them which disfigures the pages of the recent historian of Cromwell.

Crossing Huntingdonshire, on this occasion [in March 1641-2], on his way Northward, his Majesty had visited the

*

Establishment of Nicholas Ferrar at Little Gidding, on the western border of that county. A surprising Establishment, now in full flower, wherein above fourscore persons, including domestics, with Ferrar and his Brother and aged Mother at the head of them, had devoted themselves to a kind of Protestant Monachism, and were getting much talked of in those times. They followed celibacy, and merely religious duties; employed themselves in " binding of Prayer-books," embroidering of hassocks, and what charitable work was possible in that desert region; above all, they kept up, night and day, a continual repetition of the English liturgy; being divided into relays and watches, one watch relieving another, as on ship-board; and never allowing at any time the sacred fire to go out. This also, as a feature of the times, the modern reader is to meditate. In

cannot be reckoned as exceeding thirty. Mr. Carlyle appears to have caught at the "sixty or eighty" poor children who came as catechumens from the neighbouring villages.

2. The "celibacy" is equally imaginary: when visited by Carlyle's "Anonymous Person" some of the daughters of the family were probably not marriageable. Afterwards, six out of eight became wives; and, as Mr. Mayor remarks, "had their mother been the most scheming of dowagers, she could scarcely have repined at such a proportion of success."

3. "The binding of Prayer-books" (though marked as a quotation,) is not authenticated. The young people practised bookbinding it is true, having a bookbinder's daughter from Cambridge to teach them, and they may have bound prayer-books, but the only books they are recorded to have bound are some harmonies of Scripture.

4. The "desert region" was a spot

notice of these people, not unknown to the modern reader. A far livelier notice, record of an actual visit to the place, by an Anonymous Person, seemingly a religious Lawyer, perhaps returning from circuit in that direction, at all events a most sharp distinct man, through whose clear eyes we also can still look, is preserved by Hearne in very unexpected neighbourhood. The Anonymous Person, after some survey and communing, suggested to Nicholas Ferrar, "Perhaps he had but assumed all this ritual mummery, in order to get a devout life led peaceably in these bad times?" Nicholas, a dark man, who had acquired something of the Jesuit in his foreign travels, looked at him ambiguously, and said, "I perceive you are a person who knows the world!" They did not ask the Anonymous Person to stay dinner, which he considered would have been agreeable.†

Now this is a passage of which we advisedly say that Mr. Carlyle ought to be heartily ashamed. It is one that in false colouring and misrepresentation is scarcely surpassed among the most fantastic and romantic put forth by our popular historians of the more lively sex. 1. As to the number of the household, which he states as "above four score;" from the authentic accounts it

half a dozen villages within a distance of two miles. Indeed it was probably to the former circumstance, in great measure, that Little Gidding was indebted for its popular fame, and certainly for the royal visit which forms the excuse for Mr. Carlyle's introduction of the subject.

5. "They kept up, night and day, a continual repetition of the English Liturgy." Night and day, did they? but let that pass (rejoins Mr. Mayor). One can only reply that they might have been worse employed; and that, if for English Liturgy we had read Psalms of David, we might have bethought ourselves of a modern, who loudly trumpets forth those very Psalms, when degraded into a fanatical battle-cry.

6. Carlyle's" Anonymous Person" is a gentleman who bears the less mysterious designation of "Edward Lenton of Grey's Inn" in the very book he refers to-Hearne's Caii Vindicia, and whose description of Little Gidding has been frequently reprinted, with his name, in other works, more particularly in one of the commonest of books, Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Biography.

† Carlyle's Cromwell, i. 106.

7. Carlyle's description of Nicholas Ferrar as "a dark man" is transferred from his brother John Ferrar, whom Lenton calls "a short black-complexioned man; whose apparel and hair made him shew priestlike;" whilst Nicholas, whom Lenton describes merely as "a bachelor, of a plain presence, but of able speech and parts," had in childhood been "fair, and of bright hair like his mother," and in manhood, as his portraits shew, was clear-complexioned. 8. The parting anecdote of the Commonwealth historian, in which he passes off on his victim the character of "something of a Jesuit," can be only truly judged on comparison with the following passage of Lenton's narrative upon which it is founded:

This and all other our discourse, being ended with mildness and moderation, on

his part at least, I said farther, since their devotions (from which they would be loth to be diverted or interrupted, as in the said protestation appears,) are more strict and regular than usual, if in their consciences they were persuaded that all their formalities and ceremonies were but adia

phora (things indifferent), I then thought they were as wise as serpents, in the scripture sense, in complying so with the Church ceremonies, that they might the safelier hold on their course without ex

ception. For in this comportment, I thought, authority would not except against them, unless for exceeding the cathedrals, who make but one reverence, whereas they make three. He said, I spake like one who seemed to have had experience in the world. There was nothing in Mr. Lenton's account that could fairly be complained of, unless it was that he ventured to write at all upon so short an acquaintance with Little Gidding as a visit of two hours only. It was, however, a private letter, in compliance with the request of sir John Hetley, from whom he had parted at lord Montagu's the same morning, and was not intended for publication: and it had been written about seven years before a copy got into the hands of the malicious parties who made its statements the foundation of "The Arminian Nunnery." When that publication appeared Mr.

