testimony of it. Sir William and his son went hence this morning, having by the favour (or rather charity) of a visit, made me some compensation for the many I have lately received from persons, whose visitations (I think I may call them), in spite of my averseness to physic, make me find a greater trouble in the congratulations than the instruments of my recovery. You will pardon, perhaps, the bitterness of this expression, when I have told you, that having spent most of this week in drawing (for my particular use) a quintessence of wormwood, those disturbers of my work might easily shake some few drops into my ink. I will not now presume to entertain you with those moral speculations with which my chemical practices have entertained me; but if this last sickness had not diverted me, I had before this presented you with a discourse (which my vanity made me hope would not have displeased you) of the theological use of natural philosophy, endeavouring to make the contemplation of the creatures contributory to the instruction of the prince, and to the glory of the author of them. But my blood has so thickened my ink, that I cannot yet make it run; and my thoughts of improving the creatures have been very much displaced by those of leaving them. Nor has my disease been more guilty of my oblivion than my employment, since it has begun to release me for Vulcan has so transported and bewitched me, that as the delights I taste in it make me fancy my laboratory a kind of Elysium, so as if the threshold of it possessed the quality the poets ascribed to that Lethe, their fictions made men taste of before their entrance into those seats of bliss, I there forget my standish and my

books, and almost all things, but the unchangeable resolution I have made of continuing till death,

sister, your

Stalb. Aug. the last, 1649.

R. B.

LETTER XLII.

MR. BOYLE TO LORD BROGHILL.

My dearest Governor,

I RECEIVE in our separation as much of happiness as is consistent with it, in hearing of you in so glorious, and from you in so obliging a way; and in being assured, by your letters and your actions, how true you are to your friendship and your gallantry. I am not a little satisfied to find, that since you were reduced to leave your Parthenissa, your successes have so happily emulated or continued the story of Artabanes; and that you have now given romances as well credit as reputation. Nor am I moderately pleased, to see you as good at reducing towns in Munster as Assyria, and to find your eloquence as prevalent with masters of garrisons as mistresses of hearts; for I esteem the former both much the difficulter conquest, and more the usefuller. Another may lawfully exalt your bold attempts and fortunate enterprises; but, for my part, I think that such a celebration would extremely misbecome a friendship, to which your goodness and my affection flatter me into a belief that our relation has rather given the occasion than degree. Besides that I have so great a con. cern in all things wherein you have any, that the presumption of my own modesty does, as well as

the greatness of yours, silence my praises. And truly, that which most endears your acquisitions to me is, that they have cost you so little blood. For besides that the glory is much more your own to reduce places by your own single virtue, and the interest it has acquired you, than if you had I know not how many thousand men to help you, and share as much the honour of your successes as they contribute to them; besides this consideration, I say, certainly though a laurel crown were more glorious amongst the Romans, the myrtle coronet (that crowned bloodless victories) ought to be acceptabler to a Christian, who is tied by the bindingest principles of his religion to a pe culiar charity towards those that profess it; to use towards delinquents as much gentleness as infringes not the just rights of the innocent: and to be very tender of spilling their blood, for whom Christ shed his. But I am less delighted to learn your successes in the world, than to find (by your letter to my sister Ranelagh) that you mean not that they shall tie you to it: and are resolved, as soon as your affairs and reputation will permit you, to divest your public employment, and retire to a quiet privacy, where you may enjoy yourself, and have leisure to consider the vanity of that posthume glory, which has nothing in it of certain but the uselessness. That, in the hurry of businesses that distracts you, you could find leisure to bless me with your letters, is a favour, which, though it amaze me not, does highly satisfy me. The kindness they express is welcomer to me for what it argues than for what it promises; and I am much more pleased to see you in a condition of making promises than I should be with their accomplish

ment. I shall only, in general, desire your countenance for those that manage my fortune in your province, whither I should wait upon my dearest lady M. if black Betty did not; and seriously, the jade arrived very seasonably to save me a journey; for which I was but slenderly provided; for having not yet been able to put off my L. Goring's statute, I am kept in this town, to do penance for my transgression of that precept, "My son, put money in thy purse." But the term assigned my expiation is, I hope, near expired; and I despair not to see myself shortly in a condition to make you a visit, that shall prevent the spring's. I shall implore, for my lady Pegg, the self-same passage I shall wish for myself, and solemnize the first easterly gale with a

“Farewel, fair saint, may not the seas and wind," &c.

But I am so entirely taken up with the contemplation of her and you, that I had forgot that I have to write this night more letters than the fourand-twenty of the alphabet. My next shall give you an account of my transactions, my studies, and my amours; of the latter of which black Betty will tell you as many lies as circumstances; but hope you know too well what she is, and whence she comes, not to take all her stories for fictions, almost as great as is the truth that styles me, my dearest brother, your most affectionate brother and humble servant, R. B.

London, this 20th of Dec. 1619.

LETTER XLIII.

FROM JAMES HOWEL, ESQ. TO HIS FATHER,
Upon his first going beyond Sea.

SIR, Broad Street, London, 1st March, 1618. I SHOULD be much wanting to myself, and to that obligation of duty the law of God and his handmaid Nature hath imposed on me, if I should not acquaint you with the course and quality of my affairs and fortunes, especially at this time, that I am upon point of crossing the seas to eat my bread abroad.. Nor is it the common relation of a son that only induced me hereunto, but that most indulgent and costly care you have been pleased (in so extraordinary a manner) to have had of my breeding (though but one child of fifteen), by placing me in a choice methodical school (so far distant from your dwelling) under a learned (though lashing) master; and by transplanting me thence to Oxford, to be graduated; and so holding me still up by the chin until I could swim without bladders. This patrimony of liberal education you have been pleased to endow me withal, I now carry along with me abroad, as a sure inseparable treasure; nor do I feel it any burthen or incumbrance unto me at all; and what danger soever my person, or other things I have about me, do incur, yet I do not fear the losing of this, either by shipwreck or pirates at sea, nor by robbers or fire, or any other casualty on shore and at my return to England, I hope at leastwise I