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of verses he could recite was prodigious, and what he remembered of the parts of plays, which he would also act; and when, seeing a Plautus in one's hand, he asked what book it was, and being told it was comedy, and too difficult for him, he wept for sorrow. Strange was his apt and ingenious application of fables and morals, for he had read Æsop; he had a wonderful disposition to mathematics, having by heart divers propositions of Euclid that were read to him in play, and he would make lines and demonstrate them. As to his piety, astonishing were his applications of Scripture upon occasion, and his sense of God; he had learned all his catechism early, and understood the historical part of the Bible and New Testament to a wonder, how Christ came to redeem mankind, and how, comprehending these necessaries himself, his godfathers were discharged of their promise. These and the like illuminations, far exceeding his age and experience, considering the prettiness of his address and behaviour, cannot but leave impressions in me at the memory of him. When one told him how many days a quaker had fasted, he replied that was no wonder, for Christ had said, man should not live by bread alone, but by the Word of God. He would of himself select the most pathetic psalms, and chapters out of Job, to read to his maid during his sickness, telling her when she pitied him, that all God's children must suffer affliction. He declaimed against the vanities of the world, before he had seen any. Often he would desire those who came to see him, to pray by him; and a year before he fell sick, to kneel and pray with him alone in some corner. How thankfully would he receive admonition,—how soon be reconciled! How indifferent, yet continually cheerful! He would give grave advice to his brother John, bear with his impertinencies, and say he was but a child.

If he heard of or saw any new thing, he was unquiet till he was told how it was made: he brought to us all such difficulties as he found in books, to be expounded. He had learned by heart divers sentences in Latin and Greek, which on occasion he would produce even to wonder. He was all life, all prettiness,-far from morose, sullen, or childish, in any thing he said or did. The last time he had been at church, (which was at Greenwich,) I asked him, according to custom, what he remembered of the sermon? "Two good things, father,” said he, “ bonum gratiæ and bonum gloria" [the blessings of grace and glory]; with a just account of what the preacher said. The day before he died he called me, and in a more serious manner than usual told me, that for all I loved him so dearly, I should give my house, land, and all my fine things, to his brother Jack; he should have none of them; and next morning, when he found himself ill, and that I persuaded him to keep his hands in bed, he demanded whether he might pray to God with his hands unjoined; and a little after, whilst in great agony, whether he should not offend God by using his holy name so often, calling for ease. What shall I say of his frequent pathetical ejaculations uttered of himself;-Sweet Jesus save me, deliver me, pardon my sins, let thine angels receive me!-So early knowledge, so much piety and perfection! But thus God having dressed up a saint fit for himself, would not longer permit him with us, unworthy of the future fruits of this incomparable hopeful blossom. Such a child I never saw for such a child I bless God, in whose bosom he is! May I and mine become as this little child, who now follows the child Jesus, that Lamb of God in a white robe, whithersoever he goes:

even so, Lord Jesus, fiat

voluntas tua! [Thy will be done!]

Thou gavest him to

Thou hast taken him from us; blessed be the name

of the Lord! That I had any thing acceptable to Thee was from thy grace alone, since from me he had nothing but sin; but that Thou hast pardoned! blessed be my God for ever, amen! In my opinion he was suffocated by the women and maids that tended him, and covered him too hot with blankets as he lay in a cradle, near an excessive hot fire, in a close room. I suffered him to be opened, when they found that he was what they call liver-grown. I caused his body to be coffined in lead, and deposited on the 30th, at eight o'clock that night, in the church of Deptford, accompanied with divers of my relations and neighbours, among whom I distributed rings with this motto Dominus abstulit, [the Lord hath taken away]; intending, God willing, to have him transported with my own body, to be interred in our dormitory in Wotton church, in my dear native county Surrey, and to lay my bones and mingle my dust with my fathers, if God be gracious to me, and make me as fit for Him as this blessed child was. The Lord Jesus sanctify this and all other my afflictions. Amen."

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The letter in which he communicated this sad intelligence to sir Richard Browne is not less affecting :"God has taken from us that dear child, your grandson, your godson, and with him all the joy and satisfaction that could be derived from the greatest hopes. A loss so much the more to be deplored, as our contentments were extraordinary, and the indications of his future perfections as fair and legible as yet I ever saw, or read of, in one so young. You have, sir, heard so much of this, that I may say it with the less crime and suspicion. And indeed his whole life was, from the beginning, so great a miracle, that it were hard to exceed in the description of it; which I should here yet attempt, by summing up all the prodigies of it, and what a child at

five years old (for he was little more) is capable of, had I not given you so many minute and particular accounts of it, by several expresses; when I mentioned these things with the greatest joy, which now I write with as much sorrow and amazement. But so it is, that it has pleased God to dispose of him; that blossom (fruit, rather I may say) is fallen; a six days' quotidian having deprived us of him; an accident that has made so great a breach in all my contentments, as I do never hope to see repaired; because we are not in this life to be fed with wonders: and I know you will hardly be able to support the affliction and the loss, who bear so great a part in everything that concerns me. But thus we must be reduced when God sees good, and I submit; since I had therefore this blessing for a punishment, and that I might feel the effects of my great unworthiness. But I have begged of God that I might pay the fine here, and if to such belong the kingdom of heaven, I have one deposit there. The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away, blessed be his name: since without that consideration it were impossible to support it."

Full twenty years after, he speaks of this "most dear child Richard," in his Diary, in terms of undiminished fondness and admiration.

Not a month after that sorrowful event, he had to note the death of another child. "Feb. 15.-The afflicting hand of God being still upon us, it pleased Him also to take away from us this morning my youngest son, George, now seven weeks languishing at nurse, breeding teeth, and ending in a dropsy. God's holy will be done!"

Mrs. Evelyn's distress was also manifested in her letters, in which she deplored the losses she had sustained “with the most affectionate tenderness which words can express." In the midst of these sorrows, how welcome were the following words of consolation from Jeremy Taylor :

"Dear Sir,-If dividing and sharing griefs were like the cutting of rivers, I dare say to you you would find your stream much abated; for I account myself to have a great cause of sorrow, not only in the diminution of the number of your joys and hopes, but in the loss of that pretty person, your strange hopeful boy. I cannot tell all my own sorrows without adding to yours; and the causes of my real sadness in your loss are so just and so reasonable, that I can no otherwise comfort you but by telling you, that you have very great cause to mourn; so certain it is, that grief does propagate, as fire does. You have enkindled my funeral torch, and by joining mine to yours, I do but increase the flame. But Sir, I cannot chuse but I must hold another and a brighter flame to you-it is already burning in your breast; and if I can but remove the dark side of the lanthorn, you have enough within you to warm yourself, and to shine to others. Remember Sir, your two boys are two bright stars, and their innocence is secured, and you shall never hear evil of them again. Their state is safe, and heaven is given to them upon very easy terms, nothing but to be born and die. It will cost you more trouble to get where they are, and amongst others one of the hardnesses will be, that you must overcome even this just and reasonable grief; and indeed though the grief hath but too reasonable a cause, yet it is much more reasonable that you master it. For besides that they are no losers, but you are the person that complains, do but consider what you would [be willing to] have suffered for their interest: you [would] have suffered them to go from you, to be great princes in a strange country: and if you can be content to suffer your own inconvenience for their interest, you command your worthiest love, and the question of mourning is at an end. But you have said and done well when you look upon it as a rod of God: and

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