temper to a sluggish indolence,-the detention from his growing province in which his presence was greatly needed,—and the bitter pang of finding those, as it were, of his own household joining the cry against him. But a heavier stroke was yet to fall upon him. In 1693 he suddenly found himself, through the malignant representations of his enemies, deprived of the government of Pennsylvania. He would instantly have crossed the Atlantic to watch over the interests of the colony as far as now lay in his power; but his circumstances were embarrassed, and he was compelled to solicit a loan. In the mean time he bore up with unruffled equanimity against the adverse storms of fortune, and amused himself by collecting, from his own experience, a number of aphorisms on life and its business, which he published under the title of "Some fruits of solitude, in reflections and maxims relating to the conduct of human life." The tide of his affairs had now reached its lowest ebb, and a change for the better became visible. Through the interest of some persons of rank and influence his case was taken into consideration, and after being heard by the council in his own defence, he received an honourable acquittal. In the following year he was completely reconciled to his religious community, and was restored to the governorship of Pennsylvania. Though reinstated in all his privileges and immunities, he did not manifest any wish to visit Pennsylvania for some years after this period, but employed himself in preaching throughout the country, and in writing a vast number of pamphlets, the very names of which it would be tedious to recount. He had lost his wife in 1693, and in 1696 he entered the state of holy matrimony a second time. Within a few weeks after the celebration of his nuptials, his eldest son, a young man of about twenty years of age, died in the very spring-time of life and promise. In 1699 he embarked at Cowes. in the Isle of Wight, for America, and after a tedious passage of nearly three months, came to anchor in the Delaware on the last day of November. He had been absent from his territories upwards of fifteen years, and of course he found striking changes; but there was no change in the feelings of gratitude and affection for him. The affairs of the Province had not been conducted in the manner most satisfactory to him; but, on the whole, the colony was flourishing. One of the first subjects which engaged his attention was the condition of the negroes in the Province, some of whom had been purchased as labourers by the early settlers. Among the quakers it had been agreed, in 1696, that the buying, selling, and holding men in slavery, was inconsistent with the tenets of the Christian religion. This honourable resolution had been acted on in many instances, and measures were now taken by Penn to insure the treatment of the remaining slaves as members of the families to which they belonged, and a careful instruction of them in the truths of religion. In his own religious society his plans were adopted; but, on endeavouring to make them the law of the land in the assembly of 1700, he had the mortification to find them rejected. In another design, that of cultivating a friendly intercourse with the Indians, he was more successful; for he took upon himself the carrying of it into effect. Several treaties were made between him and different tribes of Indians, all of which were built on those strict principles of justice which formed the most prominent feature of his character. In 1701, Penn, while actively and strenuously engaged in promoting the welfare

of the Province, received intelligence that a plan was agitating in England for depriving the proprietory governors of North America of their authority, under the pretext of great abuse on one side, and great national benefit on the other; and that a bill for that purpose had been introduced in the house of lords. These unwelcome tidings resolved him to return to England, that he might give the measure the best opposition in his power; and he hastily summoned the assembly to take into consideration several important points which remained unsettled. This assembly was disturbed, as two or three preceding had been, by heartburnings between the members for the Province and those for the Territory; but, after much quarrelling, they managed to pass an immense number of measures, the most important of which was a new charter, by which the assembly or lower house was allowed to propose bills, to appoint committees, and to sit upon their own adjournments. Having ratified this charter, and appointed a council for the government of the Province during his absence, he embarked in the latter end of October, and arrived at Portsmouth about the middle of December. On Penn's arrival in England he found that the measure, which he Lad crossed the Atlantic to oppose, was entirely dropped. King William dying about this time, Penn found himself in great favour with Queen Anne, and became once again a visitor at court. After this period the details of his life are few and uninteresting. He resided for several

