and the influence of his good example, which was lately strengthened by the conjunction of a suitable chamber-fellow. He was happy also in Mr. Roper's favour and protection, who upon his arrival told him he should follow his brother's example, and he would do well enough; and the Master upon his admission gave him the same advice *.

Among other necessary affairs which took up part of his time, was that of writing letters, of which he writ near seven score while he was at Cambridge, in which it appears he had still at heart the glory of God and the good of mankind, and as occasion offered promoted both.. Particularly in those which he writ to his brothers and school-fellows in the country, he encouraged them to diligence in their studies.

want of my bearing with a few inconveniences (supposing there were any) whereby I might prevent it."-This was urged so handsomely, and with such affectionate concern for his friend, that his father immediately gave his consent; and about the latter end of this month they were settled together to their mutual satisfaction.

* In the letter he writ the next day after his brother came, he thus expresses himself: "I shall use my utmost endeavours, and all that little discretion I am master of, to render my dear brother innocent and good in his morals and conversation, diligent in his studies, and decent and handsome in his carriage and behaviour. But, alas! knowing my many defects in all, I cannot depend upon my own endeavours, but rather on your and my dear mother's united prayers; which therefore as I thank you for, so I heartily desire the continuance of them; and hope your commands (as also a desire of not falling short of that good opinion the Master and Mr. Roper have conceived of me) to set my brother a good example in all particulars, will perfect me in some degree at least in each of them." And concludes thus: I pray God of his infinite mercy long to preserve you and my dear mother in health and happiness, as the greatest blessing on earth to all your children; and that he would give us all grace to see our happiness in being comforts to you both, which you are pleased to reckon as a very great blessing to you. Be pleased, sir, to accept also the humble duty and thanks of your most obedient and dutiful son, A. BONWICKE."

66

† One especially which he wrote to one of them after he was bound apprentice, deserves a place here, wherein he supposes himself to need the good advice he gives his friend, and so artfully applies it to both. It is as follows:

DEAR

Having obtained leave from his father, he made him a second visit, taking his brother along with

66 DEAR COUSIN,

St. John's Cam. Sept. 14, 1712.

"THE great acquaintance we had at school, and all the while I lived with your mother, emboldens me to write first to you, who have not been so kind as to let me hear from you all the time I have been here; and, to encourage you to correspond with me, I shall endeavour to make the nature of this my first letter to you such as may really be for your advantage. At this season of the year you cannot expect news, nor ought you at any time to expect idle tales from a philosopher. Let us mount higher than such frothy trifles, and encourage one another in such things as may bring us in substantial pleasure. All persons that hope to live creditably here, or happily hereafter, must apply themselves diligently to some sort of business, art, or science. You have, I presume, to one; I to another. But this must be laid down as a self-evident axiom for both of us (if we design to make any proficiency in one or the other) that the first step to be wise is, to obey wise counsel, to practise the advice of our best friends; without this we shall never do any good, for by experience I know (as, if ever you have the misfortune to try, you will too) that young heads are neither fit nor able to chuse for themselves. This being premised, it necessarily follows, that above all we are obliged to respect our parents, and obey their counsels; because it is morally impossible, it is contrary to the dictates of nature, that they should do or chuse what is opposite to our interest. But all young persons (as for my own part I too often have) are apt to think quite otherwise, forgetting all the while the sanction of the fifth commandment, which only of all others denounces shortness of life, and therein all temporal calamities to those who disobey it by despising their parents. It were needless to reckon up the many dreadful examples of grievous punishments inflicted miraculously on such offenders; all histories (which in your business you have the opportunity of often reading) are full of them. But, were there not this command, our interest, as you may perceive by what I have said before, would naturally oblige us to respect and obey our parents, since, without following their advice and directions, we must almost inevitably be rakes and beggars in this life, and eternally miserable in that which is to come. Next after our parents, if we would be masters of our trades, if we would prosper and be happy, which is the end all rational creatures propose to themselves; I must love and obey my tutor, you your master, being those who are to teach us those arts, which we hope by God's blessing will afford us a comfortable maintenance. This we must do, chiefly because it is a duty included in the fifth commandment, and also because by our civil and meek deportment, we may reasonably hope they, out of love and affection, will be more careful and hearty in instructing us, than they otherwise would, or, in justice, were bound. As I have thus

him*. And having for almost a quarter of a year, in the severest time of it, been very serviceable, not

laid before you, dear cousin, what I at this time think seasonable, I desire you, as you see fitting, to take the same liberty with me; and do not take ill what I have here said, which flows from a sincere desire of your welfare, and from gratitude to your good mother, from whom I acknowledge myself to have received so many favours. Let me beg of you not to contemn these lines at the first reading, but give them a second. I have endeavoured to make them plain to you, and it will be your own fault afterwards if you do not profit by them. However, if all my poor endeavours fail, whether you think well or ill of me for this real kindness, I shall continue always to beg of God, that both you and I, and all who bear any relation to us, may increase in all goodness, but especially in loving, honouring, and obeying all who are set over us, particularly our dear parents; that so, after a long and happy life here on earth, we may be made partakers of a blessed immortality in Heaven. I think I need say no more at present, since the freedom I have used with you will sufficiently assure you, that I am your true and hearty friend, as well as your affectionate cousin and humble servant, AMBROSE BONWICKE."

