people in the family, but of the gentry and others in the neighbourhood who desired so great a blessing. His lordship was entertained at the church with cathedral music, and care was taken that most of the choir of Peterborough came over on purpose. The bishop preached himself before the confirmation, and after, with all the retinue and neighbouring divines and strangers, which were very numerous, he was treated with a noble dinner in the manorhouse. The master of the house, notwithstanding his exemplary temperance and frugality, was not so strait-laced, as not to be a lover of hospitality: he knew there was a time for feasting, as well as fasting. Yet I have been assured scarce any one of the servants were left at home; for only their great ovens were employed, a fine cheap easy way he brought with him out of Holland of dressing meat, and such meat as the most curious palates there applauded, but admired how they cooked it. The bishop surveyed the house; their orders and manner of living he understood before, and highly approved them. At his departing he gave them all his ✰ paternal benediction again, and, straitly embracing Mr. Ferrar, took his leave of him with this hearty good-wish and prayer: Deus tibi animum istum et animo isti tempus longissimum concedat.

61. At length he had brought his habits of body as well as of mind even to obey him as he pleased, so that he was able to spend eighteen hours of the twenty-four in useful business serious study devout prayers or heavenly meditations. He would

seldom sit by a fire, or sit at all in his study; walking or standing at a desk to read or write was commonly his posture, and many things he penned all the while kneeling upon his knees.

62. Whilst his good mother was alive, she laboured him often to abate of his rigours in watching, till he satisfied her abundantly, that as it was the greatest refreshment and highest advantage to his soul, so it did his body no harm; and that he had such a constitution by himself, as the least excess in sleeping or eating1 endangered him more than anything. But after the death of his mother, who, as the venerable foundress and governess of their religious house, overruled him into a little more indulgence to himself, then he seldom went to bed above once a week only. He lay down upon the floor, and a bear-skin under him, wrapping himself in a great shag gown of black frieze. Yet he felt no decay of his strength in the last seven years of his life, and all this while his health was rather improving than impairing in the midst of his austerities.

63. Though he was far from one of the volatile or bird-witted (as one ingeniously calls that sort of men, that are ever hopping from bough to bough and can never fix upon anything), yet he would

1 When Cornaro, at the entreaty of his friends, increased his daily allowance of food from twelve to fourteen ounces, his health so rapidly failed him, that he was forced within a fortnight to return to his former stint. See Herbert's Remains, 125 seq.

never be long in any of his studies or in any employment, but keep (as exactly as his many accidental occasions would give him leave) such and such hours for such and such affairs; and out of doubt this was best for his body and mind. 'Tis certain he found a real advantage in shifting the scenes, besides a new pleasure and refreshment at every turn, though, if occasion were, he could set himself day and night to any task and never give over, till he could say, 'Tis perfect.

64. And that we may not imagine this house was the house of mourning; as the master of it had ever an air of sweetness and cheerfulness in his very aspect, so he took care to provide them useful and delightful entertainments. If any pitied them (as one did the primitive Christians in Minucius Felix'), because they saw no plays nor ever were seen upon the theatres, yet, without the danger of being at all corrupted, they were equally diverted and instructed by divine interludes dialogues and discourses in the Platonic way, that admirable way of drawing the truth out of another's ignorance. These innocent and profitable entertainments and recreations he introduced to wean the family off

1 "Latebrosa et fugax natio, in publicum muta, in angulis garrula."—Oct. 8, § 5. "Vos vero suspensi interim atque solliciti, honestis voluptatibus abstinetis : non spectacula visitis, non pompis interestis."-12, § 5. Cf. 37, § 11. Many parallels from other apologists may be found in the commentators or in Le Nourry's Dissertation, c. xiii. art. 1.

from the Christmas games1 and wilder sports, which could hardly subsist without riot and extravagant license. Therefore he bid them call those things as they were, carnal excesses and spiritual prejudices; saying, that sure it must be some other deity they intended to honour by those means; and though their heart and flesh too should rejoice, saith David2, on this score, yet take it with what follows, it is in the Living God that such mirth and jubilees are to be exercised: that the allowance of better cheer on festivals should be only so far, as might serve to the increase of this ascending joy. On All-Saints'

1 Prynne complains that the English "for the most part spend the Christmas season with other solemn festivals in amorous, mixed, voluptuous, unchristian, that I say not, pagan dancing, to God's, to Christ's dishonour, religion's scandal, chastity's shipwreck, sin's advantage, and the eternal ruin of many precious souls."-Histriom. 225. "What pious Christian heart bleeds not with tears of blood, when he beholds the sacred Nativity of his spotless Saviour transformed into a festivity of the foulest devils? when he shall see his blessed Jesus... entertained, courted, served like a devil, yea rather crucified and nailed to His cross again with nought else but desperate notorious sins, by an unchristian crew of Christians (I might say pagans or incarnate devils), who during all the sacred time of His Nativity, when they should be most holy, are more especially, and that professedly too, a most impure people, zealous of nothing but of stageplays, dicing, dancing, healthing, rioting."-Ib. 744.

2 Ps. lxxxiv. 2 (Prayer-Book version). This passage occurs word for word in a Conference in the time of Advent ap. Hearne Caii Vind. 785.

day' they began, and at Christmas on every holiday they proceeded in gracefully repeating and acting their Christian histories, taken both out of ancient and modern historians, in opposition to the Goldenwooden Legends in the church of Rome. These he formed into colloquies, with forcible applications of all to their own circumstances; and for that very reason (because they are so adapted to the private constitution of this family) the books themselves (which are two or three large folios) are not fit to be published3, though they are well and properly, that is, eloquently, worded. Mr. Ferrar himself compiled and wrote them with his own hand, to be transcribed by the actors that had parts in them. His main scope and aim is, to discover and confute

1 Nov. I.

2 Legenda aurea, legenda lignea, is a saying as familiar as a proverb; but I cannot now trace it to its source. See however Legenda Lignea; with an answer to Mr. Birchley's [i. e. John Austen's] Moderator, (pleading for a toleration of popery) and a character of some hopefull saints revolted to the church of Rome. By D. Y. 8vo. Lond. 1653.

3 Some portions of them, from Hearne's Caii Vindicia, may be seen in the Appendix. From various passages in these dialogues it appears that the matter of the stories was supplied by N. F. but that they were repeated by the sisters in their own words. "You shall have it, said the Patient [764], neither of mine nor of any other's composing, but in the very words of St. Augustine himself; for so did our Visitor [N. F.], giving me the story in writing, advise, if ever occasion were that I should recount it." Sometimes (772) they had leave to read their parts.