years at Knightsbridge and Brentford, and was compelled, in consequence of a lawsuit in which he had been involved, and the issue of which was unfavourable, to take up his abode for some time within the rules of the fleet. To release himself from this thraldom, he was under the necessity of mortgaging the Province for the sum of £6,600; and having, in this way, obtained his liberty, he resumed the employment which he had now for some time abandoned, of preaching the Gospel. The intelligence from America was very distressing. Constant dissensions, first between the members for the Province, and those for the Territory, and afterwards between the governors and assemblies, had agitated the Province ever since his departure. But the time was now approaching when these vexations could move him no longer. He was seized by an apoplectic fit in 1713, which left him in a pitiable state of helplessness, both of mind and body; and though he survived the first attack for several years, his life was little better than a death long drawn out. "His memory," says one of his friends, " was almost quite lost, and the use of his understanding suspended, so that he was not so conversible as formerly, and yet as near the truth in the love of it as before. * Nevertheless, no insanity or lunacy at all appeared in his actions; and his mind was in an innocent state, as appeared by his very loving deportment to all that came near him; and that he had still a good sense of truth, is plain by some very clear sentences he spoke in the life and power of truth, in an evening meeting we had together there, wherein we were greatly comforted." Having gradually relapsed into a second childhood, he expired on the thirtieth of July, 1718, being then in the 74th year of his age. He was interred at Jordans in Buckinghamshire. A great concourse of people from all parts, including many of the most eminent quakers, paid the last tribute of respect to his honoured clay.

To sketch the character of William Penn is to draw a portrait of the 50*

II.

founders of Quakerism, for he embodied at once their virtues and faults They were, in every sense of the word, a remarkable class of men. We have no wish to excuse the glaring errors of their theology, and still less do we desire to justify the wild and measureless extravagances which occasionally marked their conduct. But error in theology and overmuch zeal in displaying their opinions, ought never to hide from our view the sterling virtues which dwelt beneath. We blame their heresy, but we admire their honesty; we admit their fanaticism, but we reverence their devotion. While tyrannous persecution bestrid the land, these stout-hearted men, unscared by the perils that loured on their path, went forward in the prosecution of their high errand. They believed themselves commissioned by a Power, before which all earthly tribunals were but as the small dust in the balance, to proclaim a new revelation to mankind, and they disdained to be driven from their course by human threats or frowns. They were called on to suffer, and they did it manfully. They endured cruel mockings and scourgings; but their faith was steadfast. They brandished no weapons, but they shunned no enemy. Armed only by the naked majesty of innocence,

they stood unmoved before the potentates of the world; and in the end, by what Milton finely calls "the unresistible might of weakness," they quelled the fiery rage of their oppressors. While other sects, to avoid the pains of persecution, abandoned their stated meetings, or resorted to obscure places where they might be held in safety, the Society of Friends went openly to their customary places of worship; and when brute violence drove them thence, they assembled, in the broad light of day, beneath the walls of their conventicles, and worshipped God as conscience advised, fearless of what man could do unto them.

Of these singular men, Penn was one of the most favourable specimens. Sprung from a family of proud and ancient name,-the only child of a father whose influence could have procured him extraordinary advancement,-possessed evidently of no inconsiderable portion of ambition-a principle which, indeed, in one form or other, is never absent from a large and noble mind,-endowed with abilities which would have rendered the gratification of a lofty ambition scarcely problematical, and after experiencing all the temptations which society and intercourse with the world could throw in his path, he had the high moral daring and lofty principle to join, heart and hand, with those whom all around him stigmatized as a set of contemptible schismatics. The same spirit bore him on through a long and varied life. He shrunk from no exertions, and shunned no danger. Abroad and at home he went about proclaiming the great truths on which he believed man's salvation to depend. The consistency of his conduct, the unshaken adhesion to his principles at all times, and under all circumstances, is indeed an admirable feature in his character. The stand which he made again and again in defence of freedom of conscience, will immortalize him. To the Independents we must, indeed, ascribe the honour of having been the first to assert, and the first to act upon this great principle; but the Society of Friends has the merit of having carried it out to still greater purity. There is no page in the story of past time on which the eye of the Christian and the philanthropist will rest with

more enduring satisfaction than on that which records the carly history of Pennsylvania.

Of Penn as a writer, our admiration must be qualified. He wrote too much to write well. The great majority of his publications were controversial; and it must be owned that many of them give countenance to Burnet's opinion, that he "had a tedious, luscious way of talking," which was apt to tire people. He entered fully into the doctrines common among the quakers of that day, such as the absolute sinfulness of hat-worship; the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit into the mind of every believer, and others equally untenable. His best known works are No cross, no crown; a discourse showing the nature and discipline of the holy cross of Christ;' his Portraiture of Primitive Quakerism;' and A brief account of the rise and progress of the people called Quakers :'—all of which have passed through several editions. A collection of his works was published at London in 1728, in 2 vols. folio, and a collection of his select works at London in 1782, in 5 vols. 8vo.

Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury,

BORN A. D. 1660.-DIED A. D. 1717.

CHARLES TALBOT, twelfth earl, and first duke of Shrewsbury, was son of Francis, eleventh earl, by Anna Maria, daughter of Robert, second earl of Cardigan. He was educated in the Roman catholic faith of his parents. His father being killed in a duel by the duke of Buckingham, occasioned by the licentious conduct of his countess, he succeeded to the title in the eighth year of his age. At the age of twenty he openly embraced protestantism, having been convinced by the reasonings of Dr Tillotson, to whom he had applied for advice on the subject, that the church in which he had been educated was in error. James, on his accession, laboured hard to persuade Shrewsbury to return to his mother-church, but without effect; he zealously opposed the measures of that monarch for the re-establishment of Roman catholicism, and was one of the illustrious seven, who, in June, 1688, signed the association inviting over the prince: he even mortgaged his estates to aid the cause, and, repairing to Holland, made offer of his purse and sword to William. Burnet informs us that Shrewsbury was much trusted by the prince, and consulted by him in preparing his famous declaration; he was also one of the three peers employed to treat with those sent by James.

On the settlement of the new government, Shrewsbury was nominated one of the privy-council, appointed secretary of state, and intrusted with. the lord lieutenancy of three counties. The confidence which William reposed in him was still farther indicated by the appellation he sportively conferred upon him of his "king of hearts." In his principles, Shrewsbury was a moderate whig, though necessitated to act with the more zealous leaders of that party. The growing dislike of the king to the whigs placed Shrewsbury in a very embarrassing situation; and we find his correspondence, as published by Coxe, opening with a letter to his majesty, under the date, Sept. 6th, 1689, in which he requests permis

sion to resign office on the plea of ill health and incapacity. The king refused to allow so valuable a servant to retire at that juncture; but on the formation of a tory administration, Shrewsbury fairly threw up the seals, and flung himself into the ranks of the opposition.

William soon perceived the error he had committed in throwing himself into the arms of a party that never could regard him but with secret disaffection, and the first means by which he tried to retrace his steps was his taking the seals of secretary of state from Nottingham and offering them to Shrewsbury. The latter, however, declined to accept of them, and retired to one of his country seats. At last, after a great deal of urging, he was prevailed upon to comply with the king's wishes. In 1694 he again received the seals. His compliance was rewarded with a dukedom, and from this period he was considered the head of the administration.

Shrewsbury was subjected to a serious charge on the apprehension of Sir John Fenwick in 1696. Among other statements made by Fenwick to the lord-high-steward after his apprehension, was this: that the duke of Shrewsbury and Lord Godolphin, while holding office under King William, had entered into correspondence with King James through the medium of Lord Middleton. The lord-high-steward transmitted Fenwick's disclosures to the king, who was then at the Hague, whereupon William evinced his confidence in his minister by instantly sending a copy of the document to Shrewsbury, accompanied with a kind and confidential letter, in which the following observation occurs :— "You are, I trust, too fully convinced of the entire confidence which I place in you, to imagine that such an accusation has made any impres sion on me, or that, if it had, I should have sent you this paper." The duke received this with all the indignation of conscious innocence, and urged the immediate arraignment of Fenwick, with a view to get at the entire truth. Unfortunately, before the trial came on, his lordship received a serious injury by a fall from his horse, which ruptured a blood vessel, and reduced him to a very weak state of health. In these circumstances, and chagrined perhaps by the disposition which was manifested in some quarters to listen to Fenwick's allegations, the duke again sought permission to resign the seals, but was dissuaded from persisting in his intentions to retire from office by the joint entreaties of the king and the earl of Portland.

Scarcely was Fenwick's affair over, when the feelings of the duke were again deeply wounded by a still more ridiculous charge got up by one Chaloner, a man of infamous character, and long notorious as a coiner and forger of bank-notes. It was alleged that the duke had contrived Sir John Fenwick's escape, and had two hours' conference with him before he left London; but the gross prevarication of the leading witness enabled the lord-justices to treat the accusation with the contempt it deserved. On the king's return from the continent Shrewsbury renewed his importunities for release from office, and at last obtained leave to surrender the seals. He was now successively offered the posts of lord-treasurer, governor of Ireland, and lastly, his choice of any employment under the crown; but he rejected every attempt to draw him again into the administration, and obtained leave to travel on the continent with the view of improving his health.

He paid his respects at Versailles to the king of France who, as he