"Your pardon, fir; is he a Jefuit confeffor?"

“No, good fir, a minister. Of the disciplined ones, I do affure you."

"Lo, how the extremes meet! Your exiled faints of Amfterledam be much after the Roman fashion.”

"To continue, firs, he bade him this confider: if he should not, by true confeffion and unfeigned repentance, unburden his confcience of those fins, he would carry out of the world a guilty foul to God, and leave upon his memory the stain of infamy to the remotest posterity.”

"There he stung the nobleman!"

"Shame! fhame!"

"How is this known, fir? furely it was fecret i' th' Tower?"

"Well put! Afhton hath fo fpoken of it to one I wot on, he glorying therein."

"And did he charge him with aim upon the Crown?"

"Yes! and he as ftoutly did refute it. But this roufing him-as having his honour and his truth doubted by that clergyman whom he had entrusted to purge his confcience withal-he now laid open all his mind, wherein, unhappily, words and acts of others feem to have been

compromised; he (remember) speaking as to a spiritual

comforter."

"The Puritan Jefuit!

"These things reduced to paper, figned-as was faid (though in what name now?)—were i' the Secretary's hands anon-to what end and use you may admire.”

"Those other reverend Gentlemen, Dr. Barlow, Dr. Mountford, are they of the brethren ?”

"Whom elfe? I learn they have fo worked upon the excited feelings of the man-his tender confcience-that he speaks of his act as 'leprofy '—' a disease whereby he hath infected many '—and so forth!"

"Oh !"

"Oh! fie, fie! to train the poor fick foul to fuch con

feffion as was just needed ".

"Ay, to convict others."

"To uphold their own packs and practices.'

"Then to frighten with the terrors of Hell him whofe

vexed fpirit they were bid speed to Heaven!"

""Tis their conftant use."

"And, believe me, 'tis not at end. That was a false and pre-written fpeech foifted about at his "

"Truly, was it fo! I myself heard him fay what I have shewn you. Not a word more spake he, on my life!"

"I faith, firs, and they will foist more confeffion on him still, if need be; none shall be lacking. They have the manner of it now."

"Doth this fort travail to shed blood?-innocent blood?” "They be labouring hard to enhance themselves." "Yes! 'twas the policy of Leicester first to draw these forth, so to overawe Suffex, hold on Burghley, and, it may be, keep a check on Majesty itself. They have gained power fince-know it, and its worth-will not lend themselves hereafter but at their own price-to wit, the fubmiffion of the Church to them. In an evil hour his diftemperature, raifing imaginary terrors in his foul, did this man hope to stay on them.”

"Leicester played with the egg: our unhappy friend hath put the full-grown cockatrice in his bofom."

""Twill sting him to the death!"

Effex his laft Thoughts.

309

"His body fubjugated by sickness-his fpirit quelled by difappointment-his very foul humbled and mortified, for that his life was now made useless by his act. He, feeling himself as one contemned—thrown out of the world-cast up, as it were, for unwholesome, mischievous, and vile: his fair name dishonoured—his nobility and blood attaint-his wife and children left widow and orphan-ruined befides. -The folemn fenfe of going-unprepared as the best be -to meet his God. These things, I fay, were enough to bring him to that pass when they could practise on him. They bade him fear and hope just as they lifted: terrified him with texts-puzzled him with prophecies

"He took them for the Ministers of God, fent

Ay! ay!"

"This fort, fir, think naught can be true religion but with a brave excitement of imagination'

"Methinks your fanctified Cause should have a more fanctified courfe."

"Truly, fir, they be not fuch cunning Alchemists as to run their base metal into true gold."

"Oh, your miraculous converfions !"

"And this will pass for such?”

"Why, fir, our super-Protestants fhall have their faints as

well as the Papists, I hope."

""Tis but fair; but I mifdoubt the quality."

"There's fome odds between the demure look of the one

and the mortified limbs of the other."

"Now 'tis my fear they'll first paint this man evil, very evil -dark as Beelzebub, fcaly as Apollyon: then, by their infallible recipe, prank him (as by an enchantment) to an angel of light-Lo, the reverend Gentlemen their triumph!”

"Methinks moft, 'twas a base thing coming between him and his family with inftances of God's jealoufy'

""Tis reported, when he would fee his Lady and their little ones, fome faid he should not now mind earthly things-his treasure "

"I 'faith, they'll break down his heart!"

"Yes! and his honour too (if they be believed)."

"Converted, forfooth!"

"Call ye these preachers? The kingdom they advance

is Satan's."

"Be they Divines ?-nay, devils!"

"Humanity was low in him; why will they not raise it up,

chat it may approach more nearly the Image it was made in?”