Algernon Sidney to his Father, the Earl of Leicester. Venice: October 12, 1660. My Lord, I did write to your lordship twice from Augsburgh, I have little to add to what I then said, unless it be in relation to something from him who was my colleague. I think he intends nothing less than my hurt, but doubt he may do me very much. Not knowing at all the grounds of my proceedings in Denmark, which I think is the principal thing objected against me, he will be subject to aggravate that, which he doth intend to attenuate. I do in that whole business refer myself wholly to my two last letters to your Lordship, being assured nobody knows my mind upon that point, unless it be those that have seen them, or some few words inserted into others written at the same time. He also mentions another point, but so obscurely, that I understand it not, no other person having spoken one word of it, which is, that there is something in the Clerk of the Courts book, that put the King to death which doth much prejudice me. I do not know the particulars, but the truth of what passed I do very well remember. I was at Penshurst, when the act for the trial passed, and coming up to town I heard my name was put in, and that those that were nominated for judges were then in the painted chamber. I presently went thither, heard the act read, and found my own name with others. A debate was raised how they should proceed upon it, and after having been sometime silent to hear what those would say, who had had the directing of that business, I did positively oppose Cromwell, Bradshaw, and others, who would have the trial to go on, and drew my reasons from these two points: First the King could be tried by no court; secondly, that no man could be tried by that court. This being alleged in vain, and Cromwell using these former words (I tell you, we will cut off his head with the crown upon it,) I replied: you may take your own course, I cannot stop you, but I will keep myself clean from having any hand in this business, immediately went out of the room, and never returned. This is all that passed publicly, or that can with truth be recorded, or taken notice of. I had an intention, which is not very fit for a letter. Some few months after, it was moved in the House that none should be of the Council of State, but those that had signed the order for the king's death; that motion soon fell; the company appearing unfit for such a work. Afterwards it was moved that none should be of the Council but such as would subscribe a paper declaring their approbation of that act; calling that a test whereby those that were close and sure unto the work in hand, might be distinguished from those that were not. I opposed that, and having given such reasons as I could to justify my opinion, I chanced to use this expression, that such a test would prove a snare to many an honest man, but every knave would slip through it; the Lord Grey of Grooby took great exceptions at this; and said I had called all those knaves, that had signed the order; upon which there was a hot debate, some defending, others blaming what I had said, but all mistaking the true sense of it; and I was not hasty to explain myself. Harry Marten saved me the trouble of doing it all, by saying that indeed such expressions did sound something harsh, when they related to such actions, in which many of my brethren had been engaged; but that the error of him who took exceptions, was much greater than mine, for I had said only, that every knave might slip through, and not that every one who did slip through was a knave. I mention these two things as public ones, of which I can have many witnesses, and they had so ill effects as to my particular concernments, as to make Cromwell, Bradshaw, Harrison, Lord Grey and others, my enemies, who did from that time continually oppose me. Love to truth, rather than expectation of success, persuades me to give your lordship this information, which you may be pleased to make use of, as you see occasion. LXXXIV. In the earliest dawn of positive science in England, the name of John Ray took the foremost place. He was the first true systematist of the animal kingdom, and, as such, the principal guide of Linnæus. As a botanist his fame stands almost higher than as a zoologist, and it is not too much to say that he was 1 As Sidney was against trial, it is likely that he aimed at the deposition and banishment of Charles I., with the concurrence of both Houses of Parliament. the inventor of geology. The following account of the Burning John Ray to Tankred Robinson. Black Notley: May 22, 1685. Sir,-Last post brought me yours of May 19. In answer whereto, seeing what you assert concerning the transmutation mentioned may be true, and is supported by good authority, and your opinion, I see no reason it should be struck out; for those principles into which bodies are immediately resoluble by fire, being not primary but compound bodies, it may consist with my opinion of certain and fixed first principles well enough. 