GEORGE DIGBY,

EARL OF BRISTOL,

A SINGULAR person, whose life was one contradiction. He wrote against Popery, and embraced it; he was a zealous opposer of the court, and a sacrifice for it; was conscientiously converted in the midst of his prosecution of lord Strafford, and was most unconscientiously a prosecutor of lord Clarendon. With great parts, he always hurt himself and his friends; with romantic bravery, he was always an unsuccessful commander. 3 He spoke for the test-act, though a Roman

3

[He was secretary of state and privy-counsellor to Charles the second, but forfeited both these offices, by reconciling himself to the church of Rome, against which he had written several pieces of controversy. Swift called him the prototype of lord Bolingbroke. It seems that his lordship, after the wreck of his fortune in the civil war, had formed a design of applying to the crown of France for employment and subsistence. Biog. Hist. vol.iii. p. 22.]

3 [In Biog. Brit. vol. v. a copious article is allotted to this nobleman by Dr. Kippis, which closes with this general inference: The life of the earl of Bristol affords a striking proof that the brightest genius, the most splendid talents, the most extensive knowledge, and the richest eloquence, are of little advantage to the possessor, and of little benefit to the world, unless they be accompanied with steadiness of principle and

Catholic, and addicted himself to astrology on the birth-day of true philosophy. We have of his writing

"Letters between the Lord George Digby, and Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight, concerning Religion." Lond. 1651, 8vo.

This was a controversy on Popery, in which lord Digby shows that the Roman Catholic religion has no foundation on tradition, or on the authority of the fathers, &c. Sir Kenelm was not only a Papist, but an occult philosopher if lord Digby had happened to laugh at that nonsense too, he would probably have died in search of the grand elixir. "Several Speeches." 4

"Several Letters." 5

"A letter to Charles the Second, on being banished from his Presence." "

steadiness of conduct." He observes at the same time, that amid his lordship's numerous faults, he was distinguished by a softness and tenderness of disposition. This observation seems particularly verified in his polemical correspondence with sir Kenelm Digby.] ··

+ A. Wood, vol. ii. p. 579.

5 Ibid. [A letter from his lordship to the king, dated 1626, and two petitions to the lords and the lord-keeper, occur in MSS. Rawlinson, at Oxford. See Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, vol. ii. anno 1594.]

• Collection of Letters, vol. ii. p. 51.

"Elvira; or the Worst not always True, a Comedy." 1667, 4to.

For this he was brought into sir John Suckling's Session of Poets."

"Excerpta è diversis Operibus Patrum Latinorum." MS.8

"The three first books of Cassandra ;" translated from the French, 8vo.

He is said to be author of

"A true and impartial Relation of the Battle between his Majesty's Army and that of the Rebels, near Ailesbury, Bucks; September 20, 1643."

And I find under his name, though probably not of his writing, the following piece : "Lord Digby's Arcana Aulica or Walsingham's Manual of prudential Maxims for the Statesman and the Courtier, 1655." 2

[This nobleman was the eldest son of John, earl of

7 ["Digby and Shillingsworth, a little further."] a Wood, vol. ii. p. 579.

9 [Several of his speeches are printed in the Biog. Brit. art. George Digby.]

• Harl. Catal. vol. ii. p. 755. [A copy of an edit. in 1632 is in the British Museum, and had been bound with a later in 1655; the editor describes it, in his preface, as the performance of one Walsingham, a person unknown.]

Bristol, and was born at Madrid in 1612, during his father's first embassy into Spain. He was entered of Magdalen-college, Oxford, in 1626, and lived in great familiarity with the well-known Peter Heylin, a fellow of that house. He soon became distinguished by his remarkable advancement in all kinds of literature, and took the degree of master of arts in 1636. In the beginning of the long parliament he was disaffected to the court; in a short time afterwards, he appeared as a declared enemy to the parliament, and having testified his dislike of their proceedings against lord Strafford, he was expelled the house of commons in June 1641. In the following year he went on a message from Charles the first, to certain gentlemen at Kingston, with a coach and six horses, which was construed into a warlike appearance. On this occasion he drew up

"The Lord George Digbie's Apologie for himselfe." Printed at Oxford; and published the fourth of January, Ann. Dom. 1642:

a quarto tract, written with ingenuous plainness and apparent veracity; he was accused of high treason by the parliament, upon pretence of levying war at Kingston upon Thames. Lord Clarendon mentions this prosecution, as a pertinent instance of the tyranny and injustice of those times. Finding what umbrage he

3 See p. 53 of the present volume.

+ Athenæ, vol. ii. col. 579.

5 The intelligence conveyed to the commons was, that lord Digby, together with colonel Lunsford, had collected some troops of horse, and had appeared in arms. Biog. Brit. vol. v. p. 220.