Smith's church, and Robinson's church, the Gainsborough and the Scrooby churches, though agreeing in the point of the duty of separation, ought always to be kept in view. It was the latter which formed the Plymouth emigration, and which flourished when Smith's church had come to nothing. We know not what at last happened to Bromhead.

When Smith and his church had removed themselves to Holland, what was wanted by those persons who had come to the determination to break off from the communion of the general Church of England, and who did not choose to accompany or to follow Smith, was a central point at which they could assemble for worship and for discipline, and a central person about whom they might cling, and to whose guidance and judgment they might be willing to defer.

Brewster.

And this seems to have been the position which was occupied by WILLIAM BREWSTER, which William was at once what he desired and what was yielded to him by his simpler and less cultivated neighbours around. He fully sympathized with them and with the ministers of whom we have spoken, in his

dislike of the ceremonies; his disapprobation of the constitution of the church; his hatred of those measures of severity by which it was thought to extinguish the Puritan spirit; in his admiration of the Puritan life; and in his persuasion that there was in Scripture indications of the kind of form in which communities of Christians should be constituted sufficient to guide the practice of Christians in all times. And being a little raised above the rest in fortune, attainments, and social position, all we read of him seems to be but in the natural course of things, and had there been no Brewster at hand, it is probable that no Separatist Church would have been gathered after Smith and the Gainsborough people had withdrawn; but the Basset-Lawe mind would have returned to its former state of quietude when the generation which had been wrought upon by the over-zealous Puritan ministers had passed away. 32 Brewster's, therefore, is a most important name in the

32 It is a remarkable fact that when under the protection of the Act of Toleration, 1689, Separatists were allowed to form themselves into communities, and to erect places of worship, only one such congregation was founded in the whole of Basset-Lawe Hundred. It was at Retford, and had no long continuance. The Whites at Walling-wells on the Yorkshire border had for some years nonconformist ministers conducting religious services in their hall.

history of this movement, and we have now to collect what we can of his English history. Little enough it is for such a man, and for that little we are chiefly indebted to his friend and biographer Bradford. Yet I have to add one important fact, which it is extraordinary that Bradford should have omitted.

"After he had attained some learning, viz. the knowledge of the Latin tongue and some insight into the Greek, and spent some small time at Cambridge, and there being first seasoned with the seeds of grace and virtue, he went to the Court, and served that religious and godly gentleman, Mr. Davison, divers years, when he was Secretary of State; who found him so discreet and faithful, as he trusted him above all others that were about him, and only employed him in matters of greatest trust and secresy. He esteemed him rather as a son than a servant, and for his wisdom and godliness in private, he would converse with him more like a familiar than a master. He attended his master when he was sent in ambassage by the Queen into the Low Countries (in the Earl of Leicester's time) as for other weighty affairs of state, so to receive possession of the cautionary towns ;33 and in token and

33 That is, Flushing and Brill.

sign thereof the keys of Flushing being delivered to him in her Majesty's name, he kept them some time, and committed them to his servant, who kept them under the pillow on which he slept, the first night. And at his return the State honoured him 34 with a gold chain, and his master committed it to him and commanded him to wear it when they arrived in England, as they rode through the country, until they came to the Court. He afterwards remained with him until his troubles, when he was put from his place about the death of the Queen of Scots, and some good time after, doing him many offices of service in the time of his troubles."35

To this neither the researches of Dr Young in America nor those of any person at home have yet made much addition. His affiliation, his place of birth, the time of his birth, the school in which he acquired the Latin language, the college at Cambridge in which he resided for a short time, the time when he entered the service of Davison, the exact situation which he occupied in Davison's service, not one of these is known with any certainty; and the time of the surrender of the

cautionary towns, 1585, and of the fall of Davison which was early in 1587, are the first dates that can be said to be firmly established in the history of the life of Brewster. A conjecture only, or rather a probable inference, can be made as to the time of his birth; for Bradford elsewhere tells us that "their reverend elder, our dear and loving friend, died on the 16th of April, 1644, being near fourscore years of age if not all out."36 This would carry back his birth to about the year 1564, which would make him only twenty-three at the time of Davison's fall. But 1560 is probably nearer the truth: for Morton, in his New England's Memorial, speaks of him as being eightyfour at the time of his death, which he places in 1643, not 1644; and Morton was the nephew of Bradford, and had papers of his now lost.

Nottingham

His affiliation is also a point not yet ascertained. We have already had occasion to observe Brewsters of that there was a William Brewster assessed shire. to the Subsidy of 1571 in the township of Scroobycum-Ranskill. This could not be the William Brewster of whom we are speaking, but it might very well be his father. There was also a Henry Brewster