No part of history is more instructive and delighting, than the lives of Great and Worthy Men: The shortness of them invites many readers; and there are such little, and yet remarkable passages in them, too inconsiderable to be put in a general History of the Age in which they lived, that all people are very desirous to know them. This makes. Plurtarch's Lives to be more generally read, than any of all the Books which the Ancient Greeks, or Romans wrote. But the Lives of Hero's and Princes, are commonly filled with the account of the great things done by them, which do rather belong to a general, than a particular History; and do rather amuse the Reader's fancy with a splendid show of Greatness, than offer him what is really so useful to himself; And indeed the Lives of Princes are either written with so much flattery, by those who intended to merit by it at their own hands, or others concerned in them: Or with so much spite, by those who being ill used by them, have revenged themselves on their Memory, that there is not much to be built on in them; And though the ill nature of many makes what is Satyrically written to be generally more read and believed, than when the flattery is visible and course; yet certainly Resentment may make the writer corrupt the Truth of History, as much as Interest. And since all men have their blind sides, and committ errors, he that will industriously lay these together, leaving out, or but slightly touching what should be set against them, to balance them, may make a very good man appear in bad colours; So, upon the whole matter, there is not that reason to expect either much Truth, or great Instruction, from what is written concerning Hero's or Princes; for few have been able to imitate the patterns Suetonius set the World, in writing the Lives of the Roman Emperors, with the same freedom that they had led them:

But the lives of private men, though they seldom entertain the Reader with such a variety of passages as the other do; yet certainly they offer him things that are more imitable, and do present Wisdom and Virtue to him, not only in a fair idea, which is often looked on as a piece of the Invention of Fancy of the Writer, but in such plain and familiar instances, as do both direct him better, and persuade him more; and there are not such temptations to persuade those who wrote them, so that we may generally depend more on the Truth of such relations as are given in them.

In the Age in which we live, Religion and Virtue have been proposed and defended with such advantages, with that great force of reason and those persuasions, that they can hardly be matched in former times; yet after all this, there are but few much wrought on by them, which perhaps flows from this, among other reasons, that there are not so many excellent Patterns set out., as might both in a shorter, and more effectual manner recommend that to the World, which Discourses do but coldly;

The wit and style of the Writer being more considered, than the Argument which they handle; and therefore the proposing of Virtue and Religion in such a Model, may perhaps operate more than the perspective of it can do. And for the History of Learning, nothing does so preserve and improve it, as the writing the Lives of those who have been Eminent in it.

There is no book the Ancients have left us, which might have informed us more than Diogenes Laertius his Lives of the Philosophers, if he had had the Art of Writing equal to that great Subject which he undertook, for if he had given the World such an account of them, as Gassendus has done of Peiresk, how great a stock of Knowledge might we have had, which by his unskilfulness, is in a great measure lost? Since we must now depend only on him, because we have no other, or better Author, that has written on that Argument.

For many Ages there were no Lives written but by Monks, through those Writings there runs such an incurable humour, of testing incredible and inimitable passages, that little in them can be believed or proposed as a pattern; Sulpitius Severus and Jerome shewed too much credulity in the Lives they wrote about, and raised Martin and Hilarion, beyond what can be reasonably believed; after them Socrates, Theodoret, Sozomen, and Palladius, took a pleasure to tell uncouth stories of the Monks of Thebais, and Nitria; and those who came after them, but raised their Saints above those of former Ages; so that one would have thought that the undecent way of Writing could rise no higher; and this humour infested even those who had otherwise a good sense of things, and a just apprehension of Mankind, as may appear in Matthew Paris; who though he was a Writer of great Judgement and Fidelity, yet he has corrupted his History with much of that Alloy: But when Emulation and Envy rose among the several Orders or Houses, then they improved in that Art of making Romancers, instead of Writing Lives, to that pitch, that the World became generally scandalized with them:

The Franciscans and Dominicans tried who could say the most extravagant things of the Founders, or other Saints of their Orders; and the Benedictines, who thought themselves possessed of the belief of the World, as well as its Wealth, endeavoured all that was profitable still to up the Dignity of the Order, by out-lying others all they could; and whereas here and there, a Miracle, a Vision, or Trance, might have occurred in the Lives of former Saints; now every page was full of those wonderful things.

