EPISTLE TO THE READER. HOUGH the several Introductions to these several Lives have partly declared the reasons how, and why I undertook them, yet since they are come to be reviewed, and augmented, and reprinted, and the four are 'now become one book,* I desire leave to inform you that shall become my reader, that when I sometimes look back upon my education and mean abilities, it is not without some wonder at myself that I am come to be publicly in print. And though I have in those introductions declared some of the accidental reasons that occasioned me to be so, yet let me add this to what is there said, that by my undertaking to collect some notes for Sir Henry Wotton's writing the life of Dr. Donne, and by Sir Henry Wotton's dying before he performed it, I became like those men that enter easily into a lawsuit or a quarrel, and having begun, cannot make a fair retreat and be quiet, when they desire it.-And really, after such a manner, I became engaged into a necessity of writing the Life of Dr. Donne, contrary to my first intentions; and that begot a like necessity of writing *He had not then written the Life of Bishop Sanderson. the Life of his and my ever-honoured friend, Sir Henry Wotton. And having writ these two Lives, I lay quiet twenty years, without a thought of either troubling myself or others, by any new engagement in this kind; for I thought I knew my unfitness. But, about that time, Dr. Gauden* (then Lord Bishop of Exeter) published the Life of Mr. Richard Hooker (so he called it), with so many dangerous mistakes, both of him and his books, that discoursing of them with his Grace, Gilbert, that now is Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, he enjoined me to examine some circumstances, and then rectify the Bishop's mistakes, by giving the world a fuller and truer account of Mr. Hooker and his books than that Bishop had done; and I know I have done so. And let me tell the reader, that till his Grace had laid this injunction upon me, I could not admit a thought of any fitness in me to undertake it; but when he twice had enjoined me to it, I then declined my own, and trusted his judgment, and submitted to his commands; concluding, that if I did not, I could not forbear accusing myself of disobe * Dr. John Gauden, born at Mayland in Essex, educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, was Dean of Bocking, and Master of the Temple, in the beginning of the reign of Charles I. In 1660 he was made Bishop of Exeter, and from thence promoted to Worcester in 1662, in which year he died, aged fifty-seven years. It must be owned that he was one of the Assembly of Divines in 1643, and that he took the covenant; to which, however, he made some scruples and objections, so that his name was soon struck out of the list. He abandoned the cause of the Parliament as soon as they relinquished their first avowed principles of reforming only, instead of extirpating episcopacy and monarchy. dience, and indeed of ingratitude, for his many favours. Thus I became engaged into the third life. For the life of that great example of holiness, Mr. George Herbert, I profess it to be so far a freewill offering, that it was writ chiefly to please myself, but yet not without some respect to posterity: For though he was not a man that the next age can forget, yet many of his particular acts and virtues might have been neglected, or lost, if I had not collected and presented them to the imitation of those that shall succeed us: For I humbly conceive writing to be both a safer and truer preserver of men's virtuous actions than tradition; especially as it is managed in this age. And I am also to tell the reader, that though this life of Mr. Herbert was not by me writ in haste, yet I intended it a review before it should be made public; but that was not allowed me, by reason of my absence from London when it was printing; so that the reader may find in it some mistakes, some double expressions, and some not very proper, and some that might have been contracted, and some faults that are not justly chargeable upon me, but the printer; and yet I hope none so great, as may not, by this confession, purchase pardon from a good-natured reader. And now I wish, that as that learned Jew, Josephus, and others, so these men had also writ their own lives; but since it is not the fashion of these times, I wish their relations or friends would do it for them, before delays make it too difficult. And I desire this the more, because it is an honour due to the dead, and a generous debt due to those that shall live and succeed us, and would to them prove both a content and satisfaction. For when the next age shall (as this does) admire the learning and clear reason which that excellent casuist Dr. Sanderson (the late Bishop of Lincoln) hath demonstrated in his sermons and other writings; who, if they love virtue, would not rejoice to know, that this good man was as remarkable for the meekness and innocence of his life, as for his great and useful learning; and indeed as remarkable for his fortitude in his long and patient suffering (under them that then called themselves the godly party) for that doctrine which he had preached and printed in the happy days of the nation's and the Church's peace? And who would not be content to have the like account of Dr. Field,* that great schoolman, and others of noted learning? And though I cannot hope that my example or reason can persuade to this undertaking, yet I please myself, that I shall conclude my Preface with wishing that it were so. I. W. He Dr. Richard Field, Chaplain to James I. and Dean of Gloucester, died Nov. 21, 1616,-the friend of Mr. Richard Hooker, and one of the most learned men of his age. was the author of a work entitled "Of the Church; fol. 1610."-James I. when he first heard him preach, said, "This is a Field for God to dwell in."-With the same allusion Fuller calls him, that learned divine, "whose memory smelleth like a Field that the Lord hath blessed."-Anthony Wood mentions a manuscript, written by Nathaniel Field, Rector of Stourton, in Wiltshire, containing "Some short Memorials concerning the Life of that Rev. Divine, Dr. Richard Field, Prebendary of Windsor," &c. The feature which peculiarly marked his disposition, was an aversion to those disputes on the Arminian points, which then began to disturb the peace of the Church, and from which he dreaded the most unhappy consequences. It was his ambition to conciliate, not to irritate. |