have any idea of the monstrous falsehoods told by spies and intriguers, either deluded by fanatical Jacobinism, or inventing reports for the sake of hopedfor pay. This story about Penn resembles many more. "Thirty thousand men!" That was the number coming, or to come, from nobody knew where. The report occurs over and over again in these precious despatches. The schemes only existed in the brains of the writers, or of those who were hoodwinked by their inventions. That Penn, a Quaker, should have talked in the way described is simply incredible; but to put an end to all doubt, we shall see that in the very month of December, when this paper was written, Penn had established his innocence of treasonable charges before the king and Council. These reports by unprincipled people about the Court of James II. show what perils encircled the good Quaker at the moment when he vainly thought he was promoting religious liberty.

In 1693 he sat down again to write, and prepared for the press his "Fruits of Solitude." They show from beginning to end how sweet are the uses of adversity. Perhaps but for Penn "in retirement" we should never have had these beautiful aphorisms of Penn's wisdom.

The preface is charming: "The Author blesses God for his retirement and kisses that gentle hand which led him into it, for though it should prove barren to the world, it can never do so to him. He has now had some time he could call his own, a property he was never so much master of before, in which he has taken a view of himself and the world, and observed wherein he hath hit and missed the mark; what might

have been done, what mended, and what avoided in his human conduct; together with the omissions and excesses of others, as well societies and governments as private families and persons. And he verily thinks were he to live over his life again, he could not only, with God's grace, serve Him, but his neighbour and himself, better than he hath done, and have seven years of his time to spare. And yet, perhaps, he hath not been the worst or the idlest man in the world, nor is he the oldest." 1

The following are specimens of the book:

"We must needs disorder ourselves if we only look at our losses. But if we consider how little we deserve what is left, our passion will cool, and our murmurs will turn into thankfulness."

"If our hairs fall not to the ground, less do we or our substance without God's providence."

"Nor can we fall below the arms of God, how low soever it be we fall."

"For though our Saviour's Passion is over, His compassion is not. That never fails His humble, sincere disciples. In Him they find more than all they love in the world."

"The world is certainly a great and stately volume of natural things, and may be not improperly styled the hieroglyphics of a better; but alas! how very few leaves of it do we seriously turn over! This ought to be the subject of the education of our youth, who at twenty, when they should be fit for business, know little or nothing of it. We are in pain to make them scholars, but not men,-to talk rather than to know, which is pure canting."

1 Penn's Works, vol. i. p. 819.

T

"As our faith, so our devotion should be lively. Cold meat will not serve at these repasts."

"It is a coal from God's altar must kindle our fire; and without fire, true fire, no acceptable sacrifices." "It were better to be of no church than to be bitter for any."

"Zeal dropt in charity is good, without it good for nothing, for it devours all it comes near."

The gathering of such ripe fruits of wisdom was a solace to him in his retirement; but retirement was now coming to an end. He had friends at Court,-the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Somers, Lord Ranelagh, Earl of Rochester, and Lord Sidney; and seizing a favourable opportunity, they determined to use their influence on Penn's behalf. The last three had an audience with William, and represented the injustice of the Quaker's treatment. "There is nothing against him, your Majesty," such was their strong appeal, "but what impostors or those who have fled the country have advanced, or those who, when their crimes. are pardoned, cannot verify what they have advanced. We have long known him, some of us thirty years, and we never saw or heard of his doing an ill thing; on the contrary, he has performed many good offices; and if it had not been that going abroad might be thought a defiance of the Government, he would have done it two years ago. But he chose to wait, to go about his business as before, with leave, that he may be the better respected." Having spoken to this effect, these intercessors had the satisfaction to receive His Majesty's reply. "William Penn is my old acquaintance as well as yours; and he may now follow his business as freely as ever. I have nothing to say

against him." They then asked that His Majesty would authorize the communication to be made to the principal Secretary of State. "Certainly," replied the king; and Lord Sidney was commissioned to convey it. The Secretary arranged an interview with Penn. They met on the 30th of November, 1693, when the Secretary told him, in the presence of the Marquis of Winchester, "You are as free as ever; and I doubt not your prudence as to quiet living. I can assure you you shall not be molested or injured in any of your affairs." Penn had in him the same feeling as St. Paul, when the magistrates at Philippi privily dismissed him after an unjust imprisonment: a formal and public acquittal was what he desired. Therefore a Council was held for that purpose, the king and several lords being present, and the accused having been heard in his own defence, he was honourably set at liberty.

Just before he recovered perfect freedom, he wrote "An Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe." His object was to prevent war by the establishment of a court of arbitration, to which national quarrels might be referred,-a beautiful dream, as reasonable as it is beautiful; but alas! it was and is far from realization because of men's unreasonableness and their insane love of fighting. He proposed an elaborate scheme for the institution of such a court, "the judgment of which," he says, "should be so binding that if any one Government offering its case for decision did not abide by it, the rest should compel it." How? And if a Government would not offer its case for decision, what then?

H'

CHAPTER XV.

AT LIBERTY AGAIN.

E recovered his freedom at the close of the year 1693, and immediately afterwards he wrote:"From the Secretary I went to our meeting at the Bull and Mouth, thence to visit the sanctuary of my solitude, and after that to see my poor wife and children; the eldest being with me all this while. My wife is yet weakly, but I am not without hopes of her recovery who is one of the best of wives and women."

From this note it appears that his beloved son, Springett, was the companion of his solitude, and that when he was free to go abroad he went, after attending Divine worship, to his beloved Gulielma, who was then sickening for the grave, and ripening for heaven. He had the consolation of her society for three months, and then closed her eyes in the long sleep of the body till the resurrection morn. She died on the 23rd of February, 1694, in the fiftieth year of her age. She was buried in the graveyard of Jordans, near his mother and the children who died before her.

She would not suffer me," he tells us, “after I recovered my liberty, to neglect any public meeting on her account, saying often, 'Oh! go, my dearest;