, ed. 1692, Part III, vol. ii, p. 290: 'The King's Forces, by the Directions of Dr. _Chillingworth_, had provided certain Engines, after the manner of the Roman _Testudines c.u.m Pluteis_, wherewith they intended to a.s.sault the City between the South and West Gates; They ran upon Cart-Wheels, with a _Blind_ of Planks Musquet-proof, and holes for four Musqueteers to play out of, placed upon the Axle-tree to defend the Musqueteers and those that thrust it forwards, and carrying a Bridge before it; the Wheels were to fall into the Ditch, and the end of the Bridge to rest upon the Towns Breastworks, so making several compleat Bridges to enter the City. To prevent which, the Besieged intended to have made another Ditch out of their Works, so that the Wheels falling therein, the Bridge would have fallen too short of their Breastworks into their wet Mote, and so frustrated that Design.'

ll. 26 ff. Hopton took Arundel Castle on December 9, 1643, and was forced to surrender on January 6 (Clarendon, vol. iii, pp. 330-5).

Aubrey says that Chillingworth 'dyed of the _morbus castrensis_ after the taking of Arundel castle by the parliament: wherin he was very much blamed by the king's soldiers for his advice in military affaires there, and they curst _that little priest_ and imputed the losse of the castle to his advice'. (_Brief Lives_, ed. A. Clark, vol. i, p.

172). The chief actor in the final persecution was Francis Cheynell (1608-65), afterwards intruded President of St. John's College and Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford; see his _Chillingworthi Novissima. Or, the Sicknesse, Heresy, Death, and Buriall of William Chillingworth (In his own phrase) Clerk of Oxford, and in the conceit of his fellow Souldiers, the Queens Arch-Engineer, and Grand-Intelligencer_, 1644.

53.

Clarendon, MS. Life, p. 55; _Life_, ed. 1759, pp. 24, 25.

Weakness of character disguised by ready wit, pleasant discourse, and charm of manner is Clarendon's judgement on Waller. They had been friends in their early days when Waller was little more than an opulent poet who could make a good speech in parliament; but his behaviour on the discovery of 'Waller's plot', the purpose of which was to hold the city for the king, his inefficiency in any action but what was directed to his own safety and advancement, and his subsequent relations with Cromwell, definitely estranged them.

To Clarendon, Waller is the time-server whose pleasing arts are transparent. 'His company was acceptable, where his spirit was odious.' The censure was the more severe because of the part which Waller had just played at Clarendon's fall. The portrait may be overdrawn; but there is ample evidence from other sources to confirm its essential truth.

Burnet says that '_Waller_ was the delight of the House: And even at eighty he said the liveliest things of any among them: He was only concerned to say that which should make him be applauded. But he never laid the business of the House to heart, being a vain and empty, tho'

a witty, man' (_History of His Own Time_, ed. 1724, vol. i, p. 388).

He is described by Aubrey, _Brief Lives_, ed. A. Clark, vol. ii, pp.

276-7.