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..." near, .... bishop, as made Bugden look like an academy, and the cheer like a commencement. . . . . From Cambridge, that being so 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. * 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 S D P 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. room any longer. This was in anno 1641. Not, said he, that I dislike it, but approve of it. The times, I fear me, as you see, grow high and turbulent, and great may be the folly and madness of the people. (For he was then come from Boston' in Lincolnshire, where it was, said he, I was used but coarsely). It will be good for you, according to the rule of prudence (seeing whither the stream is turning) to take this away at this time, and from this place. I counsel as your friend only. And so with great affection to the family, and signifying what a loss, not only they had of such a guide, but the church of such a man as, he said, N. F. was ;and so, with giving to all his benediction, he departed. And his advice was taken, and the old gentlewoman's table taken down out of the common parlour, whereinto indeed, not very long after, came men of another garb than the bishop, and of other minds 2. 1 "A great nursery of inconformity."-Laud's Troubles and Tryal, 531. "This labour our bishop undertook personally [Oct. 1641], to heal the maladies of brainsick distempers at Boston, Leicester, Huntingdon, Bedford, Hitchin, the last visitation that was held in either province to this day."Hacket, ii. 164. ... 2 "Here let the daughters of Gidding stay: and so they did. But nor they nor the rest staid many years after, in that godly repose. It was out of season to confine themselves to holy rest, when civil dissensions began to flame, and there was no rest in the land. . . . Religion and loyalty were such eye-sores, that all the Ferrars fled away, and dispersed, and 66. Let me add that some years before Dr. Hill, then parson of Tichmarsh', some four miles off, came in a coach with four horses, and another minister with him of a neighbour parish, whom he had taken up to come with him. For the lady that owned the coach, being come with him to that near town, would not then approach to Gidding, till Mr. Hill had first been there. He came with much civility, and having seen the church, which was then in its best array, and the house, and demanded took joyfully the despoiling of their goods, Heb. x. 34. All that they had restored to the church, all that they had bestowed upon sacred comeliness, all that they had gathered for their own livelihood, and for alms, was seized upon as a lawful prey, taken from superstitious persons."-Hacket, ii. 53. 1 Thomas Hill compounded for the first-fruits of Tichmersh, 24 Jul. 1633 (Bridges's Northamptonshire, ii. 386), master of Trinity from 1645-1653, vicechancellor 1645 and 1646. There is a life of him in Clarke's Lives (1677), 230 seq., where he is said to have been master of Emmanuel before he was removed to Trinity, but his name does not appear as such in the Grad. Cantabr. nor in any of the college memorials (Bennet's Emman. Coll. Reg. MS. in the Coll. Library, i. 169), but he styles himself, says Bennet, late master in the title-page of one of his books. There are notices of him in the Life of Angier (1685), 9, Salter's Pref. to Whichcote's and Tuckney's Eight Letters, xxviii—xxxi, Lansd. MS. 985, art. 69, (his will) in Baker's MS. xxvi. 214, 215, Commons' Journals, v. 423, 430, Lords' Journals, ix. 660b, 663 b, 664b, x. 129b, (all these entries relate to his appointment as master of Trinity), x. 160 b, (his petition about a revision of the statutes; other entries in the Commons' Journals relate to his sermons before the house), Wood's Fasti, i. 408, 409. many questions and received satisfactory answers, as himself acknowledged, in all his demands, and asking the minister that came with him, one that knew Gidding full well, where were such and such things that he had been confidently told of and afterwards, upon a truth', to be so, but now he saw no such thing, nor sign of them? The minister made him answer, that there was never such things seen by any in Gidding church or house, but no other than his own eyes beheld at present. What, said he, can this be so as you say? Yea, replied he, it's most true, as I tell you. At which he awhile stood amazed, and turning to J. F. (for N. F. was dead), Sir, said he, I must confess I have heard very strange reports, and so confidently avouched for truth, that I gave, I see now, too much credit, and more than I ought to have done. But from this day forward it shall teach me this lesson, not to give credit in the like kind while I live. I must needs say, not anything, but what may be well allowed, in your church: nor, by the answers you have made me to my questions, anything you do or practise, but is unblameable, though not so usual now-a-days, which, I see, makes all this noise and rumour abroad*; and where I 1 Seems to mean, "Which he had heard asserted, and afterwards solemnly affirmed." 2 "We must not forget the house and chapel in Little Gidding (the inheritance of master Ferrar), which lately made a great noise all over England. [In the beginning of the long parliament. Fuller's note]. Here three numerous female |