commiserate persons in distress of mind on religious accounts; to many of whom in future life his advice and persuasions became eminently consolatory and instructive.

The early promises of his infancy began very soon to be realized at college. His tutor, Mr. Lindsell, wishing to elicit and exhibit his talents, - or, as he himself expressed it, "to see his inside as well as his outside," made such trials of his abilities as the Fellows thought quite unreasonable, urging, that it was a shame to spur a fleet horse, which already outwent the rider's desire, and won every race he put him to." In all these examinations young Ferrar succeeded beyond the highest expectations; and being anxious to continue the course of mental cultivation which he had thus auspiciously begun, he gave himself unintermittingly to his studies, so that it became a common remark, that his chamber might be known by the candle that was last extinguished at night and first lighted in the morning. His piety was equal to his learning, nor was any pursuit, however interesting, ever suffered to interfere with the regularity of his attendance at the college chapel-an example worthy of imitation by many junior members of our universities in the present day, who, with much clearer ideas, perhaps, of the general nature of Christianity, than were possessed by young Ferrar, might yet find in his scrupulous strictness of conduct and susceptibility of con science no unworthy subject of Chris

tian emulation.

In his second year Ferrar became a Fellow-commoner, his parents having deferred this privilege till he had proved that he deserved it and in 1610 he took his first degree in Arts, and the same year was elected a Fellow of his college. His literary acquisitions, as well as his personal character and influence among his friends, had by this time become so conspicuous that Mr. Lindsell was accustomed to exclaim, "May God keep him in a right mind; for if he should turn schismatic, or heretic, he would make work for all the world. Such a head!

Such power of argument! Such a tongue, and such a pen! Such a memory withal he hath, with such indefatigable pains, that all these joined together, I know not who would be able to contend with him."

But the rising genius and virtues of Ferrar could not exempt him from the ordinary afflictions of humanity'; among which he had to enumerate a feminine and sickly temperament of body, visibly aggravated by his severe studies, and which, though it could not abate his own courage, began greatly to excite the alarm of his friends. His faithful and affectionate physician being apprehensive that his valuable life was near its close, and his friends in general thinking it im possible for him to survive another winter in England, he was prevailed upon to retire to the Continent, where, by the course recommended for his adoption, his medical adviser predicted that his life might possibly last to thirty-five years, beyond which he had no hopes that it could, under any circumstances, be prolonged. The heads of the university, as soon as they were informed of Mr. Ferrar's intention, and that he was about to join the retinue of the princess Elizabeth, who was proceeding to the pallatinate with the Palsgrave, her husband, procured him, by special favour, his Master's degree, for which he had already performed the previous exercises, though he was not of sufficient standing to receive it in the ordinary course. His written farewell to his family has been preserved, in which he dwells upon the importance of preparing for death; exhorts his brothers and sisters to piety, unity, and love; console his parents with the thought, that " he should be soon dead to them, he was yet alive to God;" implores their forgiveness if at any time he had displeased them; and adds, "It was God that gave me to you; and if he take me from you, be not only content but joyful that I am delivered from the vale of misery. This God, who hath kept me ever since I was born, will preserve me to the end, and will give me grace to live in his faith, to die in his favour,

to rest in peace, to rise in his power, and to reign in his glory."

