Minister had. It here occurs to my thoughts that it was a strange thing that Charles 2d after his restoration should marry the Infanta of Portugal, when it appears by the printed letters of Charles 1st broke up and published by the Parliament (wherein I can upon occasion direct you to the page*) that he writes to the Queen that Sabran the Portugal Envoy had propounded to him a match between that Infanta and his son Charles, but that he returned him an answer, that signified nothing or to that effect. This was when Charles Ist's fortune was at its dead low ebb. But from Charles 2d's marrying her at the spring tide of his fortune (and when she was grown so old) I may say, Hinc illæ lachrymæ, as to England on various accounts.

I shall in the next place tell you that there was a notable book printed against Old Clarendon, A. 1674, called An Epistle Apologetical of S. C.

* It is numb. 15, page 15, of The King's Cabinet opened, or certain Packets of secret Letters and Papers written with the King's own hand, and taken in his Cabinet at Nasby Field. London, 1645, 4to." The Portugall agent hath made me two propositions, first concerning the release of his master's brother, for which I shall have £50000 if I can procure his liberty from the King of Spaine; the other is for a marriage betwixt my son Charles and his master's eldest daughter. For the first I have freely undertaken to do what I can, and for the other, I will give such an answer as shall signifie nothing."

(i. e. Serenus Cressy) to a person of honour touching his Vindication of Dr. Stillingfleet. It' is full of satire and wit. If you have it not, I believe Turner, the Popish Bookseller, near Turnstile, in Holbourne, can help you to it. It is an 8vo. of about 18d. price.*

I shall have occasion when the Parliament is up again to quote your Athena Oxon. with honour, in a vindication of the Lord Anglesey's Memoirs by me published, which one Sir John Thompson, a Parliament man, hath in a 6d. pamphlet reflected basely on, as well as on myself; and wherein he rails basely against King James, and is the first railer against him in print who hath set his name to his book. This Thompson was always' a fiery whig and a non-conformist. And it here comes in my mind that he having a son a scholar in Oxon, and I think a Gentleman Commoner, and being there with his son about the time of K. James's being there, and his son being called on then according to the custom of the University to be matriculated, Thompson

Wood possessed this very rare volume, which was given him on its publication by Ralph Sheldon, Esq. of Beoly, Worcestershire. It is now among his curious collection preserved in the Ashmole museum, numb. 722. This Mr. Sheldon was a very strenuous friend to Wood, and promised him a hundred pounds towards printing the Athena, which his heir honourably confirmed to him. Peter Langtoft's Chronicle, by Hearne, p. vi.

made him scruple taking the usual oaths then, and I was informed had K. James's dispensation for not taking them; but whether the thing was reverá so, or such dispensation was allowed of, I know not. If any of the Officers of the University can inform you of the true matter of fact therein I would be glad to know it, because it will be an aggravation of the circumstances of his misbehaviour. I am, with all hearty respect, Sir,

Your most humble servant,

From my lodging at a Drugster's, over against the Goat Tavern, by Ivy Bridge, in the Strand.

For his honord friend Mr. Antony Wood, at his lodgings neare Merton College,

in Oxford.

P. PETT.*

* Peter Pett, son of Peter Pett, Esq. master shipbuilder to King Charles the First, (a situation held also by his great grandfather in the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth,) was born at Deptford, educated first at Greenwich under Mr. Young, afterwards at St. Paul's School, under Langley. On the 28th of June, 1645, he was admitted" pensionarius minor" of Sidney College, Cambridge, where having taken the degree of B.A. he removed to Oxford, and after remaining short time at Pembroke College, became fellow of All Souls, 1648. Applying himself to the study of the Civil Law, he took a degree in that faculty, and finally settled at Gray's

I had sooner answered your letter, but that till lately I had not an amanuensis to ease my hand which had a gouty weakness in it.

If ever you come to spend any time in this town you may fish out facts enow of incontestable truth about old Clarendon in the Journals of the H. of Commons and of the Lords, where perhaps I may get you leave to search gratis.

Sir Robert Howard, Sir Edward Seymour, and Colonel Titus, who teased that Lord in Parliament, are still living, and in this town, and you may on occasion find them communicative men.

When I have my health, I am happy in conversing with the Athena Oxon. in the Tennisonian Library. Be pleased in your next to write out for me the exact title of the Earl of Anglesey's pamphlet against Dr. Hicks, as it is in the Athena, and there is a very diverting passage in the Oxford Antiquities, of which I entreat you to transcribe the quotation for me. It relates to a layman preaching in St. Mary's Oxon, in the days of Queen Elizabeth and saying somewhat of his

Inn. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society at its foundation, soon after was made Advocate General to Charles the Second, in Ireland, and chosen a Member of the House of Commons in that kingdom, where he was finally knighted by the Duke of Ormond, then Lord Lieutenant.

See a list of his works in Ath. Oron. ii., 1008, and some particulars of him in Knight's Life of Colet, 8vo. 1724, p. 408.

coming up the stony steps of the pulpit, and talking there of the sweet swallows of salvation, and such like trumpery.

* The story of the layman's preaching, alluded to above, is in the second volume of Wood's Annals, Ann. Dom. 1563, 5-6 Eliz. After lamenting the dispersion of the scholars on account of the plague, and the low ebb to which learning was reduced in consequence of it, he proceeds thus:"Preachers I am sure were so rare, that there were but two in the University that preached on the Lord's day (yet not constantly) to the Academians: those were Mr. Thomas. Sampson, Dean of Christ Church, and Dr. Lawrence Humphrey, President of Magdalen College. Nay Sir Henry Saville hath often reported to certain intelligent persons, that have told me the same, that when he first came to the University about 1561, there was but one constant preacher in Oxon, and he only a Bachelor of All Soul's College. These I say preaching for the most part to the Academians, their puritanical Doctrine took such deep root among their auditors, that it never could be quite extirpated. When Mr. Sampson left the University, and Dr. Humphrey often absent upon occasions, and none left perhaps to execute the office of preaching rightly, Richard Taverner, of Woodeaton, near Oxford, Esq. did several times preach in Oxford, and when he was High Sheriff of this county (which was [a few] years after this) came into St. Mary's Church out of pure charity with a golden chain about his neck, and a sword as 'tis said by his side (but false without doubt, for he always preached in a damask gown) and gave the Academians, destitute of evangelical advice, a sermon beginning with these words:

Arriving at the mount of St. Mary's in the stony