Walker[1] testifies that the Vicar of St. Ives, Rev. Henry Downhall, was ejected with his curate in 1642; an act which Cromwell could have hindered, had he been willing to testify that they were fit clergymen. Alas, had he been able! He attended them in red flannel, but had not exceedingly rejoiced in them, it would seem.—There is, in short, nothing that renders Cromwell’s existence completely visible to us, even through the smallest chink, but this Letter alone, which, copied from the Museum Manuscripts, worthy Mr. Harris[2] has printed for all people. We slightly rectify the spelling, and reprint.
TO MY VERY LOVING FRIEND MR. STORIE, AT THE SIGN OF THE DOG IN THE ROYAL EXCHANGE, LONDON: DELIVER THESE.
Mr. Storie,—Amongst the catalogue of those good works which your fellow-citizens and our countrymen have done, this will not be reckoned for the least, That they have provided for the feeding of souls. Building of hospitals provides for men’s bodies; to build material temples is judged a work of piety; but they that procure spiritual food, they that build-up spiritual temples, they are the men truly charitable, truly pious. Such a work as this was your erecting the Lecture in our Country; in the which you placed Dr. Wells, a man of goodness and industry, and ability to do good every way; not short of any I know in England: and I am persuaded that, sithence his coming, the Lord hath by him wrought much good among us.
It only remains now that he who first moved you to this, put you forward in the continuance thereof: it was the Lord;
- ↑ Sufferings of the Clergy. See also Appendix, No. 1.
- ↑ Life of Cromwell: a blind farrago, published in 1761, ‘after the manner of Mr. Bayle,’—a very bad ‘manner,’ more especially when a Harris presides over it! Yet poor Harris’s Book, his three Books (on Cromwell, Charles and James I.) have worth: cartloads of Excerpts, carefully transcribed,—and edited, in the way known to us, ‘by shoving-up the shafts.’ The increasing interest of the subject brought even these to a second edition in 1814.
