fenfive converfation, a clear integrity, and an impartial justice to all within your sphere. Learn from the man greatly beloved to reconcile policy and religion, bufiness and devotion, abstinence and abundance, greatness and goodness, magnanimity and humility, power and subjection, authority and affability, conversation and retirement, intereft and integrity, Heaven and the Court, the favour of God and the favour of the King; —and then you are masters of Daniel's secret; you will secure yourselves an universal and lasting interest; you will like him be greatly beloved both by God and

man.” .

The fermon being specially appointed for the season of Lent, he did not neglect the occafion to urge on his hearers the duty of pbferving the rule of the Church in abstaining from their felf-indulgence, at least on the appointed days, and especially in Lent.

"I mention," he says, "this example of Daniel, to show what the ancients thought of Fafting, and how they kept Lent. I do not exhort you to follow them any further than either our climate or our conftitutions will bear; but we may easily follow Daniel in abstaining from wine, and from the more pleasurable meats; and such an abftinence as this, with fuch a mourning for our fins, and the fins of others, is the proper exercise of a primitive spirit during all the weeks of Lent. For what is Lent, in its original institution, but a spiritual conflict to subdue the flesh to the fpirit, to beat down our bodies, and to bring them into subjection? What is it but a penitential martyrdom for fo many weeks together, which we fuffer for our own and others' fins? A devout foul that is able to obferve it faftens himself to the Cross on

Ash Wednesday, and hangs crucify'd by contrition all the Lent long; that having felt in his closet the burthen and the anguish, the nails and the thorns, and tafted the gall of his own fins, he may by his own crucifixion be better difpofed to be crucify'd with Chrift on Good Friday, and most tenderly to fympathize with all the dolours, and preffures, and anguish, and torments, and desertion, infinite, unknown, and unspeakable, which God Incarnate endured, when He bled upon the Crofs for the fins of the world; that being purified by repentance, and made conformable to Chrift crucify'd, he may offer up a pure oblation at Easter, and feel the power, and the joys, and the triumph of the Saviour's Resurrection."

Not long after this he was again fummoned from Wells to affift at the Coronation of James, which took place on the 23rd of April, being St. George's day. The King had felected him, although the junior Bishop, to walk by his fide, under the canopy of state, in the proceffion from Westminster Hall, and to be his fupporter on the fteps of the throne during the ceremonies in the Abbey. His friend, Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely, was appointed to preach the coronation fermon. Thus we fee the two poor Winchester scholars brought to great eminence, men of ferious lives, who esteemed a holy retirement above all the parade of courts, yet fought out by the King, as worthy of the highest marks of favour he could bestow.

The Holy Communion had always formed part of the coronation fervice. But James could not receive it, as administered in the Anglican Church. Notwithstanding this, he opened Parliament with a speech, in

"

which he promised to fupport and defend the Church. of England, and the people seemed disposed to rely on his pledges. The Commons by an unanimous vote fettled upon him during life the revenues enjoyed by the late king. The speaker, in presenting the Bill for the Royal affent, expreffed the fatisfaction of the House in his Majefty's gracious and facred word, repeated declarations, and affurance to fupport and defend the Religion of the Church of England, as is now by law established and we humbly befeech your majefty to accept this revenue, and along with it our hearty prayers, that God Almighty would blefs you with a long life and happy reign to enjoy it." The King thanked them very heartily for the Bill, declaring that their readiness and cheerfulness in the dispatch of it was as acceptable to him as the Bill itself: and that he could not exprefs his thoughts more fuitably than by affuring them he had "a true English heart, as jealous of the honour of the nation as you can be; and I please myself with the hopes that, by God's bleffing, and your affiftance, affistance, I may carry the reputation of it yet higher in the world than ever it has been in the time of any any of my ancestors."

CHAPTER XIII.

The Duke of Monmouth: his life and character-invades England.

N the midst of this interchange of civilities between the King and Parliament intelligence arrived that the Duke of Monmouth, one of the natural fons of the late King, had landed at Lyme, in Dorsetshire, and fet up the standard of rebellion in the western counties. The Parliament immediately paffed a Bill of attainder against him, offered a reward of 5,000l. to any who should bring him in, and having voted 400,000l. to the king for the prefent emergency, both Houses adjourned on the 2nd of July, the members being difmiffed to their feveral counties, where their prefence was required to encourage the loyal, and control the difaffected. It appears by the journals of the House of Lords that Ken was present in Parliament on this occafion: but within a few days after we find him in his Diocese, a meffenger of charity amidst the din of war, raised by the invafion.

This period of Monmouth's history forcibly illuftrates the Bishop's character in two particulars, his compaffion for fufferers, and his ftedfaftnefs in carrying out the injunctions of the Church, even when his benevolent feelings would have prompted him to relax the ftrictness of her rule. It is, therefore, neceffary

to enter into fome brief review of Monmouth's eventful life. He was the eldest of Charles II.'s natural children, born at Rotterdam during the King's exile. He first went by the name of James Crofts, received his education at Paris under the care of Henrietta Maria, and was brought up a Roman Catholic. At the age of fourteen, foon after the Restoration, the King fent for him to Court, provided him a stately equipage, appointed for his use apartments in the Privy Gallery at Whitehall, and by warrant authorized him to bear the royal arms of England and France. He caused him alfo to be reconciled to the English Church.

He was a youth of lovely form and countenance, perfected in all the graces and accomplishments of the Court, and fuch a favourite with the King, that for many years he lavished upon him every honour and endearment that an over-indulgent parent could bestow. At the age of eighteen, having already created him a Peer of Parliament, and a Knight of the Garter, he fecured for him in marriage the richest heiress of the kingdom, the beautiful Countess of Buccleuch, then only fixteen years of age. The mere lift of his titles and offices would fuffice to fhow the entire devotion of the king's heart to this Abfalom of his house.*

Duke of Monmouth and Buccleuch, Earl of Doncaster, and Dalkeith, Lord Scott of Tindale, Whitchester, and Afhdale. Lord Great Chamberlain of Scotland, Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire, Governor of Kingston upon Hull, Chief Juftice in Eyre of all the Forefts, Chafes, Parks and Warrens fouth of the River Trent, Lord General of all the King's Land Forces, Captain of the Life Guards of Horse, Chancellor of the Univerfity of Cambridge, Master of the Horse, and Lord of the Privy Council, &c.