dered by Felton. "He had fome wit, great vivacity, was the mi"nifter of riot, the flave of intemperance, a pretended atheift, with"out honor, principle, œconomy, or discretion." He had a fine perfon, and the women deemed him handfome; he was capricious and farcaftic; fung well; told a ftory very facetioufly; mimicked the failings of others admirably, and poffeffed ftrong powers for ridicule; verfified with ease: but knew all his accomplishments, and foiled them by his intolerable vanity. He had fhared in the king's exile, and coming into poffeffion of more than 20,000l. per annum, at the restoration, was a great favorite. In 1666 it was difcovered, that he had endeavored to stir up such of the people that were ill-disposed to the government, because he had been refused the truft of prefident of the North. In the following year he made his peace at court, and became a member of the cabal, which was made up of five ministers, in whom alone the king for fome time confided, and who led him into measures that were productive of all the uneafiness he afterwards sustained. In 1675 he became a favorer of the nonconformifts; and in the affairs of the Popish plot, and bill of exclufion, ftuck clofe to Shaftesbury, and, with all his strength and influence, opposed the court. Having at length fquandered away almost all his immenfe fortune, with the acquifition of an infamous character, he departed this life in 1687, lamented by nobody, according to Wood, at his house in Yorkshire: but Pope fays, he died in the utmost misery, in a remote inn in Yorkshire, having run thro a fortune of 50,000l. a year, and been poffeffed of fome of the highest posts in the kingdom. "In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung, His grace was the author of feveral pieces of entertainment, but particularly the Rehearsal; the Bayes of which he intended for Dryden, who has fully avenged himself in the character of Zimri, with this advantage, that the picture is an exact refemBlance. Therefore in the name of dullness be The well-hung Balaam, and cold Caleb, free; Who made new porridge for the paschal lamb. Balaam, the Earl of Huntingdon; Caleb, Lord Grey of Werk; and Nadab, Lord Howard of Efcrick. The Earl of Huntingdon was one of those who, in person, prefented a bill of indictment to the grand jury of Middlesex, against the Duke of York as a Popish recufant., Ford, Lord Grey of Werk, was ftrongly attached to the Duke of Monmouth, a zealous promoter of Lord Shaftesbury's meafures, and a conftant opponent of the court. He was a smooth talker, poffeffed of a large eftate, both which accomplishments gave him influence among the people. Being concerned in the Ryehouse-plot, he was arrefted, and examined before the privycouncil, who ordered him to the Tower; but when the meffenger, who had the care of him, brought him thither, the gates were shut, it being late, and they could not get in; fo that they spent the whole night together, and drank pretty freely. In the morning they came to the Tower again very early, the doors not being as yet opened; and his keeper, who was very drunk, falling afleep, he turned down towards the wharf, and taking oars, got off to Holland. Here he joined his old friend Monmouth, whom he contributed to fpirit up to the rebellion in the ensuing reign, that brought that unhappy nobleman to the block. The Duke is faid to have relied much upon him to very little purpofe; for he was charged with having made a poor and cowardly figure at Sedgemore, where he headed the duke's cavalry, which was, by his daftardly behaviour, thrown into confufion, and the king's forces obtained a complete victory. Lord Grey was taken at Holtbridge in a fhepherd's habit; and the duke himself was foon after feized in a ditch, disguised like a peasant, with a few peafe in his pocket; neither of them behaved with composure or equanimity, and both were brought prisoners together to London. Monmouth's fate has been already taken notice of; but Lord Grey's life was faved by a proper application of feveral fums of money, Lord Rochester having touched 16000 I. He was, befides, mean enough to confefs every thing that he knew relative to Monmouth, or his defigns, and even appeared as an evidence against several perfons: however, he had before ftipulated for their lives. Lord Howard was bred up in republican principles; he was a profeffed enemy to monarchical government, ftuck faft to all Shaftesbury's feditious undertakings, and was very active in promoting riots, and oppofing the Tory intereft in the city. He had been committed to the Tower, for endeavoring to persuade Fitzharris, who was tried for being concerned in a feditious libel, to accufe the king, queen, and duke, of fome defigns against the people's liberty; and was actually engaged fo far in the Ryehouse-plot, as to have listened to a scheme proposed for murdering the king. Lord Ruffel, and some other men of honor, linked in this confpiracy, knew of nothing but a design of securing his royal perfon, till fuch time as they should have obtained from him, a certainty of the fupport and firm establishment of the Proteftant religion, which these patriots, not without reason, fupposed to be in fome danger. A warrant being iffued out against him on this account, he was found hid in a chimney in his own house, and when dragged down, behaved in the most contemptible manner, bewailing his misfortune with tears, promifing to reveal every thing he knew; and he kept his word, being ufed as a witness against the good/ Lord Ruffel, and many other people in great estimation: nor did the fucceeding reign excufe his being ftill called upon to do their dirty work, a rudgery of which he complained in heavy terms. bull-fac'd Jonas Sir William Jones, a very great lawyer, raised by his own merit to the post of attorney-general of England, which he, in a short time, refigned, being of a rough cynical difpofition, confequently unfit for a court. Burnet fays, he refufed