John Ferrar, the elder and surviving brother of Nicholas, addressed to Mr. Lenton a "discreet and respective letter " of remonstrance, to which the latter replied, deprecating the supposition that as a gentleman, a scholar, or a christian, he could have been guilty of all that had been committed in that pamphlet. "To have put the true copy of my letter in print (he remarks), without my privity, had been a great inhumanity. But to present it with so many falsifications, and laying his inhumanities on me, I think none but a licentious libeller, or a beggarly ballad-maker, would have offered." Hereupon he forwarded to Mr. Ferrar a true copy of his letter, and it is that copy which was published by Hearne, and which has now been frequently reprinted, as we have already stated.

But, besides Lenton's narrative, there are much ampler and more authentic memoirs of Nicholas Ferrar and Little Gidding extant from the pen of his brother John and their friend Francis Turner, bishop of Ely: and from the materials thus afforded their history has exercised the pen of various modern biographers, of as various parties in the religious world.

The laudable object of Mr. Mayor in the present publication is to put forth faithfully, with the illustrations of an editor rather than the perversions of an author, the original materials of Ferrar's life so far as they have been preserved. Their bibliographical history is somewhat extraordinary. Bishop Turner's life was not printed, nor is any perfect manuscript of it now known to be extant. Extracts were first given to the world by Dr. Dodd, in the second volume of the Christian Magazine, 1761. A short summary appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1772. In 1829 " a clergyman of the established church" printed at Bristol Memoirs of Nicholas Ferrar, professedly collected from bishop Turner's narrative; and again in 1837 the Rev. T. Macdonogh republished the same, with additions.

Bishop Turner's life had been framed from materials furnished by John Ferrar, and which, as appears from a letter of the antiquary Peck, were compiled in 1655. From the same materials Peck himself composed a life, which, like Turner's, is now missing. Later in the last century they came into the hands of Dr. Peckard, master of Magdalen college, Cambridge, who also compiled from them a life, making mutilations that Mr. Mayor much laments, and printed it in 1790.

Mr. Mayor now prints his "two lives," the one "by John Ferrar," from extracts made by Baker the Cambridge antiquary, and now in the Cambridge University Library, and the second from a MS. of the Rev. William Robinson, once Rector of Gidding, now in the hands of his grandson the Rev. D. J. Hopkins. The latter is called the Life "by Doctor Jebb." 66 Who Dr. Jebb was (says Mr. Mayor) I have not yet ascertained; there was a nonjuror of the name. What is certain is, that the life is in substance, and generally in expression, Turner's." Under these circumstances we regret that the editor did not at once call it Bishop Turner's.

He adds:·

If partiality do not deceive me, it yields to few English biographies in vigour of style or interest of subject, and seems well adapted for general circulation in a cheap form. I throw out the hint in the hope that it may meet the eye of some influential member of the Christian Knowledge Society.

In addition to these manuscripts, Mr. Mayor has diligently hunted up whatever other memorials of this interesting family are now known to be extant, and, among the rest, his researches have been rewarded by the sight of a quarto volume which was accidentally found about five-andtwenty years ago in pulling down an old house at Peterborough, and which contains copies of 153 letters, written chiefly by Mrs. Collett, the sister of Nicholas Ferrar, and mother of the "nuns" or "virgins" of Little Gidding, between the years 1600 and 1645. Some of the most remarkable of these form part of his illustrations, and they suffice to prove that their writer was not unworthy of her race.

Mr. Mayor tells us that he has long designed a series of Cambridge me

moirs, partly on the plan of Dr. Wordsworth's well-known collection. It was in Baker's MSS. that he first met with Ferrar's life, and at once saw in it an artless tale of a period too much neglected, and of a man whom to know is to venerate. He also observed that it contained a description of the inner life of the family, perhaps in greater fulness than could be found of any other private family of the time; from which circumstance alone, irrespective of its intrinsic value, it must be not a little attractive to the historical student. We need scarcely add that we heartily approve of the spirit and the style in which the editorial task has in this instance been executed, and we trust that the editor will receive both encouragement and co-operation to produce further volumes of "Cambridge in the Seventeenth Century." He admits that the last thirty years have witnessed more and more important publications on Cambridge history than any previous century; but he truly urges that there is still lacking a comprehensive review of university studies and university life. This can only be accomplished, on trustworthy foundations, by the gradual accumulation of evidence such as this volume presents.

