for trade. Sometimes taking sea as far as to our navy, to learn there also what they can in the practical knowledge o sailing and of sea-fight.

These ways would try all their peculiar gifts of nature; and if there were any secret excellence among them would fetch it out, and give it fair opportunities to advance itself by, which could not but mightily redound to the good of this nation, and bring into fashion again those old admired virtues and excellencies, with far more advantage now in this purity of Christian knowledge. Nor shall we then need the monsieurs of Paris to take our hopeful youth into their slight and prodigal custodies, and send them over, back again, transformed into mimics, apes, and kickshaws. But if they desire to see other countries at three or four and twenty years of age, not to learn principles, but to enlarge experience, and make wise observation, they will by that time be such as shall deserve the regard and honour of all men where they pass, and the society and friendship of those in all places who are best and most eminent. And, perhaps, then other nations will be glad to visit us for their breeding, or else to imitate us in their own country.

Now, lastly, for their diet there cannot be much to say, save only that it would be best in the same house; for much time else would be lost abroad, and many ill habits got; and that it should be plain, healthful, and moderate, I suppose is out of controversy. Thus, Mr. Hartlib, you have a general view in writing, as your desire was, of that which at several times I had discoursed with you concerning the best and noblest way of education; not beginning, as some have done, from the cradle, which yet might be worth many considerations, if brevity had not been my scope; many other circumstances also I could have mentioned, but this, to such as have the worth in them to make trial, for light and direction may be enough. Only I believe that this is not a bow for every man to shoot in, that counts himself a teacher; but will require sinews almost equal to those which Homer gave Ulysses; yet I am withal persuaded that it may prove much more easy in the assay, than it now seems at distance, and much more illustrious; howbeit, not more difficult than I imagine, and that imagination presents me with nothing but very happy, and very possible according to best wishes; if God have so decreed, and this age have spirit and capacity enough to apprehend.

A DECLARATION,

OR,

LETTERS-PATENTS,

FOR THE ELECTION OF THIS PRESENT KING OF POLAND,

JOHN THE THIRD,

ELECTED ON THE 22ND OF MAY LAST PAST, A.D. 1674.

CONTAINING THE REASONS OF THIS ELECTION, THE GREAT VIRTUES AND MERITS OF THE SAID SERENE ELECT, HIS EMINENT SERVICES IN WAR, ESPECIALLY IN HIS LAST GREAT VICTORY AGAINST THE TURKS AND TARTARS, WHEREOF MANY PARTICULARS ABE HERE RELATED, NOT PUBLISHED before.

NOW FAITHFULLY TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN COPY.

In the name of the Most Holy and Individual Trinity, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

WE, Andrew Trezebicki, bishop of Cracovia, duke of Severia, John Gembicki of Uladislau and Pomerania, &c.; bishops to the number of ten.

Stanislaus Warszycki, Castellan of Cracovia; Alexander Michael Lubomirski of Cracovia, &c.; palatines to the number of twenty-three.

Christopherus Grzymaltouski of Posnania, Alexander Gratus de Tarnow of Sandimer; castellans to the number of twenty-four.

Hiraleus Polubinski, high marshal of the great dukedom of Lithuania, Christopherus Pac, high chancellor of the great dukedom of Lithuania, senators and great officers, to the number of seventy-five.

WE declare by these our present letters unto all and single persons whom it may concern: our commonwealth, being again left widowed by the unseasonable death of that famous Michael, late king of Poland, who, having scarce reigned full five years, on the tenth day of November, of the year last past, at Leopolis, changed his fading crown for one immortal; in the sense of so mournful a funeral and fresh calamity, yet with undaunted courage, mindful of herself in the midst of dangers, forbore not to seek remedies, that the world may understand she grows in the midst of her losses; it pleased her to begin her counsels

of preserving her country, and delivering it from the utmost chances of an interreign, from the divine Deity, (as it were by the only motion of whose finger, it is easy that kingdoms be transferred from nation to nation, and kings from the lowest state to thrones ;) and therefore the business was begun according to our country laws, and ancestors' institutions.

