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"To my dear brother Nicholas. July 30. 1632.

My most dear brother,

We give God hearty thanks for your safe coming to Margetting, where in regard of resting yourself after your journey, the comfort and pleasure that they, whom we cannot but wish sharers with us in any good, shall enjoy thereby, we are not sorry to hear of your purpose to make so long a stay, and should have been much more glad to have heard there were no occasion to carry you farther from Gidding. But though there is great probability that our letters will meet you at London, yet we are in good hope that your presence here will spare you the labour of writing back this week. I shall not need therefore to say anything of our intended journey, not doubting but it will be time enough to do it, when by God's mercy and both to your own and our joy you are returned back from yours. My brother's letters giving you account of all particulars, it shall suffice me to acquaint you with our common cause of thanksgiving to God for His gracious favour continuing in health our dearest mother and, with her, her whole family. Let me, I pray, entreat the favour of you to commend my kindest love to my good cousin Arthur, who we trust will not let you come home alone, but will engage us the more to him for accompanying you. All my children beseech you will please to accept the tender of their humble and bounden duties and beg your blessing and prayers to God for them and us all. To His gracious protection I leave you and rest ever your most bounden and loving sister S. C."

"To my brother Nicholas, caused upon some speeches about his inditing of letters for divers in the house, and also for some exceptions taken for saying somewhat about the stories and other things.

My most dear brother,

As you desire a free, so I make no doubt but a brief declaration will give you satisfaction in those two things wherein you require an answer. And first for letters, those

you have been pleased to give me any assistance in, I think myself much beholden, and if hereafter upon entreaty and occasion you shall afford me your help, I shall thankfully acknowledge it for a great favour. Then, for the matter of storying, I have accounted the most part of them to be delivered by way of relation of the actions and opinions of good and virtuous men and women, and such as for the substance ought to be taken for patterns of imitation, and so for all other passages that are intermingled with them, and do heartily desire that whatever is contained in them, that is the will or command of God, that we in our own particular should do, we may both consent and conform unto in all points. For any corporal exercise, there is none imposed, nor (as I conceive) expected from me, but what I both may and do willingly perform, and therefore I shall not need to say any more to that, nor, I hope, at all in these matters, but humbly beseech God, that whatever shall be done or said farther may prove to His glory and our comforts.

Line ult. and. om. MS.

Your loving sister S. C."

Page 15. line penult. Insert, after Spires.

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Page 18 $15. Peck writing to Prof. Ward from Godeby, Sept. 10. 1735. sends this anecdote from his MS. Life of Ferrar lib. i. cap. 20 (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 6209, fol. 89. "In 1619 Mr. Henry Briggs, that famous industrious and learned mathematician, reader of geometry at Gresham college (being one of the Virginia company and a great lover of Nicholas Ferrar, but then about leaving of London and going to settle at Oxford), went to the mercers' company (who had the gift of that place at Gresham college) and told them, that they should by all means go to Mr. Nicholas Ferrar and entreat him to accept of it, and that if they gave him some hundred pounds a year, he would well deserve it. For he far passed him, he said, in that art and science, and was like if he set to

it to be the ablest man in the world therein. He thought so of him, he said, and that he would for ever honour the city that he was born in. And as for his skill in all other sorts of learning, continued he, all the kingdom, I think, knows it; or, if he lives, will.

Upon this great recommendation the master and wardens of the mercers' company came to Nicholas Ferrar to persuade him to accept of the geometry professor's place; and said, he should set down his own terms. Neither could it, they said, hinder him much in his other business, for the lecture was only to be read in term time.

Nicholas Ferrar most humbly thanked them for the great honour which they would have put upon him: but, he said, his good friend Mr. Briggs was much mistaken in him, and that his affection and goodness towards him had misled his judgement. He was, he said (who best knew himself) the fittest judge of his own inability and want of such skill in geometry as Mr. Briggs had declared to be in him: and he therefore prayed them to pitch upon some other more worthy man; whereof, he said, Mr. Briggs knew many. As for himself, he said, though he should always do all he could to serve the noble city of London, the place of his nativity, and that most commendable and pious foundation of sir Thomas Gresham (the founder of that and many other lectures in the liberal sciences), yet he must not undertake that which he knew he was at best but a novice in; nor in truth did his studies bend that way. He had indeed (he told them) some

other good ends, if God thought fit to bring them to pass." Page 19. lines 12 and 23. 1624. 162..MS.

