advowsons of several
benefices presented to him: but they were in the country, and he could
not leave his beloved London, to which place he had a natural
inclination, having received both his birth and education in it, and
there contracted a friendship with many, whose conversation multiplied
the joys of his life; but an employment that might affix him to that
place would be welcome, for he needed it.

Immediately after his return from Cambridge his wife died, leaving him a
man of a narrow, unsettled estate, and--having buried five--the careful
father of seven children then living, to whom he gave a voluntary
assurance never to bring them under the subjection of a step-mother;
which promise he kept most faithfully, burying with his tears all his
earthly joys in his most dear and deserving wife's grave, and betook
himself to a most retired and solitary life.

In this retiredness, which was often from the sight of his dearest
friends, he became crucified to the world, and all those vanities, those
imaginary pleasures, that are daily acted on that restless stage, and
they were as perfectly crucified to him.

His first motion from his house was to preach where his beloved wife lay
buried--in St. Clement's Church, near Temple Bar, London; and his text
was a part of the Prophet Jeremy's Lamentation: "Lo, I am the man that
have seen affliction."

In this time of sadness he was importuned by the grave Benchers of
Lincoln's Inn--who were once the companions and friends of his youth--to
accept of their Lecture, which, by reason of Dr. Gataker's removal from
thence, was then void; of which he accepted, being most glad to renew
his intermitted friendship with those whom he so much loved, and where
he had been a Saul,--though not to persecute Christianity, or to deride
it, yet in his irregular youth to neglect the visible practice of
it,--there to become a Paul, and preach salvation to his beloved
brethren.

About which time the Emperor of Germany died, and the Palsgrave, who had
lately married the Lady Elizabeth, the King's only daughter, was elected
and crowned King of Bohemia, the unhappy beginning of many miseries in
that nation.

King James, whose motto--_Beati pacifici_--did truly speak the very
thoughts of his heart, endeavoured first to prevent, and after to
compose, the discords of that discomposed State; and, amongst other his
endeavours, did then send the Lord Hay, Earl of Doncaster, his
Ambassador to those unsett