the great feal. He entered into the warmest measures against the royal intereft, fupported the bill of exclufion with great strength of argument, and seems to have been a morose well-meaning man; deeply skilled in the laws of his country; a good Protestant, purfuing violent measures thro the fears of the prevalence of Popery, and influenced by people of more coolnefs, depth, and pene-tration than himself. Shimei, whofe youth did early promife bring Of zeal to God, and hatred to his king. Shimei, Slingsby Bethel, Efq; by poll chofen one of the sheriffs for the city of London, on Midfummer-day 1680, was a zealous fanatic, and had been formerly one of the committee of safety; however, to render himself fit for his office, he received the facrament, and renounced the covenant, but not his factious principles. Burnet calls him a man of knowledge, and fays he wrote a learned book about the intereft of princes; but that his miferable way of living, and miferly difpofition was very prejudicial to his party, and rendered him difagreeable to every body. When the king, as ufual in such cases, had changed Lord Stafford's fentence from hanging to beheading, he officioufly and impudently petitioned the house of commons, to know whether fuch a right was vefted in the king? And he and his colleague, Henry Cornish, tampered with Fitz-Harris, while in Newgate, about introducing the names of the king, the queen, or the duke, as concerned in the Popish plot; and promifing him, in cafe he could only trump up a formal story to that purpose, not only his life but reftitution of his eftate, which had been forfeited in the Irish rebellion for Fitz- Harris was an Irish Roman Catholic. : Cornifh was a plain-spoken honest republican, who temporized for the good of his party: he was unjuftly accufed in 1685 of high-treason, and hurried out of the world without being allowed time fufficient to prepare for his defence, for he was tried, condemned, and executed in a week; but King James was shortly after fo well convinced of his innocence, that he reftored his eftate to his family, and condemned the two witneffes that had appeared against him, Colonel Rumfey, and Goodenough the attorney, to perpetual imprisonment. Yet Corah thou shalt from oblivion pass. Corah, Titus Oates was son of an Anabaptift ribbon-weaver, who, abandoning his fhop for the bible, became a preacher, and was appointed chaplain to one of Cromwell's regiments in Scotland. After the reformation he conformed to the church, and obtained the living of Hastings in Suffex, but loft it upon adopting his old principles. He was the principal witness in the Popish plot, and for his good fervices lodged, at the public expence, in Whitehall, with a guard for the protection of his perfon, and a handsome stipend for his maintenance: but when the tide of popular credulity began to flacken, and his real character gained ground, he was turned out of his lodging, deprived of his guard, and of his allowance. In the beginning of King James's reign he was indicted for perjury at the court of King's Bench, and convicted upon the evidence of more than fixty reputable witnesses, nine of whom were Proteftants; whereupon he was fentenced to pay a fine of 2000 marks, to be scourged by the hangman twice in three days, to stand in the pillory, annually, in different parts of London and Westminster, and be imprisoned for life. He was fcourged with unheard-of feverity, yet furvived to obtain his liberty, and a penfion of 400l. per annum, in the fucceeding reign, when, tho he did his utmost to have his fentence reverfed, and brought his writ of error, for that purpose, in the houfe of peers, it was found impoffible to exculpate him, or to reftore him to the capacity of being an evidence in any court. Burnet himself, who was no friend to any of the transactions preceding the revolution, fpeaks of him as an infamous villain, not to be credited; and fays, that he told him, he had entered among the jefuits only to betray them, which God and his holy angels would witness; and that he would have their blood. And Corah might for Agag's murder call. Agag, Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, a justice of peace, before whom Oates had made his first depofition, and who was, foon after, found murdered in a ditch near Primrose-hill, on the road to Hampstead, his fword being run quite thro his body, without any effusion of blood. This was done, as it was supposed, with a view to make people think he had murdered himself; whereas, in fact, his death was occafioned by ftrangling, a broad livid mark being plain round his neck, which was broken, and his breast bruised in several places, as if he had been kneeled or trampled upon. His gloves and cane lay near him, his shoes were clean, and his money untouched. It is very furprising, that his murderers were never difcovered, tho Bedloe, an infamous wretched incendiary, fwore the crime against two or three innocent people, who fuffered death. The Earl of Shaftesbury took prodigious pains to force fome unhappy perfons to fwear it upon the Papists, offering them 500 1. reward, in cafe they acquiefced; and menacing them in the feverest manner, if they refused. He threatened one Mrs. Mary Gibbons, a relation of Sir Godfrey's, that she should be worried to death, as dogs worry cats, unless she confeffed, that Sir John Banks, Mr. Pepys, and Mr. De Puy, knew fomething of the murder: by his rude behaviour the woman was thrown into fits, and her life endangered; he labored hard to induce the two men who first found the corpfe, to lay the murder upon fome great Roman Catholic; but tho they were both in mean circumstances, he could not pervert their honesty. Nor had he more fuccefs with Francis Carrol, an honeft common hackney coachman, whom fome of his emiffaries accufed of having carried the corpfe in his coach, to the place in which it was found. This poor man was confined in Newgate near two months, loaded with irons, en |