6 Reading in the Philosophical Transactions' of March last your observations on subterraneous streams, I find you mistaken in one of your conjectures concerning matter of fact, that is concerning that they call the burning fountain [La Fontaine que brûle] near Grenoble, in Dauphiné, which our curiosity led us to make an excursive journey from Grenoble on purpose to see. This place is about three leagues distant from the city up the river. When we came there, we were much deceived in our expectation; for, instead of a burning fountain, which we dreamt of, from the name and relations of others, we found nothing of water, but only an actual flame of fire issuing out of a rent, or hole, in the side of a bank, plainly visible to the eye, to which if you applied dry straw, or any other combustible matter, it took fire presently. I took it to be nothing else but a little spiraculum of a mine of coals, or some such like substance, fired; and my reason was, because the bank, out of which the flame issued, looked much like slate and cinder of coals. One thing I cannot but admire, that is the long continuance of this burning. I find mention of it in 'Augustine de Civitate Dei.' Lib. i. cap. 7 'De fonte illo ubi faces extinguunter ardentes et accenduntur extinctæ non inveni in Epiro qui vidisse se dicerent, sed qui in Galliâ similem nôssent, non longè à Gratianopoli civitate;' by which relation of the good father, we see how he was abused and imposed upon by relators that were eye-witnesses. I myself also was abused in like manner, and therefore do verily believe there was then no more fountain there than is now-that is a fountain of fire, which, from the constancy and perpetuity of its issuing out, it may be called. Hence we may learn what credit is to be given to the verbal relations of the generality of travellers. LXXXV. When the critical admirers of the prose style of Sir William Temple ask us to believe that the distinguished diplomate 'advanced our English tongue to as great a perfection as it well can bear,' they ask too much. In marking the progress and development of English prose style from the overcharged rhetoric of the sixteenth century to a more simple and perspicuous arrangement of sentences, Temple was no doubt an important unit; but Cowley, Tillotson, Barrow, Jeremy Taylor, Dryden, and Locke also contributed, in their several degrees of excellence, to create a new standard of refinement and verbal purity in our language. The elegance and naïveté of Sir William Temple's style are illustrated nowhere better than in his letters. He had a happy knack of suiting his manner and wording to the character of the person addressed. The kindly allusion to Edmund Waller is an example of his well-known veneration for men of genius. Sir William Temple to Lord Lisle. Brussels: August, 1667. My Lord, I received lately the honour of one from your Lordship, which after all complaints of slowness and dulness had enough to bear it out, though it had been much better addressed, but needed nothing where it was, besides being yours. In my present station I want no letters of business or news, which makes those that bring me marks of my friends remembrance, or touches at their present thoughts and entertainments, taste much better than any thing can do that is common fare. I agree very much with your Lordship, in being little satisfied by the wits excuse of employing none upon relations as they do in France; and doubt much it is the same temper and course of thoughts among us, that makes us neither act things worth relating, nor relate things worth the reading. Whilst making some of the company laugh, and others ridiculous, is the game in vogue, I fear we shall hardly succeed at any other, and am sorry our courtiers should content themselves with such victories as those. I would have been glad to have seen Mr. Cowley, before he died, celebrate Captain Douglas's death; who stood and burnt in one of our ships at Chatham, when his soldiers left him, because it should never be said, a Douglas quitted his post without order; whether it be wise in men to do such actions or no, I am sure it is so in States to honour them; and, if they can, to turn the vein of wits to raise up the esteem of some qualities above the real value, rather than bring every thing to burlesque, which, if it be allowed at all, should be so only to wise men in their closets, and not to wits, in their common mirth and company. But I leave them to be reformed by great men's examples and humours, and know very well it is folly for a private man to touch them, which does but bring them like wasps about one's ears. However, I cannot but bewail the transitoriness of their fame, as well as other men's, when I hear Mr. Waller is turned to burlesque among them, while he is alive, which never happened to old poets till many years after their death; and though I never knew him enough to adore him as many have done, and easily believe he may be, as your Lordship says, enough out of fashion, yet I am apt to think some of the old cut-work bands were of as fine thread, and as well wrought, as any of our new points; and, at least, that all the wit he and his company spent, in heightening love and friendship, was better employed, than what is laid out so prodigally by the modern wits, in the mockery of all sorts of religion and government. I know not how your Lordship's letter has engaged me in this kind of discourses; but I know very well you will advise me after it to keep my residency here as long as I can, foretelling me what success I am like to have among our courtiers if I come over. The best on it is, my heart is set so much upon my little corner at Sheen, that while I keep that, no other disappointments will be very sensible to me; and, because my wife tells me she is so bold as enter into talk of enlarging our dominions there, I am contriving here this summer, how a succession of cherries may be compassed from May till Michaelmas, and how the riches of Sheen vines may be improved by half a dozen sorts which are not yet known there, and which, I think, much beyond any that are. I should be very glad to come and plant them myself this next season, but know not yet how those thoughts will hit. Though I design to stay but a month in England, yet they are here very unwilling I should stir, as all |