The house at Gidding, which accommodated the large and religious household of the Ferrars, no longer exists: but the humble church still presents some interesting relics of their rule. It is a small brick edifice, altogether less than fifty feet in length. Over the door is inscribed, "This is none other but the House of God and the Gate of Heaven:" and on a brass plate, on the right of the door, "The House of Prayer."

The interior is fitted like a college chapel, with oak panelling,-that on the right hand having come down from Ferrar's time,--and with stalls.

In the nave still stands the font," the leg, laver, and cover all of brass." There is also a fine brass eagle, for a lectern, minus its claws once of silver; and within the chancel-arch is a frame for an hour-glass, supported by a bracket. The table containing the commandments, Lord's prayer, and creed is of brass; the communion-table of cedar, and its silken carpet is preserved, together with a small piece of tapestry which the sisters worked for

Steward, an annuity of 1,000l. during her natural life, he gave and granted in augmentation of the said annuity towards the more ample maintenance, estate, degree, and honour of his said cousin, and also for divers causes and considerations, &c. an annuity of 1,000l. (Pat. 4 Jac. p. 2.)

The same year (9th March, 1606-7,) another grant was made by James I. to his cousin, wherein, as her consanguinity and relationship, although not precisely stated, is specially referred to, I beg permission to state the preamble in the very words of the patent, viz.:

De con' D'ne Arbella Stuart pro compositione, &c.-James, by the Grace of God, &c. To all to whom these presents shall come greeting, whereas our late moste deare sister Queene Elizabeth de

ceased, was in her lifetime lawfully seised of an estate of inheritance, either in her owne right or by conveyance, from John St. Leger esquier, or by bothe, of and in diverse honors, manors, landes, tene

ments, and hereditaments, situate, lying,

and being in the county of Essex, and in sundrie other counties within our realme of England, which sometymes were the inheritance of Thomas Butler late Earle of Ormond, and of diverse other landes and tenements which likewise were the inheritance of the Ladie Anne wife of the said Earle, one of the daughters and coheirs of Sr Richarde Hanckforde, knight, which said honors, manors, landes, tenements, and hereditaments, or some of them, are from our saide late deare sister discended, or ought to discende, unto us as we have been informed; know ye that we, graciously tendering the good estate of our dearlie beloved cousin the Ladie Arbella Stuart, being neere of our bloude and kinred and being also neere of bloude and kinred unto our said late deare sister

confer, treat, and conclude with any that doe or shall have hold or use any the said honors, mannors, lands, tenements, or hereditaments for composition to be had and made with them for our estate, right, and title of, in, and to the same or any part of them. (Pat. 4 Jac. p. 15, 9th March.)

And this pension or annuity, or the one recited in this grant, is doubtless the very pension to which Mr. D'Israeli alludes as discovered by his inspection of Sir Julius Caesar's (the then Master of the Rolls) MSS. (Sloane MSS.4160).

The remaining document is the entry of the proclamation for the apprehension of the Lady Arbella and her husband, after her flight from Highgate, which fixes the date of her temporary escape, viz. 3rd June [1611]. D'Israeli, observing on this incident, remarks that King "James was for issuing a proclamation" in terms that showed his fears from the remote consequences he apprehended might ensue by her marriage; but as the existence of this proclamation was evidently unknowns to Mr. D'Israeli, I give it entire, as entered on the back of the Patent Roll, 9 Jac. p. 10, viz.

De Proclamatione tangen' D'nam Arbellam et Will'm Seymor.-Whereas we are given to understande that the Lady Arbella and William Seymore, second sonne to the Lord Beauchampe, being for divers great and haynous offences committed, the one to our Tower of London and the other to a speciall guarde, have founde the meanes by the wicked practises of divers lewde persons, as namely, Markham, Crompton, Rodney, and others, to break prison and make escape on Monday the thirde of June, with an intent to transport themselves into forreyne partes, wee do hereby straightlie charge and commaund all persons whatsoever uppon their

in, and to the said mannors, landes, tenems, and hereditaments is lawfully come and descended unto us; and to the end that the said Ladie Arbella may be the better enabled to support and mayntaine herselfe in honorable estate according to her birth and calling, of our especial grace, certain knowledge, and meere motion, we are pleased and contented and do by these presents authorize and appoint the said ladie for us and in our name to

* Sic.

to receave, harbor, or assist them in their passage anie way as they will auns were it at their perilles, but upon the like charge and paine to use the best meanes they can for their apprehension and keeping them in saffe custody, which we will take as an acceptable service. Given at Greenwich, the fowerth daie of June. Per ipsum Regem.