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traverses of these distracted times, in regard there hath been the like, or such like formerly. If the liturgy is now suppressed, the missal and the Roman breviary was used so a hundred years since : if crosses, church windows, organs, and fonts, are now battered down, I little wonder at it; for chapels, monasteries, hermitaries, nunneries, and other religious houses, were used so in the time of old King Henry: if bishops and deans are now in danger to be demolished, I little wonder at it, for abbots, priors, and the pope himself, had that fortune here an age since. That our king is reduced to this pass, I do not wonder much at it; for the first time I travelled France, Lewis XIII. (afterwards a most triumphant king as ever that country had) in a dangerous civil war was brought to such straits; for he was brought to dispense with part of his coronation oath, to remove from his court of justice, from the council table, from his very bed-chamber, his greatest favourites: he was driven to be content to pay the expense of the war, to reward those that took arms against him, and publish a declaration that the ground of their quarrel was good; which was the same in effect with ours; viz. a discontinuance of the assembly of the three estates, and that Spanish counsels did predominate in France.

You know better than I, that all events, good or bad, come from the all-disposing high Deity of heaven: if good, he produceth them; if bad, he permits them. He is the pilot that sits at the stern, and steers the great vessel of the world; and we must not presume to direct him in his course, for he understands the use of the com.

pass better than we. He commands also the winds and the weather, and after a storm, he never fails to send us a calm, and to recompense ill times with better, if we can live to see them; which I pray you may do, whatever becomes of your still more faithful humble servitor.

LETTER LXXIII.

JAMES HOWEL, ESQ. TO MR. WILLIAM BLOIS.

My worthy esteemed Nephew, Fleet, 20th March, 1647. I RECEIVED those rich nuptial favours you appointed me for bands and hats, which I wear with very much contentment and respect, most heartily wishing that this late double condition may multiply new blessings upon you, that it may usher in fair and golden days, according to the colour and substance of your bridal ribband; that those days may be perfumed with delight and pleasure, as the rich-scented gloves I wear for your sake. May such benedictions attend you both, as the epithalamiums of Stella in Statius, and Julia in Catullus speak of. I hope also to be married shortly to a lady whom I have wooed above these five years, but I have found her coy and dainty hitherto; yet, I am now like to get her good-will in part, I mean the lady Liberty.

When you see my N. Brownrigg, I pray tell him that I did not think Suffolk waters had such a Lethean quality in them, as to cause such an amnestia in him of his friends here upon the Thames,

among whom, for reality and seriousness, I may match among the foremost; but I impute it to some new task that his muse might haply impose upon him, which hath engrossed all his speculations; I pray present my cordial kind respects unto him.

So, praying that a thousand blessings may attend this confarreation, I rest, my dear nephew, yours most affectionately to love and serve you,

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