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and, being carried to the earl of Arnndel's houfe there, he expired, after a week's illness, on the ninth of April, 1626, without any iffue by his wife, who was a daughter of alderman Barnham, of London, whom he married when about the age of forty, and with whom he received a plentiful fortune.

Notwithstanding the great hurry and bustle he appears to have been concerned in, from his first entering upon bufinefs, to the moment of his condemnation; yet, even during that. bufy time, he often employed himself in mak ing experiments, and publifhed fome of his philofophical works; which is a proof of the vaft extent of his genius.

From them it appears, that he may justly be reckoned the chief among thofe who first began to free the world from the flavish chains of the old fcholaftic learning, and to introduce true philofophy and useful knowledge; therefore, whatever he may have deferved for his. politics from the generation in which he lived, to pofterity his memory has been, and will always be, facred.

To conclude, his character feems to have been a perfect contraft; for he appears to have. been ambitious, yet daftardly; ftudious, yet buftling; avaritious, yet negligent of money; virtuous, yet venal; fond of a character, yet ready to facrifice it upon every occafion; and of a penetrating and folid judgment in all forts of literature, but weak in the conduct of life. If he had confined his ambition to that of be

ing a great philofopher and a learned man, as he had friends enough to have provided for him in fome fine-cure poft that would have furnished him a handsome fubfiftence, he might have lived happily, and died with glory unfullied; but he affected to be a statesman, and might indeed have been a useful- minister to a great and wife prince; but, as his lot was under a weak one, and, as he had not the refolution to adhere to the counfels he gave, he lived in continual agonies, and died under a public reproach.

How common is it for men, even of the most fhining talents, to mistake the true road to happiness!

THE

Tringham Sculp

Williers Duke of Buckingham

THE LIFE OF

GEORGE VILLIERS.

(Written by a courtier of those times.)

G

EORGE VILLIERS, duke of Buckingham, was born in the year 1592, on the twentieth of Auguft, at Brookeby in Leicestershire, where his ancestors had chiefly continued about the space of four hundred years, rather without obfcurity, than with any great luftre, after they had long before been feated at Kinalton in the county of Nottingham. He was the third fon of George Villiers, knight, and Mary,late countess of Buckingham, and daughter to Anthony Beaumont of Coleorton, Efq; names on either fide well known of ancient extraction. He was nurtured where he had been born, in his first rudiments, till the years of ten; and from thence fent to Billifden-fchool in the fame county, where he was taught the principles of mufic, and other flight literature, till the thirteenth of his age; at which time his father died. Then his beautiful and provident mother (for those attributes will not be denied her) took him home to her houfe at Goodby, where she had him in especial care; fo as he was first (as

we

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