Page 20. line 4. often. and often. MS.

5. such. such and such. MS.

9 and 10. were. was MS.

Page 21. line 6 from foot. on sir.

Page 22. line 4. act. an act. MS.

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on by sir. MS.

note 3. Southampton entrusted them to sir R.

Killegrew, who bequeathed them to sir Edward Sackville,

afterwards earl of Dorset. (Peckard).

1

Page 24. line 1. 1626. MS. 1625. which will not agree with § 20. Peckard also has 1626.

Page 25. line 4. future. So Baker first wrote, but corrected it into fortune.

Page 25. line 7 from foot. most. and most. MS.

Page 26 § 26. "By his will dated 25 Aug. 1629 sir Edwin Sandys appointed his wife Katherine sole executor. On her death Nicholas Ferrar of London gent. is substituted executor and guardian of his children.

A piece of silver plate of the value of £10 is given to N. F. (and to testator's son Henry) in respect of their being called on to assist his wife in her duties.”—Mr. Hopkinson's note. Page 26 § 27. line 1. in London. at L. MS. Page 27 n. Mr. Thristcross. Once fellow of Magd. Coll. Cambr. See Barwick's Life, 339 n.

Page 29 n. "Mr. Barwick, according to the custom of his college and of the primitive church, used to worship God by bowing towards the east." Barwick's Life, 17. "Do you know of any parson, vicar, or curate... that make three curtesies towards the communion-table, that call the said table an altar, that enjoin their people at coming into the church to bow towards the east or towards the communiontable?"-No. 5 of Williams's Visitation Articles (1641) in Grey on Neal's second vol., 280. "We therefore think it very meet and behoveful, and heartily commend it to all good and well-affected people, members of this church, that they be ready to tender unto the Lord the said acknowledgement, by doing reverence and obeisance, both at their coming in, and going out of the said churches, chancels, or chapels, according to the most ancient custom of the primitive church in the purest times, and of this church also for many years of the reign of queen Elizabeth."-Seventh Canon of 1640.

Page 33 § 32 line 2. some. so MS.

5 from foot. organ. organs. MS. Page 35 line 6. them. that MS.

Page 36 line 6 from foot. beginning. being. MS.

Page 37 line 3. the organs. and the organs. MS.

Page 41 line 10. young. younger. MS.

Page 45 line 7. only not. not only. MS.

Page 47 n. M.A. 1642. read 1643. Crashaw often joined in these vigils, and watched also in Little St. Mary's near Peterhouse (Peckard, who cites Horne's approving remark in his Comm. on Ps. 134. See the preface to Steps to the Temple.)

Page 47. note 2. In the sisters' eighth conversation (Circumcision, 1632) after mention made of "the Oxford scholar, who on Midsummer Eve killed the barber at the Pope's head in London," and "the Cambridge scholars, in whose company the lieutenant was slain at the Mitre," the Moderator (Mrs. Collett) said, “I will give now by way of recipe to my son, whom my prayers and vows have set apart for this holy calling, that he keep himself pure and undefiled from this evil usage of the world, and whenever he is invited to a tavern or ale-house, let him answer, his mother gave him charge to the contrary.”—Middle Hill MS. 9527. (story 37).

Page 49 line 2. entreated. added by Baker.

Page 51 n. The hundred and ten considerations of Signior John Valdesso: treating of those things which are most profitable, most necessary, and most perfect in our Christian profession. Written in Spanish, brought out of Italy by Vergerius, and first set forth in Italian at Basil by Cœlius Secundus Curio, Anno 1550. Afterward translated into French, and Printed at Lions 1563. and again at Paris 1565. And now translated out of the Italian Copy into English, with notes. Whereunto is added an Epistle of the Authors, or a Preface to his Divine Commentary upon the Romans. I Cor. 2. Howbeit we speak wisdome amongst them that are perfect, yet not the wisdome of this world. Oxford, Printed by Leonard Lichfield, Printer to the Vniversity. Ann. Dom. 1638. 4to. (A).

Divine Considerations treating &c.—profession. By John Valdesso. I Cor. 2. 6. Howbeit--world. Cambridge: Printed for E. D. by Roger Daniel, Printer to the University. 1646. sm. 8vo. (B).

Both these editions and also the French translation of 1565 are in the Cambridge University Library. In (A) the

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