PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. ENGAGED in the completion of a laborious digest of a small section of the Laws of England, I have passed some of my hours of recreation amidst the works of a few favorite authors, to which, from my residence in the University, I have had easy access. From these works this Selection is made. It is published partly with the conviction that every lesson of such teachers of truth has a tendency to meliorate our general taste, and our taste for moral beauty; but chiefly with the hope that I may induce some of my contemporaries, not accustomed to this train of reading, to extend their researches to these repositories of science. I please myself with thinking that this little volume will contain "the slip for use, and part of the root for growth." I subjoin in this preface an extract containing some account of Bishop Taylor, from the sermon preached at his funeral by his successor, George Rust, bishop of Dromore: "He was born at Cambridge, and brought up in the free-school there, and was ripe for the university before custom would allow of his admittance; but by that time he was thirteen years old, he was entered into Caius College; and as soon as he was graduate, he was chosen fellow. "He was a man long before he was of age; and knew little more of the state of childhood than its innocency and pleasantness. From the university, by that time he was master of arts, he removed to London, and became public lecturer in the church of St. Paul's; where he preached to the admiration and astonishment of his auditory; and by his florid and youthful beauty, and sweet and pleasant air, and sublime and raised discourses, he made his hearers take him for some young angel, newly descended from the visions of glory. The fame of this new star, that outshone all the rest of the firmament, quickly came to the notice of the great archbishop [Laud] of Canterbury, who would needs have him preach before him; which he performed not less to his wonder than satisfaction. His discourse was beyond exception and beyond imitation: yet the wise prelate thought him too young; but the great youth humbly begged his grace to pardon that fault, and promised, if he lived, he would mend it. However, the grand patron of learning and ingenuity thought it for the advantage of the world, that such mighty parts should be afforded better opportunities of study and improvement, than a course of constant preaching would allow of; and to that purpose he placed him in his own college of All Souls in Oxford; where love and admiration still waited upon him: which, so long as there is any spark of ingenuity in the breasts of men, must needs be the inseparable attendants of so extraordinary a worth and sweetness. He had not been long here, before my lord of Canterbury bestowed upon him the rectory of Uphingham in Rutlandshire, and soon after preferred him to be chaplain to king Charles the Martyr, of blessed and immortal memory. "This great man had no sooner launched into the world, but a fearful tempest arose, and a barbarous and unnatural war disturbed a long and uninterrupted peace and tranquillity, and brought all things into disorder and confusion; but his religion taught him to be loyal, and engaged him on his prince's side, whose cause and quarrel he always owned and maintained with a great courage and constancy; till at last, he and his little fortune were shipwreck'd in that great hurricane that overturned both church and state. This fatal storm cast him ashore in a private corner of the world, and a tender providence shrouded him under her wings, and the prophet was fed in the wilderness; and his great worthiness procured him friends, that supplied him with bread and necessaries. In this solitude he began to write those excellent discourses, which are enough of themselves to furnish a library, and will be famous to all succeeding generations for their greatness of wit, and profoundness of judgment, and richness of fancy, and clearness of expression, and copiousness of invention, and general usefulness to all the purposes of a Christian: and by these he soon got a great reputation among all persons of judgment and indifferency, and his name will grow greater still, as the world grows better and wiser. "When he had spent some years in this retirement, it pleased God to visit his family with sickness, and to take to himself the dear pledges of his favor, three sons of great hopes and expectations, within the space of two or three months: and though he had learned a quiet submission unto the divine will, yet the affliction touched him so sensibly, that it made him desirous to leave the country; and going to London, he there met my lord Conway, a person of great honor and generosity; who making him a kind |
