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LETTER X.

LADY RUSSELL TO DR. FITZWILLIAM.

22d January 1685-6. I HAVE received and read your letters, good docAs you never fail of performing a just part to your friend, so it were pity you should not consider enough to act the same to yourself. I think you do and all you say that concerns your pri vate affairs, is justly and wisely weighed; so let that rest. I acknowledge the same of the distinct paper which touches more nearly my sore; perhaps I ought to do it with some shame and confusion of face; and perhaps I do so, doctor, but my weakness is invincible, which makes me, as you phrase it, excellently possess past calamities: but he who took upon him our nature, felt our infirmities, and does pity us; and I shall receive of his fulness at the end of days, which I will silently wait for.

If you have heard of the dismal accident in this neighbourhood, you will easily believe Tuesday night was not a quiet one with us. About one o'clock in the night I heard a great noise in the square, so little ordinary, I called up a servant and sent her down to learn the occasion. She brought up a very sad one, that Montague-house was on fire; and it was so indeed; it burnt with so great violence, the whole house was consumed by five o'clock. The wind blew strong this way, so that we lay under fire a great part of the time, the sparks and flames continually covering the house, and filling

the court. My boy awaked, and said he was almost stifled with smoke, but being told the reason, would see it, and so was satisfied without fear; took a strange bedfellow very willingly, lady Devonshire's youngest boy, whom his nurse had brought wrapped in a blanket. Lady Devonshire* came towards morning, and lay here; and had done so still, but for a second ill accident: her brother, lord Arran †, who has been ill of a fever twelve days, was despaired of yesterday morning, and spots appeared, so she resolved to see him, and not to return hither, but to Somerset-house, where the queen offered her lodgings. He is said to be dead, and I hear this morning it is a great blow to the family; and that he was a most dutiful son and kind friend to all his family.

Thus we see what a day brings forth and how momentary the things we set our hearts upon! O I could heartily cry out, "When will longed-for eternity come !" but our duty is to possess our souls with patience.

I am unwilling to shake off all hopes about the brief, though I know them that went to the chanchellor + since the refusal to seal it, and his answer

* Mary, daughter to James Butler, duke of Ormond; married to William Cavendish, earl, afterwards duke of Devonshire.

↑ He died January 26, 1685-6.

George lord Jefferies, baron of Wem, very inveterate against lord Russell: he was, says Burnett, scandalously vicious, drunk every day, and furiously passionate, and, when lord chief justice, he even betrayed the decencies of his post, by not affecting to appear impartial, as became a judge, and by running upon all occasions into noisy declamations. He died in the Tower, April 18, 1689.

does not encourage one's hopes. But he is not a lover of smooth language, so in that respect we may not so soon despair *.

I fancy I saw the young man you mentioned to be about my son. One brought me six prayer books as from you; also distributed three or four in the house. I sent for him and asked him if there was no mistake? He said, No. And after some other questions I concluded him the same person. Doctor, I do assure you I put an entire trust in your sincerity to advise: but, as I told you, I shall ever take lord Bedford along in all the concerns of the child. He thinks it early yet to put him to learn in earnest; so do you I believe. My lord is afraid, if we take one for it, he will put him to it; yet I think perhaps to overcome my lord in that, and assure him he shall not be pressed. But I am much advised, and indeed inclined, if I could be fitted to my mind, to take a Frenchman, so I shall do a charity, and profit the child also, who shall learn French. Here are many scholars come over, as are of all kinds, God knows.

I have still a charge with me, lady Devonshire's daughter, who is just come into my chamber; so must break off. I am, sir, truly your faithful ser

vant.

The young lady tells me lord Arran is not dead, but rather better.

* Doctor, afterwards bishop Beveridge, objected to the reading the brief in the cathedral of Canterbury, as contrary to the rubric. Tillotson replied, "Doctor, doctor, charity is above rubrics."

LETTER XI.

DEAN TILLOTSON TO LADY RUSSELL.

Honoured Madam,

I RECEIVED both your letters, and before the latter came to my hands, I gave your ladyship some kind of answer to the first, as the time would let me, for the post staid for it. But having now a little more leisure, you will, I hope, give me leave to trouble you with a longer letter.

I was not at Hampton Court last Sunday, being almost tired out with ten weeks attendance, so that I have had no opportunity to try further in the business I wrote of in my last, but hope to bring it to some issue the next opportunity I can get to speak with the king. I am sorry to see in Mr. Johnson* so broad a mixture of human frailty,

* In a paper to justify lord Russell's opinion, "That resistance may be used in case our religion and rights should be invaded," as an answer to the dean's letter to his lordship of 20th July 1683, Johnson observes, that this opiniou could not be wrested from his lordship at his death, notwithstanding the disadvantages at which he was taken, when he was practised upon to retract that opinion, and to bequeath a legacy of slavery to his couutry; and indeed the dean was so apprehensive of lady Russell's displeasure at his pressing his lordship, thongh with the best intentions upon that subject, that when he was first admitted to her after her lord's death, he is said to have addressed her in this manner, "That he first thanked God, and then her ladyship, for that opportunity of justifying himself to her;" and they soon returned to the terms of a cordial and unreserved friendship. Mr. Johnson wrote Julian the Apostate to prove the legality of resistance, and an address to king

with so considerable virtues. But when I look into myself, I must think it pretty well, when any man's infirmities are in any measure overbalanced by his better qualities. This good man I am speaking of has at some times not used me overwell; for which I do not only forgive him, when I consider for whose sake he did it, but do heartily love him.

The king, besides his first bounty to Mr. Walker*, whose modesty is equal to its merit, hath made him bishop of Londonderry, one of the best bishoprics in Ireland; that so he may receive the

James II.'s army; he was fined, imprisoned, pilloried, and whipped, after being degraded. The Revolution restored him to his liberty; the judgment against him in 1686 was declared illegal and cruel, and his degradation null; and the house of lords recommended him to king William. He died 1703. He refused the rich deanery of Durham.

• Mr. George Walker, justly famous for his defence of Londonderry, in Ireland (when Lunde the governor would bave surrendered it to king James II.) was born of English parents in the county of Tyrone in that kingdom, and educated in the university of Glasgow in Scotland; he was afterwards rector of Donoughmore, not many miles from the city of Londonderry. Upon the Revolution, he raised a regiment for the defence of the protestants; and upon intelligence of king James having a design to besiege Londonderry, retired thither, being at last chosen governor of it. After the raising of that siege, he came to England, where he was most graciously received by their majesties; and on the 19th of Nov. 1689, received the thanks of the house of commons, having just before published an account of that siege, and a present of 5000l. He was created D. D. by the university of Oxford on the 26th Feb. 1689-90, in his return to Ireland, where he was killed the beginning of July 1690, at the passage of the Boyne, having resolved to serve that campaign before he took possession of his bishopric.

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