he alone, of all the young gentlemen that belonged to the court or neighbourhood, should be insensible of their charms. 6 Miss Apsley's younger sister, though her father's residence was only some half-mile distant,' was tabled in the same house for the practice of her lute; but she herself was at this time gone into Wiltshire with her mother, * for the accomplishment of a treaty that had been made some progress in, about her marriage with a gentleman of that country. From this little girl, whom Mr. Hutchinson sometimes attended on her walk home, he first learnt her sister's accomplishments and absence, as well as the cause of it; upon which "he began first to be sorry she was gone before he had seen her, and gone upon such an account that he was not likely to see her. Then he grew to love to hear mention of her," though represented by her companions as reserved and studious; and that with such ardor, as even "to wonder at himself that his heart, which had ever had such an *Of this excellent lady her daughter relates the following story: Sir Walter Ralegh and Mr. Ruthin being prisoners in the Tower (during her husband's lieutenancy) and addicting themselves to chemistry, she suffered them to make their rare experiments at her cost; partly to comfort and divert the poor prisoners, and partly to gain the knowledge of their experiments, and the medicines to help such poor people as were not able to seek to physicians. By these means she acquired a great deal of skill, which was very profitable to many all her life. And hence was derived the surgical ability evinced by Mrs. Hutchinson, during the siege of Nottingham Castle. Perhaps (adds the editor of her Memoirs) prejudice will render it incredible that in the Bastile of Paris, which has become a proverbial expression to signify cruel durance, the conduct of the murthered Governor resembled that of Sir Allen Apsley. It is, nevertheless, true. indifferency for the most excellent of woman-kind, should have such strong impulses toward a stranger he never saw and, "certainly (adds Mrs. Hutchinson, with great naïveté) it was of the Lord, though he perceived it not, who had ordained him through so many various providences to be yoked with her, in whom he found so much satisfaction." When at last they met, she being disengaged from her imperfect contract, he found her "not ugly, in a careless riding-habit, with a melancholy negligence of herself and others, as if she neither affected to please others, nor took notice of any thing before her. Yet spite of all her indifferency, she was surprised with some unusual liking in her soul when she saw this gentleman, who had hair, eyes, shape, and countenance enough to beget love in any one at the first; and these set off with a graceful and generous mien, which promised an extraordinary person. He was at that time, and indeed always, very neatly habited for he wore good and rich clothes, and had variety of them, and had them well-suited and every way answerable (in that little thing showing both good judgment and great generosity, he equally becoming them, and they him) which he wore with such unaffectedness and such neatness, as do not often meet in one." A mutual regard soon commenced between them; and "though she innocently thought nothing of love, He had been cautioned by a friend to take heed of Richmond, a place "so fatal for love, that never any young disengaged person went thither, who returned again free!" This, in those days, would probably have some weight, unconsciously, even upon his noble mind. His biographer, elsewhere, talks of "the prevailing sympathies of his soul." yet she was glad to have acquired such a friend, who had wisdom and virtue enough to be trusted with her counsels." Proof to all the malignant suggestions of those, who were envious or jealous of their happy intercourse, he prosecuted his attachment "with so much discretion, duty, and honour, that at the length through many difficulties he accomplished his design. Never, indeed, was there a passion more ardent, and less idolatrous. He loved her better than his life with inexpressible tenderness and kindness, had a most high obliging esteem of her; yet still considered honour, religion, and duty above her; nor ever suffered the intrusion of such a dotage, as should blind him from marking her imperfections. These he looked on with such an indulgent eye, as did not abate his love and esteem of her, while it augmented his care to blot out all those spots, which might make her appear less worthy of that respect he paid her. And thus, indeed, he soon made her more equal to him, than he found her: for she was a very faithful mirror, reflecting truly, though but dimly, his own glories upon him, so long as he was present; but she, that was nothing before his inspection gave her a fair figure, when he was removed was only filled with a dark mist, and never could again take in any delightful object, nor return any shining representation." * This is a favourite image with her; "she only reflected his own glories upon him: all that she was, was him, while he was here; and all that she is now, at best but his pale shade.” I cannot help adding some of her additional effusions of affectionate yeneration in a note. "The greatest excellency she had was, the power of apprehending, and the virtue of loving his: so, as his shadow, she waited on him everywhere, till he Even a very dangerous and loathsome attack of the small-pox, which " for the present made her the was taken into that region of light which admits of none, and then she vanished into nothing. It was not her face he loved: her honour and her virtue were his mistresses, and these (like Pygmalion's) images of his own making; for he polished, and form to, what he found with all the roughness of the quarry about it but meeting with a compliant subject for his own wise government, he found as much satisfaction as he gave, and never had occasion to number his marriage among his infelicities." gave But "let not (she says elsewhere) excess of love, and delight, in the stream make us forget the fountain. He and all his excellences came from God, and flowed back into their own spring. There let us seek them; thither let us hasten after him: there having found him, let us cease to bewail among the dead that which is risen, or rather was immortal. His soul conversed with God so much when he was here, that it rejoices to be now eternally freed from interruption in that blessed exercise. His virtues were recorded in heaven's annals, and can never perish; by them he yet teaches us, and all those to whose knowledge they shall arrive. 'Tis only his fetters, his sins, his infirmities, his diseases, that are dead never to revive again: nor would we have them. They were his enemies, and ours: by faith in Christ he vanquished them. Our conjunction, if we had any with him, was indissoluble. If we were knit together by one spirit into one body of Christ, we are so still: if we were mutually united in one love of God, good men, and goodness, we are so still. What is it then we wail in his remove? The distance? Faithless fools! Sorrow only makes it. Let us but ascend to God in holy joy for the great grace given his poor servant, and he is there with us. He is only removed from the malice of his enemies, for which we should not express love to him in being afflicted. We may mourn for ourselves, that we come so tardily after him, that we want his guidance and assistance in our way: and yet, if our tears did not put out our eyes, we should see him even in heaven holding forth his flaming lamp of virtuous examples and precepts to light us through the dark world." She afterward proceeds to describe his person, and to dilate upon his virtues: his Christianity (or, as she defines it, that most deformed person that could be seen," nothing troubled his love. On the third of July, 1638, as soon as she was able to quit the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her were affrighted to look on her, he married her on whom his soul doted. The ceremony took place in St. Andrew's Church, Holborn. God restored her, at length," as well as before." During the two years which followed, in the bosom of domestic privacy he prosecuted with the greatest delight the study of divinity. "It was a remarkable providence of God in his life," says his tender biographer, "that must not be passed over without special notice, that he gave him these two years' leisure, and a heart so to employ it, before the noise of war and tumult came upon him. Yet about universal habit of grace wrought in the soul by the regenerating spirit of God, whereby the whole creature is resigned up into the divine will and love, and all it's actions designed to the obedience and glory of it's Maker) his hatred of persecution, sanguinary or sneering, of outsides in religion, and of denials of the Lord and base compliances with his adversaries; his prudence, his forgetting nothing but injuries, his freedom from obstinacy, his readiness to hear as well as speak, his excellent virtuous modesty, his noble spirit of government, his native majesty and sweet greatness, his clear discerning of men's spirits, his love of learning and the arts, his wit, his courage, his justice, his sincerity, his obedience and love to his father, his conjugal affection and liberality, his magnanimity, his exemption from ambition, pride, avarice, and slothfulness, his tenderness of heart, and his universal temperance in meat, drink, apparel, and every species even of lawful pleasure: so that of him, as of Brutus, might be correctly predicated, 'His life was gentle, and the elements So mix'd in him, that nature might stand up, (Jul. Cæs. . 5.) |