By the kind attention of Dr. Scot, who had succeeded to the mastership of Clare-Hall, Ferrar was presented at Court, and, having changed the gravity of his scholastic dress for a garb more suited to his new appointment, set sail with the courtiers for Flushing, where, on his arrival, he found that the sea air, as his physician predicted, had removed his intermittent fever, and produced the most favourable effect upon his constitution. Accompanying the princess Elizabeth from city to city, he minutely inves tigated and recorded the manners, religion, manufactures, government, and charitable institutions, of the Dutch, paying especial attention to their modes of preaching, their rites and ceremonies, and whatever else seemed worthy of observation in an age when theology was scarcely less the study of a politician than of a divine. The princess not intending to travel by the route which Mr. Ferrar had proposed for himself, he declined a liberal appointment which he might have obtained in her service, and pursued his journey alone from Ainsterdam to Hamburgh, thence to the university of Leipsic, thence to Bohemia, and thence to the Italian States. In each of these places he remained a sufficient time to gain an intimate acquaintance with whatever appeared worthy of his attention, studying the history, the language, and general literature of every country at which he arrived. At Leipsic, in particular, he procured tutors in the various arts and sciences taught in that university; and while, on the one hand, his company was eagerly sought by the literary residents, the English merchants and factors also, on the other, who were equally delighted with his abilities, his integrity, and his suavity of manners, were transmitting with admiration his fame and character to his native country.

so that his biographer remarks, that "there was scarcely any trade, art, skill, or science concerning which he could not discourse, to the astonishment even of the professors themselves in their several professions." More than once during his travels he was apparently at the point of death, especially when at Merseilles, where he was attacked by a malignant fever, from which he with difficulty recovered. He was affectionately attended in his illness by an English gentleman whom he met with in his travels, and to whom his religious counsel had been highty beneficial. This gentleman had fled from his native country on account of having slain his antagonist in a duel, and was the victim of a secret remorse and despair, which at length yielded, in a considerable measure, to the arguments of Mr. Ferrar; so that the unhappy sufferer became more composed, and began even to feel a rising hope of Divine pity and forgiveness. With this friend Ferrar returned from Merseilles to Venice, whence he set sail for Spain, and narrowly escaped being captured during his voyage by a pirate. On this, as on numerous other occasions, he exhibited great personal courage; for the ship's company being divided respecting the propriety of yielding or fighting, and referring the matter to his decision, he resolutely advised them to commit their cause to God, and to die rather than fall into the hands of the Turks. Just, however, as they were preparing to show their confidence by firing the first shot, the pirate, perceiving a richer prize, changed its course, and was heard of

no more.

Hitherto we have regarded Mr. Ferrar as a religious young man of talents and leisure in a private station, and with no fixed employment; we ought now to consider him under a new and higher character-as an important member of society, employing his great endowments and capacities in the arduous avocations of a public life. This part, however, of his memoirs, though very interesting, must, for the sake of brevity, be re luctantly passed over with a few slight remarks. His chief occupation in London was with the affairs of the Virginia Company; which the king, under the influence of the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, had determinded to suppress. The skill, intrepidity, and perseverance of Ferrar, in the whole of this most difficult and protracted business, exceeded even all that the sanguine hopes of his friends had anticipated, and extorted the highest admiration and encomiums from the very persons employed by the king for carrying the design of the court into execution. By his eloquence and firmness of character, combined with an intimate acquaintance with the affairs of the Company, and of the arts employed for its ruin, Ferrar was able to suspend, for a considerable time, the suppression of the charter; and even when the blow at length arrived, and the papers were seized, he had, unknown to the Company, made such prudent arrangements, particularly by procuring attested copies of all their books, and similar precautions, that it still remained in the power of the Directors to vindicate their proceedings, and possibly, when the ferment should have a little subsided, to procure a reversal of the dissolution.

At the suppression of the Virginia Company's charter, Mr. Ferrar determined to put into effect a resolution which he had formed long before, of retiring from public life, and devoting himself exclusively to the immediate service of God. That this determination was not a sudden idea, consequent upon the disappointments which he had experienced in conducting the Company's concerns,