After the convocation of all the states of the kingdom ended, in the month of February, at Warsaw, by the common consent of all those states, on the day decreed for the election, the twentieth of April : at the report of this famous act, as though a trumpet had been sounded, and a trophy of virtue erected, the wishes and desires of foreign princes came forth of their own accord into the field of the Polonian liberty, in a famous strife of merits and goodwill towards the commonwealth, every one bringing their ornaments, advantages, and gifts to the commonwealth. But the commonwealth becoming more diligent by the prodigal ambition used in the last interreign, and factions, and disagreeings of minds, nor careless of the future, considered with herself whether firm or doubtful things were promised, and whether she should seem from the present state to transfer both the old and new honours of Poland into the possession of strangers, or the military glory, and their late unheard-of victory over the Turks, and blood spilt in the war, upon the purple of some unwarlike prince; as if any one could so soon put on the love of the country, and that Poland was not so much an enemy to her own nation and fame as to favour strangers more than her own, and valour being found in her, should suffer a guest of new power to wax proud in her: therefore she thenceforth turned her thoughts upon some one in her own nation, and at length abolished (as she began in the former election) that reproach cast upon her, under pretence of a secret maxim, " That none can be elected king of Poland, but such as are born out of Poland;" neither did she seek long among her citizens whom she should prefer above the rest; (for this was no uncertain or suspended election, there was no place for delay;) for although in the equality of our nobles many might be elected, yet the virtue of a hero appeared above his equals: therefore the eyes and minds of all men were willingly, and by a certain divine instinct, turned

upon the high marshal of the kingdom, captain of the army, John Sobietski. The admirable virtue of the man, the high power of marshal in the court, with his supreme command in arms, senatorial honour, with his civil modesty, the extraordinary splendour of his birth and fortune, with open courtesy, piety towards God, love to his fellow-citizens in words and deeds s; constancy, faithfulness, and clemency towards his very enemies, and what noble things soever can be said of a hero, did lay such golden chains on the minds and tongues of all, that the senate and people of Poland and of the great dukedom of Lithuania, with suffrages and agreeing voices, named and chose him their king, not with his seeking or precipitate counsel, but with mature deliberations continued and extended till the third day.

Certainly it conduced much for the honour of the most serene elect, the confirmation of a free election, and the eternal praise of the people electing, that the great business of an age was not transacted in one day, or in the shadow of the night, or by one casual heat: for it was not right that a hero of the age should in a moment of time (and as it were by the cast of a die) be made a king, whenas antiquity by an ancient proverb has delivered, "that Hercules was not begot in one night;" and it hath taught, that election should shine openly under a clear sky, in the open light.

The most serene elect took it modestly, that his nomination should be deferred till the third day, plainly shewing to endeavour, lest his sudden facility of assent being suspected, might detract from their judgment, and the world might be enforced to believe by a more certain argument, that he that was so chosen was elected without his own ambition, or the envy of corrupted liberty; or was it by the appointed counsel of God, that this debate continued three whole days, from Saturday till Monday, as if the Cotimian victory (begun on the Saturday, and at length on the third day after accomplished, after the taking of the Cotimian castle) had been a lucky presage of his royal reward; or, as if with an auspicious omen, the third day of election had alluded to the regal name of JOHN the Third.

The famous glory of war paved his way to the crown, and confirmed the favour of suffrages to his most serene elect. He, the first of all the Polonians, shewed that the Scythian

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swiftness (troublesome heretofore to all the monarchies in the world) might be repressed by a standing fight, and the terrible main battalion of the Turk might be broken and routed at one stroke. That we may pass by in silence the ancient rudiments of warfare, which he stoutly and gloriously managed under the conduct and authority of another, against the Swedes, Moscovites, Borussians, Transylvanians, and Cossacks though about sixty cities taken by him from the Cossacks be less noised in the mouth of fame; yet these often and prosperous battles were a prelude to greatest victories in the memory of man. Myriads of Tartars had overrun within this six years with their plundering troops the coast of Podolia, when a small force and some shattered legions were not sufficient against the hostile assault, yet our general, knowing not how to yield, shut himself up (by a new stratagem of war) in Podhajecy, a strait castle, and fortified in haste, whereby he might exclude the cruel destruction which was hastening into the bowels of the kingdom; by which means the Barbarian, deluded and routed, took conditions of peace; as if he had made his inroad for this only purpose, that he might bring to the most serene elect matter of glory, victory.

For these four last years the famous victories of Sobietski have signalized every year of his warlike command on the Cossacks and Tartarians both joined together; the most strong province of Braclavia, as far as it lies between Hypanis and Tyral, with their cities and warlike people, were won from the Cossack enemy

And those things are beyond belief, which two years ago the most serene elect, after the taking of Camenick (being undaunted by the siege of Laopolis) performed to a miracle by the hardness and fortitude of the Polonian army, scarce consisting of three thousand men, in the continual course of five days and nights, sustaining life without any food, except wild herbs; setting upon the Tartarians, he made famous the names of Narulum, Niemicrovia, Konarnum, Kalussia, obscure towns before, by a great overthrow of the Barbarians. He slew three sultans of the Crim Tartars, descended of the royal Gietian family, and so trampled on that great force of the Scythians, that in these later years they could not regain their courage, nor re-collect their forces. But the felicity of this last autumn exceeded all his victories; whenas the