needs acknowledge him so to be. Thus he proceeded forward in declaring many good things of him. 62. N. F.'s posture in his study was either walking or standing at a desk, to write or read at, seldom sitting at study or writing, and some things that he writ were upon a low desk, he all the time kneeling upon his knees. 63. The bishop of Lincoln' being their diocesan, and having for many years known N. F. and his brother in the public affairs of Virginia plantation, N. F. at his first coming to Gidding had gained the bishop's license to have the litany read every day in their church, which was then a time of plague, and he afterwards continued his license to them, while he was their diocesan. Four several times he came to Little Gidding, and at one time he preached there, and confirmed all of the family that had not been confirmed before, and many gentlemen that came that day thither, and some hundreds of other people from neighbour towns about. There he dined and many ministers also were there. The Peterborough singing-men and their music was not wanting in the church. The bishop's text was.....He viewed the house, and understood long before of all their orders and manner of life, and fully approved all things, as 1 Williams. 2 On the bishop's love of music see Hacket, ii. 30, seq. It was in the spring of 1634 (Peckard, 181), that Dr. Towers, dean of Peterborough, sent his choristers to Gidding. then many of quality, gentry and clergy, heard from his own mouth, and much magnified what N. F. and his mother had done, which he gave all the furtherance he could unto, and said, It was the joy of his heart to live to see such an act done, in honour of God and the Church of England. Many had taken from it, and the coal from the altar had consumed many of their inheritances; yet the rest feared not. But, said he, to restore, as is now done', the glebe-land to the church of their own accord, request, and seeking, which was no less, than to give so much to it! (For in truth it was so, for it was many years ago passed away, by consent of the parties that could do it, and a composition of £20 agreed for ever to be paid the parson, in lieu of glebe and tithes, &c.) But with much ado, said he, they found out that so many acres had been glebe in that parish in former times, but when that old lord of it, about 100 years ago, inclosed all that lordship, this was no more to be found, all laid into pasture, as at this day it remains. But, said he, they have, by a decree in chancery, allotted and laid out in their lordship as many acres in convenient places. Here's, said he, an example for all the gentry of England. So after much approbation and commendation of all things, he at his departure gave them all again his solemn benediction, and as he was ready to get on 1 See the Appendix. 2 "Under lord Coventry."-Peckard, 181. horseback, he embraced', before all the many hundreds of people there, Nicholas Ferrar, saying in the conclusion these words: Deus tibi animum istum, et animo isti tempus longissimum concedat. God keep you in that mind, and grant that mind of yours a long continuance here on earth. 64. Another time pleasing to honour the family with his presence, after much discourse it seemed good to him to enter into the pleasantness of telling stories, as upon talking of things past and present, as occasion was given, and he would have N. F. to parallel them with some of the like nature, and so the time passed away to the great delight of the present company, and therein the bishop shewed his dexterity. So home he went. In some few 1 On another occasion "meeting in the archdeaconry of Buckingham with one doctor Brett, a very grave and reverend man,. ....he [Williams] embraced him in his episcopal arms with these words of St. Augustine, viz. Quamvis episcopus major est presbytero, Augustinus tamen minor est Hieronymo.”—Heylin, Cypr. Angl. 270, 271. .... 2 "After that [reading], discourse took up the time; which was the bishop's delight and the hearer's profit. When he had the society of them, that were of good reading, and strong notions, he would propose, and hear, and reply, and canvass a question with that reason, and instances of antiquity, yet with such a gust of hilarity, that he contented all with his judgement, and endeared them to him with his civility. .... And because his breasts were full, and had need to be drawn the choicest and most able of both universities came thick unto him..... Such company was often about the days after a Cambridge scholar, fellow of a college, came and dined with the bishop at Bugden'; and he asking him, Whither he was travelling that night? answered, To Little Gidding to see Mr. N. F. Now, said he, before all the company at his table, I was lately with him, and, I must confess, I thought myself pretty good at storying, but never met with my match till then, and let me say troth, he matched me. But commend me to him, and tell him, the next time I come we will have another game at storying. And so he fell into a long and high commendation of N. F., and repeated many passages that had happened in the Virginia business, and at council-table, in which, he said, he had gained at that board very great esteem. But, he said, that he had left secular affairs and was a churchman. But, said he, I perceive we shall never be able to get him into a pulpit: I find he will live and die a...* .... bishop, as made Bugden look like an academy, and the cheer like a commencement. . . . . From Cambridge, that being so near, and he so hospital, he was daily visited."-Hacket, ii. 32. "Which refreshed my memory to tell them what my lord bishop of Lincoln said of them. Wherein yet I brake no laws of humanity or hospitality (though spoken at his table). For he said nothing but what they wished and were glad to hear; being but the relation of the grave and discreet answers (as my lord himself termed them) of the old gentlewoman to some of his lordship's expostulations, "-Lenton ap. Peckard, 295. 1 Buckden, on the Ouse, near Huntingdon, where is the palace of the bishops of Lincoln. See Hacket, ii. 29. 2 Supply deacon. 65. He was also pleased to come to Gidding after N. F.'s death, as he passed by in his last visitation, and spared not in all companies, when he heard anything spoken by ignorant persons, that knew not Gidding but by false reports', that would seem to dislike many things upon their hearsays, &c., he would vindicate Gidding and blame them for slanders, saying, They were of his flock, who knew that they did practise nothing but what was according to the law of the Church of England, and that they were right, true, and good protestants, and lived unblameable, and there was no man living, that knew the family, but must acknowledge it. I wish there were many more such in the church and kingdom. It is true, at his last being there, he seeing the table hung up in the parlour, which before he had seen there (N. F. being now dead), said to J. F. in his ear, I shall counsel you now to take this down, and let it not hang in this public 1 "As for Mr. Ferrar, he was so exercised with contradictions, as no man that lived so private as he desired to do, could possibly be more. I have heard him say, valuing (not resenting) his own sufferings in this kind, that to fry a faggot was not more martyrdom than continual obloquy. He was torn asunder as with mad horses, or crushed betwixt the upper and under millstone of contrary reports; that he was a papist, and that he was a puritan. What is, if this be not, to be sawn asunder as Esay, stoned as Jeremy, made a drum, or tympanized, as other saints of God were ?"-Barnabas Oley, Life of Herbert, xcvii. seq. 2 See it in the Appendix. |