* In about a year's time from his return from Headley to the College, he had read over Whitby's Ethics, Thirlby against Whiston, Burgersdicius's Ethics, Curcellus's Ethics, Puffendorf "De Officio Hominis et Civis," Sanderson "De Obligatione Juris et Conscientiæ," the four last books of the Æneis, Eustachius's Ethics, and a second time as far as the Passions, the greatest part of Collier's Essays, the eight last Pythian odes of Pindar, and the six first Nemæan, half Vossius's " Partitiones Oratoriæ," Grotius "De jure Belli et Pacis," Ray's "Wisdom of God in the Works of the Creation," Allingham's "Use of Maps," Euripides's Medea, and 357 verses of his Phoenissæ, Milton's Paradise Lost, 122 epigrams of Martial, a chapter out of the Greek Testament every day for eighteen weeks, 39 Hebrew Psalms, all Sallust, "Thomas à Kempis," "Brome of Fasting," Whole Duty of Man;" and Nelson, all a second time, on Sundays and other holidays; Suetonius, Caligula, and Claudius, five books of Pliny's Epistles a second time, and three more added to them; more than five books of "The Adventures of Telemachus" in French, mentioned before, p. 131; about a third part of Hierocles's "Comment on Pythagoras's Golden Verses," the prologue and first satire of Persius, the two first Catilinarian orations, that for Milo, and the two first Philippics, the first volume of Echard's "Roman History," Howell's Epistles, Tyrrell" of the Law of Nature," and against Hobbes, part of Clerk's Physics and Cheyne's "Philosophical Principles of Religion;" with other books. During which time he also made 26 Greek or Latin themes, 11 copies of verses, 6 theses, 6 Latin epistles, two declamations, 6 epitomes, a great many arguments in ethics and physics for disputations;

and

only in instructing the boys as formerly (in which he was sometimes relieved by his brother) but in calling them up early, and condescending to any other assistance he was capable of giving the family; he returned before Lent, with his brother, to the college; and by a letter dated Feb. 17, 1712-13, gave his father an account of their safe arrival, and of the extraordinary care and concern of Mr. Roper for them. After which he thus goes on: "I am returned very luckily for lectures; for on Saturday our sub-tutor, Mr. Newcome, begun Taquet's Euclid to us, and yesterday he began to read us Rohault's Physics. I am very glad I brought the De Chales; it will help me, I hope, in mathematicks, which I find somewhat difficult. Besides our best friends, that little acquaintance I have made among my equals, I find, to my comfort, more and more civil to me; and can never enough adore the goodness

and added to the former excerpta in his Adversaria many observations and phrases out of the afore-mentioned authors. He had likewise, according to his former method, turned part of the version of Musæus into Greek verse. And for Demosthenes's oration de Rep. ordinanda he did something more, first translating above half of it into Latin; and, dividing his paper-book into three columns, he wrote that version in the middle, and then, turning it again into Greek, writ that on one side of his Latin version, and Demosthenes's Greek on the other side. After the same manner he translated part of Quintilian's first oration de Pariete palmato, and part of Tully's Offices into English, in which sort of translations he was generally very happy, and then returned them into Latin, opposing them to the authors in his paper-book. The same method he made use of for mastering the French, turning part of Telemachus into English, and back again into French, and then comparing his version with the author, Besides all this, he had, at the motion of his best friend, undertaken the translating a sma!! tract of Bp. Henshaw's into Latin. The title of it is, "Spare Hours of Meditations." The good man giving him the book, took occasion from hence of advising him not to suffer even such parts of his time as came under that denomination to pass away useless; and he, who paid the greatest deference to all the counsels of so prudent and so kind a patron, gratefully accepted the book and the advice, and immediately applied that little spare time he had left to this translation, and by this time had gone through 45 pages, for the most part very well, though some places were difficult.

of

of God, for the manifold supports, comforts, and favours, he hath showered down on me in this place*.

His conscience was very tender, and he preserved that tenderness by the daily examination of himself; so that the sins of omission, which generally are so little regarded notwithstanding that procedure of the last day, which our blessed Lord gives us in the 25th of St. Matthew, goes wholly upon them, could not be endured by him, but were as duly repented of as those of commission; and upon any

* After this, though he had honestly earned the best entertainmen: that could be given him at his father's, yet he thus expresseth himself: "And now, sir, should I begin to return ordinary thanks to my dear mother and you, for those many and great favours I received in the country, I might seem to intimate, either that these were the first I had received from you, or else that I had made some competent recompence for what kindness I had before been obliged by. Both which I so well know to be utterly false, that I am, on the contrary, deeply sensible of my being too ungrateful, or rather (I hope) too incapable of making any recompence for those numberless obligations you have laid on me ever since I had being, for from you, my dear parents, I gratefully acknowledge, I have received all that could be expected, either from the most indulgent parents, best friends, or kindest bencfactors, to whom, next under God, I owe all that little virtue, learning, and fortune that I am master of. In gratitude therefore, and out of a due sense of my own and all our future interest, I think myself bound humbly to advise and press you, not to let slip Lady-day before you have fixed your removal. If nothing else, let the interest your children have in your life, quicken your search; and be assured I (and I donbt not all my brothers and sisters will agree with me) shall be very glad to abate much of that plenty you have, by God's blessing, always maintained us in, if we could but thereby add one day to either of your lives, or any little augmentation to either of your healths. Some small decrease of your school, therefore, may be doubly useful; help you sooner to a house, and enable you to live longer in it. I know you will so far remember my constant readiness to make good my words by my obedience, as not to think these mere compliments t," &c.

For the better understanding this it must be observed, that Headley was a very good air for young persons, but too sharp for his father, which made him often think of removing into some warmer place; and this son of his had so tender and affectionate a concern for him, that he was often pressing him to it. One objection against it might be, the loss of some of his scholars upon a removal, which he here handsomely turns to an argument for it.

difficulty