seldom moved without a parcel of youths hanging about him, and he merry and jesting with them.

It will be readily conceived that this man was never cut out to be a presbyter, or any thing that is severe and crabbed. In no time did he lean to faction, but did his business without offence to any. He put off officious talkers about government or politics with jests, and so made his wit a catholicon, or shield, to cover all his weak places and infirmities. When the court fell into a steddy course of using the law against all kinds of offenders, this man was taken into the king's business, and had the part of drawing, and perusal of almost all indictments and informations that were then to be prosecuted, with the pleadings thereon, if any were special; and he had the settling of the large pleadings in the Quo Warranto against London. His lordship had no sort of conversation with him but in the way of business, and at the bar; but once, after he was in the king's business, he dined with his lordship, and no more. And there he shewed another qualification he had acquired, and that was to play jigs upon a harpsichord, having taught himself with an old virginal of his landlady's, but in such a manner, not for defect, but figure, as to see him were a jest. The king observing him to be of a free disposition, loyal, friendly, and without greediness or guile, thought of him to be the chief justice of the king's bench at that nice time, and the ministry could not but approve of it. So great a weight was then at stake, as could not be trusted to men of doubtful principles, or such as any thing might tempt to desert them. While he sat in the court of king's bench, he gave the rule to the general satisfaction of the lawyers. But his course of life was so different from what it had been, his business incessant, and, withal so crabbed, and his diet and exercise changed, that the constitution of his body, or head rather, could not sustain it, and he fell into an apoplexy and palsy, which numbed his parts, and he never recovered the strength of them. He outlived the judgment.in the Quo Warranto, but was not present otherwise than by sending his opinion, by one of the judges, to be for the king, who, at the pronouncing of the judgment, declared it to the court accordingly, which is frequently done in like cases.

SIR

SIR LEOLINE JENKINS,

[From the Life of Lord Keeper Guilford.]

IR Leoline Jenkins was the most faithful drudge of a secretary (u) that ever the court had. He was a civil lawyer, bred and practised; and, from the top of that profession, was taken into the court. For he was dean of the arches, judge of the admiralty for divers years, and withal (as the way of that faculty is) practised as advocate in all courts where he was not judge. He was also his majesty's advocategeneral. This good man was ambassador, and went through the treaty of Nimeguen, and, coming home, was made secretary. His learning and dexterity in business was great; but his fidelity surmounted all; for which reason he was maligned by the fanatics in the highest degree, even to persecute his name and fortunes after he was dead. His lordship contracted an intimacy with this gentleman which I might call friendship, but the character is too general; and their union was purely respecting the king's affairs, in which they laboured with an exemplary accord.

The loss of secretary Jenkins was a great mortification to his lordship. I have often heard him say, upon that occasion, that he was absolutely alone in the court; and that no one person was left in it with whom he could safely confer in the affairs of the public. While the secretary stood, and the lord Halifax and the lord Hyde, who had spirits, and were hearty, they often met at the secretary's in evenings, to consider of such dependences as were to come before the king the next day. The benefit of which was very considerable to the king's affairs, as well as to themselves; for so the matters were better understood than if no previous deliberation had been taken; and they were not unprepared to speak to them in terms

(u) Secretary of State.

proper for his majesty to entertain without mistakes, or clashing one with another, as happens sometimes about mere words, when the thing is agreed. But, after this change, they all began to look gravely upon one another, and to talk only of indifferent things. This secretary was not turned out, but quitted for consideration. He was a person that, together with incomparable veracity, fidelity, industry and courage, had some personal failings; for being used to forms, he was a little pedantic, and of a tender visage; for being inclined to laugh immoderately at a jest, especially if it were smutty, the king found him out, and failed not, after the tendency of his own fancy, to ply his secretary with conceits of that complexion; and so had the diversion of laughing at the impotence of the other's gravity. It is not amiss to subjoin here a historiette to shew the value of this minister. In the Westminster parliament, the house of commons was very averse to the court, and, from a party very prevalent there, the loyalists fell under great discouragements. Amongst the rest this good secretary was found fault with for something relevant he had uttered on the court side. Divers members, from the humility of his manner in speaking, supposed him to be a mild yielding man, and, to expose him, consulted about censuring his words, and ordering him to the bar, and to ask pardon upon his knees. And if this experiment had been pushed, and he had squeaked, as they call it, that is, recanted, and whined for an excuse, then he had been lost in every respect; for a sneaking man is despised and rejected on all sides. But for fear this, in the execution, might have an unlucky return upon them, they resolved first to sound him; for a secretary of state is no slight person to send to the tower, as must have been done of course, if he had stood firm. Thereupon, some half-faced friends told him he would be accused, and must kneel. He answered them in his formal way, that he was a poor creature, not worth the resentment of the house: he should be always submissive to such great men as they were, in every thing that concerned himself. But as he had the honour to be his majesty's secretary of state, the case was not his, but his master's, and by the grace of the living God, he would kneel to, and ask pardon of,

no mortal upon earth, but the king he served, and to him only would he give an account of any thing done with intent to serve him. This shewed that the business was like to be too hot for that time, and the design of it like to fail, and so it was let drop. But the secretary was met with at Oxford, when he was ordered to carry up the impeachment against Fitzharris; and, after all his huffing and striving, he found it best to do it. But, to return, it was notorious that, after this secretary retired, the king's affairs went backwards; wheels within wheels took place; the ministers turned formalisers, and the court mysterious. And no wonder, when the two then secretaries, professed gamesters and court artists, supplied the more retired cabals, and, being habituated in artifice, esteemed the honest plain dealers, under whose ministry the king's affairs were so well recovered, to be no better than beasts of burthen.

MR

SIDNEY GODOLPHIN.

[From the Life of the Lord Keeper Guilford.]

R. Godolphin was a courtier at large, bred a page of honour; he had, by his study and diligence, mastered not only all the classical learning, but all the arts and entertainments of the court; and, being naturally dark and reserved, he became an adept in court politics. But his talent of unravelling intricate matters, and exposing them to an easier view, was incomparable. He was an expert gamester, and capable of all business in which a courtier might be employed. All which, joined with a felicity of wit, and the communicative part of business, made him be always accounted, as he really was, a rising man at court.