may be inferred from various circumstances in his previous conduct. He had repeatedly declined the acceptance of any public office, though solicited both by the government and his immediate connexions in life; and had confidentially stated to his friends, as a reason for this conduct, that he had resolved, as soon as he had discharged the duties of his present station, to enter upon a course of religious retirement. The same intention was again expressed on a more peculiar occasion. A citizen of the first class for affluence and respectability was anxious for an alliance with Ferrar, and offered him the hand of his daughter, whose pecuniary expectations were known to be very large, and of whose extraordinary beauty, talents, and virtues, Ferrar had expressed the highest admiration. He, however, steadily refused this inviting and in every respect beneficial proposal: and from a general review of the circumstances of this and other transactions of his life, there appears reason to conclude, that he had formed his resolution of retirement several years before, and probably on his recovery from one of his sicknesses while abroad. The unreasonable and superstitious notion of the superior advantages of a single life for the service of God seems in the early part of the seventeenth century to have still lingered in the minds of many members of the Protestant Church; and as Ferrar's devotion, in various particulars, received a somewhat monastic tinge during his residence in the south of Europe, we cannot much wonder that he had imbibed this injurious opinion amongst

the rest.

only apologies that can be urged for his deserting thus early in life a public station of great usefulness for the indolent retirement of a deserted village. If his chief desire was to glorify God, he should doubtless have remained in the important station in which Providence had fixed him by secession from the world, he forgot the duty, and lost the opportunity of letting his light shine before men. If, however, his immediate intention was to secure his own salvation more effectually than he thought would be possible in the noisy walks of life, he ought to have remembered, that if the path of duty lie in a busy and even dangerous scene, the Divine protection is more likely to be afforded to us in discharging its important avocations, than in a cowardly and unwarranted secession from them. Our Lord himself did not pray that his disciples might be taken out of the world, but that they might be kept from the evil of the world; and surely this pious young man, had he humbly submitted to the same dispensation, might have confidently hoped for a similar protection.

Having fixed his resolution, Ferrar was some time impeded in putting it into execution by various family concerns, particularly the arrangement of his brother's commercial affairs, and the discharge of numerous offices of trust and executorship, in which his known skill and integrity had caused him to be involved. These, however, by his great talents and application, were at length settled; and nothing now remained but to retire to the lordship of Little Gidding, in the county of Huntingdon, which he purchased on account of its seclusion and general fitness for his intended purpose. The parish had been depopulated some time before; and nothing remained but an extremely large mansion-house, going hastily to decay, with a small church within thirty or forty paces of the house, and which had been sacrilegiously converted into a barn.

Having arrived at his new residence, he sent for his aged mother, who brought over her son-in-law, with her

daughter, and their numerous family. Mrs. Ferrar was now seventy-three years of age, yet possessed of so much health and vigour as to appear but about forty. The meeting between Ferrar and his mother is pathetically described; though twenty-seven years of age, a member of the British senate, and engaged in the most important public affairs of his age, the dutiful son respectfully knelt down at his first approach to receive her parental blessing. He then urged her to retire into the house to repose herself after her journey. This, however, she refused to do till she had repaired to the church to offer up her acknowledgments to God; but finding it filled with implements of agriculture, she immediately set the numerous workmen of the household to cleanse and repair it, declaring that she would not suffer her eyes to sleep, or her eyelids to slumber, till she had purified the temple of the Lord.

The family at Little Gidding now consisted of about forty persons; and it being a time of extraordinary humiliation on account of the plague, Ferrar, with the consent of the bishop, procured the minister of an adjoining parish to read for their benefit the Morning Service daily at eight o'clock, the Litany at ten, and the Evening Service at four. With a view, however, to be legally authorized to give spiritual assistance to his family and others with whom he might be concerned, Ferrar soon took Deacon's orders; and was immediately offered a very valuable ecclesiastical preferment by the friends who had before in vain solicited him to accept of temporal. Still, however, he persisted in refusing; and indeed, so far from desiring additional emolument, he had already voluntarily divided all his estate among his family. He was, in fact, descended of a disinterested stock; for his mother, with a conscientious benevolence equal to his own, had just restored to the church a valuable property in land and tithes, which had been impropriated fourscore years before; her son diligently exerting himself on the occasion, to ascertain the extent