ll into the sharpnes of his afflictions, (than which few men
underwent sharper) I dare say, I know it, (I am sure conscientiously
I say it) tho' God dealt with him, as he did with St. Paul, not remove
the thorn, yet he made his grace sufficient to take away the pungency
of it: for he made as sanctified an use of his afflictions, as most
men ever did.

No Gentleman in his three nations, tho' there were many more learned,
(for I have supposed him but competently learned, tho' eminently
rational) better understood the foundations of his own Church, and the
grounds of the Reformation, than he did: which made the Pope's Nuncio
to the Queen, Signior Con, to say (both of him and Arch-Bishop Laud,
when the King had forced the Archbishop to admit a visit from, and
a conference with the Nuncio) _That when he came first to Court, he
hoped to have made great impressions there; but after he had conferr'd
with Prince and Prelate, (who never denyed him any thing frowardly or
ignorantly, but admitted all, which primitive and uncorrupted Rome for
the first 500 years had exercised_,) he declared he found, _That they
resolved to deal with his Master, the Pope, as wrestlers do with one
another, take him up to fling him down_. And therefore tho' I cannot
say, I know, that he wrote his _Icon Basilike_, or _Image_, which
goes under his own name; yet I can say, I have heard him, even unto my
unworthy selfe, say many of those things it contains: and I have bin
assur'd by Mr. Levett, (one of the Pages of his Bedchamber, and who
was with him thro' all his imprisonments) that he hath not only seen
the Manuscript of that book among his Majestie's papers at the Isle
of Wight, but read many of the chapters himselfe: and Mr. Herbert,
who by the appointment of Parliament attended him, says, he saw the
Manuscript in the King's hand, as he believed; but it was in a running
character, and not that which the King usually wrote. And whoever
reads his private and cursory letters, which he wrote unto the
Queen, and to some great men (especially in his Scotch affairs, set
down by Mr. Burnet, when he stood single, as he did thro' all his
imprisonments) the gravity and significancy of that style may assure
a misbeliever, that he had head and hand enough to express the
ejaculations of a good, pious, and afflicted heart; and Solomon says,
that _affliction gives understanding_, or elevates thoughts: and we
cannot wonder, that so royal a heart, sensible of such affl