for the protection of their persons, and for daring to do so, put on their trial and convicted of High Treason; and, to fill up the measure of their sorrows, deprived by a cool and deliberate vote of Parliament of their vested rights there. When he saw these things, unwilling to outlive the good he had done, and the Majesty of the Law, "full of repentance, Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows, Many of our distinguished brethren are from the Barony of Kendal; a spot of earth where mind and matter seem in fullest harmony; where man's intellect seems here and there to vie in strength and boldness with Nature's grandest efforts*. Dr. Burn assigns Kendal as the venue of his birth; others. Westmestert. When the seven cities of Greece contended for the honour of Homer's birth-place, one of their wise men suggested, in order to end the dispute, that it should be referred to Heaven. If our fellow-countrymen will not accede to the suggestion that Westmester (there being no such place now to be found) means Winster, then we are willing to assign to so good a man a Divine origin. Winster and Westmester, perhaps we may *Baynbrigg, Waugh, Smith, Dr. Burn, and Langhorne, are from the bottom of Westmorland, and not from the Barony. + See Lloyd's Memoirs, fol. 1677. VOL. I. F be allowed to observe, are not more unlike in sound than Peter Gower and Pythagore, the discovery of whose identity (disguised by poor John Leland's blunder) raised the great John Locke among the Free Masons to the highest pinnacle of his craft. We look for no Masonic honors for this discovery, simply because we think it is too plain to deserve any. He was born in Winster chapelry (as we believe) in 1577. He was of poor, but respectable parents, who gave him an education suited. to their means and to their religious views. We have reason to believe that, at this period, Puritanism had widely enfibred itself, and laid deep hold of the minds of men in and about Kendal; certain it is that his parents were of that way of thinking, and that Mr. Maxwell, his schoolmaster, did not instil other precepts, or, by example, teach other ways. In a word (according to his best Biographer, David Lloyd) he had puritanical parents, a puritanical schoolmaster, a puritanical college tutor: he lived in puritanical times, and died a puritanical Bishop. From this school, and not from Kendal, as some will have it, he went to Queen's College, Oxford, where he successively became Tabarder, Fellow, and Provost. The dates of his University Degrees are as follow*: Matriculation 1594. B. A. April 24, 1599. M. A. June 30, 1602. B.D. July 5, * Wood's Fast. Ox. Wood's Ath. Ox. (Bliss, 1817, n.) Hence it appears 1610. D. D. June 27, 1615. that no time was lost in the University. We are told also, that while an undergraduate he made such progress in his studies, that he took his degree with great reputation. His success in this respect was, in all probability, his introduction to those men of rank and worth whom he so assiduously trained in learning and religion. As tutor he seems to have employed his time until his ordination. So extensively had he been employed in this way, that when he was made Bishop of Carlisle in 1628, no less than thirty-three eminent divines, lawyers, physicians, and statesmen, formerly his pupils, waited on him together for his blessing. In 1601 or 1602 he seems to have been admitted into the Ministry; for soon after this we find him Lecturer at Abingdon, and then at Totness in Devonshire, where he was reputed an affecting preacher, and much followed by the Puritans. During his residence at Totness he became acquainted with the family of Sir Edward Giles, whose daughter Elizabeth he afterwards 'married. In 1610 he was chosen Principal of St. Edmund Hall, but resigned (May 1st 1610), and was never admitted. In 1616 Sir Edward Giles gave him a living, and the marriage took place. They intended to settle in that county, but such was the fame and reputation he had left in College, that on the death of the learned Henry Airay (whose memoir will be found in a subsequent page), when at a great dis tance, and he never dreamed thereof, he was, with the unanimous consent of the Fellows, chosen Provost. He was elected Provost on the 14th October, 1616, ubi se ferebat patrem familia providum ἀγαθὸν κοροῦ τροφον nec collegii gravis fuit nec onerosus. This he resigned on the 17th June, 1626; resigned (continues Lloyd) self-denyingly, judging that his church had more need of him as a Minister than the college as a Provost; but, as others say, for the promotion of his nephew, Christopher Potter. Upon the resignation of the Provostship, he returned to his pastoral charge in Devonshire. We are inclined to agree in Dr. Collinson's remark, that he held at this time no preferment in the North; may not the error lie in the vague, and indefinite, and different use of the term North* ? It is often used in London at the present day, as Lloyd uses it, and generally in a very different sense from what it bears on the tongue of a Westmorland-man. He resided in Devonshire until 1628, when he was consecrated Bishop of Carlisle. During his Provostship (we ought not to forget) he was made Chaplain in Ordinary to the Prince of Wales (afterwards Charles the first), by whom, and by the Court generally, during the reign of James the First, he was much esteemed, being accounted the penitential preacher; but still so rigid a Puritan, that men * Wood's Ath. Ox. (Bliss, 1817.) would say of him in jest that organs would blow him out of the church, "which (says Fuller) I do not believe, the rather because he was loving of and skillful in vocal musick, and could bear his own part therein." Whether he had any share in the education of the Prince of Wales is not so clear as we could wish; we are inclined, however, to think he had. Certain, however, it is, that one of the first promotions to the Bench of Bishops, after he came to the Throne, was that of Potter to the See of Carlisle, when others sued for the place and he little thought thereof; a choice as honourable to the virtues and worth of Potter, as it was to the head and heart of the Monarch who made it. As every gift receives much of its force from the grace that accompanies it, so here the value of the mitre was in the manner of the present; for the King when importuned for others, peremptorily said Potter should have it; calling him his old servant, the good man, the sweet preacher, whom he liked the better being a man of few words, and such like. His gracious master not so much honoring him, as he did the function and that age in the freedom of his noble and unsought for choice. How fully are borne out the words of Holy Writ "He that loveth pureness of heart for the grace of his lips the King shall be his friend*." Wood says that in his promotion he had the interest of Bishop Laud, although * Prov. |