children. As I have never spared my purse to supply you, according to my abilities and the reasonableness of occasions, so I have never been wanting to you in good and prudent counsels. And the God of heaven give you wisdom, constancy, and fidelity in the observance of them.

I am your ever loving father,

MATTHEW HALE.

LORD ROOS TO THE MARQUIS OF DOR-
CHESTER *.

SIR,

February 25, 1659.

SURE you were among your gallypots and glister pipes when you gave your chollor so violent a purge, to the fouling of so much innocent paper, and your own reputation (if you had any, which the wise very much doubt). You had better been drunk, and set in stocks for it, when you sent the post with a whole pacquet of chartells to me, in which you have discovered so much vapouring nonsense and rayling, that it is wholesomer for your credit to have it thought the effect of drink than your own natural talent, imperfect minde and memory for if you understand any thing in your own trade, you could not but know that the hectic of your own brain is more desperate than

This choice specimen of patrician vituperation was addressed by Lord Roos to his father in law, the Marquis of Dorchester, in consequence of the marquis having published a letter, respecting the differences which had arisen between Lord Roos and his wife. Butler, the author of Hudibras, is said to have assisted Lord Roos in the composition of this goodly epistle.

the tertian fits of mine, which are easily cured with a little sleep; but yours is past the remedy of a mortar and braying. But I wonder with what confidence you can accuse me with the discovery of private passages between us, when you are so open yourself, that every man sees through you; or how could I disclose perfectly any thing in your epistles to my father and mother, which was not before very well known to your tutors and schoolmasters, whose instructions you used in compiling those voluminous works? Let any man judge whether I am so likely to divulge secrets as you, who cannot forbear printing and publishing. Your letters are now cried in the streets of London, with ballads on the Rump; and Hewson's Lamentations; and the lord of Dorchester's name makes a greater noyse in a close alley than "kitchen stuffe," or "work for a tinker;" and all this by your own industry, who are not ashamed at the same instant to pretend to secrecy, with no less absurdity than you commit when, accusing me for using foul language, you doe outdoe Billingsgate yourself. But now you begin to vapour, and to tell us you have fought before; so I have heard you have, with your wife and poet; but if you come off with no more honour than when you were beaten by my Lord Grandison, you had better have kept that to yourself, if it were possible for you to conceale any thing; but I cannot but laugh at the untoward course you take to render yourself formidable, by bragging of your fights, when you are terrible only in your medicines. If you had told us how many you had killed that way, and how many

you had cut in pieces, besides calves and dogs, a right valiant man that has any wit would tremble to come near you; and if by your threatening to ramme your sword down my throat, you do not mean your pills, which are a more dangerous weapon, the worst is passed, and I am safe enough; for as to your feats of armes, there is no half quarter of a man that is so wretched that would venture to give you battayl; but you are most unsufferable in your unconscionable engrossing of all trades. It is not enough that you are already as many things as many of your own receipts; that you are a doctor of the civill law, and a barrister of the common, a bencher of Gray's Inne, a professour of phisick, and a fellow of the colledge; a mathematician, Caldean, a schoolman, and a piece of a grammarian (as your last work can shew were it construed), a philosopher, poet, translator, antisocordist, solliciter, broker, and usurer; besides a marquis, earl, viscount, and baron; but you must, like Dr. Suttle, professe quarrelling too, and publish yourself an Hector; of which calling there are so many already, that they can hardly live one by another. Sir, truly there is no conscience in it, considering you have not only a more sure and safe way of killing men already than they have, but a plentiful estate beside; so many trades, and yet have so little conscience to eat the bread out of their mouths, they have great reason to lay it to heart; and I hope some of these will demand reparation of you, and make you give them compounding dinners too, as you have done to the rest of your fraternities. And now be your own judge, whether

any one man can be bound in honour to fight with such an hydra as you are; a monster of many heads, like the multitude, or the devil that called himself legion. Such an encounter would be no duell, but war; which I never heard that any one man ever made alone; and I must levy forces ere I can meet you; for if every one of your capacities had but a second, you would amount to a brigade, as your letter does to a declaration; in which I cannot omit, that in one respect you have dealt very ingenuously, and that is, in publishing to the world that all your heroical resolutions are built upon your own opinion of my want of courage; this argues you well studied in the dimensions of quarrelling; among which one of the chiefest shews how to take measure of another man's valour, by comparing it with your own, to make your approaches accordingly; but as the least mistake betrays you to an infallible beating, so you had fared, and perhaps had had the honour which you seem to desire, of falling by my sword, if I had not thought you a thing fitter for any man's contempt than anger.

ROOS.

THE REV. WILLIAM MOMPESSON TO HIS CHILDREN, GEORGE AND ELIZABETH.

DEAR HEARTS,

THIS brings you the doleful news of your dearest mother's death; the greatest loss that could befall you. I am deprived of a kind and loving consort, and you are bereaved of the most indul

gent mother that ever poor little children had. But we must comfort ourselves in God, with this consideration,-the loss is only ours; our sorrow is her gain, which should sustain our drooping spirits. I assure myself that her rewards and her joys are unutterable. Dear children, your blessed mother lived an holy life, and made a comfortable end, though by means of the sore pestilence, and she is now invested with a crown of righteousness.

My children, I think it may be useful to you to have a narrative of your dear mother's virtues, that the knowledge thereof may teach you to imitate her excellent qualities. In the first place, let me recommend to you her piety and devotion, which were according to the exact principles of the church of England. In the next place, I can assure you, she was composed of modesty and humility, which virtues did possess her dear soul in a most exemplary manner. Her discourse was ever grave and meek, yet pleasant also; a vaunting and immodest word was never heard to come out of her mouth. Again, I can set out in her two other virtues, with no little confidence, viz. charity and frugality. She never valued any thing she had, when the necessities of a poor neighbour did require it, but had a bountiful spirit towards all distressed and indigent persons; yet she was never lavish or profuse, but carefully, constantly, and commendably frugal. She never liked the company of tattling women, and abhorred the wandering custom of going from house to house, that wastefully spending of precious time, for she was ever busied in useful