Nor has the humour of writing in such manner, been quite laid down in this Age, though more awakened, and better enlightened, as appears in the Life of Phillip Nerius, and a great many more. And the Jesuits at Antwerp, are now taking care to load the World with a vast and voluminous Collection of all those Lives that has already swelled in Eleven Volumes in Folio, in a small print; and yet being digested according to the Kalender, they have not yet but ended the Month of April:

The Life of Monsieur Renty is written in another manner, where there are so many excellent passages, that he is justly to be reckoned amongst the greatest patterns that FRANCE has afforded in this Age

But while some have nourished Infidelity, and a scorn of all Sacred things. by writing of those good Men in such a strain, as makes not only what is so related to be disbelieved, but creates a distrust of the Authentical Writings of our most holy Faith; Others have fallen into another expression writing lives too jejunely, for setting them up with trifling accounts of the Childhood and Education, and the Domestic, or private affairs of those persons of whom they write, in which the World is little concerned: By these they become so flat that few care to read them; for certainly those transactions are only fit to be delivered to Posterity, that they may carry with them some useful piece of knowledge to after-times.

I have now an Argument before me, which will afford indeed only a short History, but will contain in it as a Great a Character, as perhaps can he given of any in this age; since there are few instances of more Knowledge, and greater Virtues meeting in one person. I am upon one account (beside many more) unfit to undertake it, because I can say nothing from my own observation, but upon second thoughts, I do not know whether this may not qualify me to write more impartially, though perhaps more defectively, for the knowledge of extra ordinary persons does most commonly bias those, who were much wrought on, by the tenderness of their friendship for them, to raise their style a little too high when they write concerning them: I confess I knew him as much as the looking often upon him could amount to. The last year of his being in London, he came always on Sundays (when he could go abroad) to the Chapel of the Rolls, where I then Preached; In my life I never saw so much gravity tempered with that sweetness, and set off with so much vivacity, as appeared in his looks and behaviour, which disposed me to a veneration for him, which I never had for any, with whom I was not acquainted: I was seeking an opportunity of being admitted to his conversation; but I understood, that between a great want of Health, and a multiplicity of Business, which his Employment brought upon him, he was Master of so little of his time, that I stood in doubt whether I might presume to rob him of any of it; and so he left the Town, before I could resolve on desiring to be known to him.

My ignorance of the Law of England, made me also unfit to write of a man; a great part of whose Character, as to his learning, is to be taken from his Skill in the Common Law, and his performance in that. But I shall leave that to those of the same Robe; Since I engaged much in it, I must needs commit m-any errors, Writing of a Subject that is foreign to me.

The occasion of my undertaking this, was given me first by the earnest desires of some that have great power over me; who having been much obliged by him, and holding his memory in high estimation, thought I might do it some right by writing his Life: I was then engaged in the History of the Reformation, so I promised that, as soon as that was over, I should make the best use I could of such Informations and Memorials as should be brought me.

This I have now performed in the best manner I could, and have brought into method all the parcels of his Life, or the branches of his Character, which I could either gather from the Informations that were brought me, or from those that were familiarly acquainted with him, or from his Writings:

I have not applied any of the false colours, with which an, or some forced eloquence might furnish me, in writing concerning him; but have endeavoured to set him out in the same simplicity in which he lived: I have said little of his domestic concerns, since though in these he was a great Example; yet it signifies nothing to the World, to know any particular exercises, that might be given to his patience; and therefore I shall draw a vail over all these, and shall avoid saying anything of him, but what may afford the reader some profitable instructions: I am under no temptations of saying anything, but what I am persuaded is exactly true; for where there is so much excellent truth to be told, it were an inexcusable fault to corrupt that, or prejudice the reader against it by the mixture of falsehoods with it.

In short, as he was a great Example while he lived, so I wish the setting him thus out to Posterity, in his own true and native Colours, may have its due influence on all persons; but more particularly on those of that profession, whom it more immediately concerns, whether on the Bench, or at the Bar.