t well enough contented to finde
themselves passed by in the descent: His education for some yeeres
had bene in Ireland, wher his father was Lord Deputy, so that when
he returned into Englande, to the possessyon of his fortune, he was
unintangled with any acquaintance or frends, which usually grow up by
the custome of conversation, and therfore was to make a pure election
of his company; which he chose by other rules then were prescribed
to the younge nobility of that tyme; And it cannot be denyed, though
he admitted some few to his frendshipp for the agreablenesse of ther
natures, and ther undoubted affection to him, that his familiarity
and frendshipp for the most parte was with men of the most eminent and
sublime partes, and of untouched reputations in pointe of integrity:
and such men had a title to his bosome.

He was a greate cherisher of witt, and fancy, and good partes in
any man, and if he founde them clowded with poverty or wante, a most
liberall and bountifull Patron towards them, even above his fortune,
of which in those administrations he was such a dispenser, as if he
had bene trusted with it to such uses, and if ther had bene the least
of vice in his expence, he might have bene thought too prodigall: He
was constant and pertinatious in whatsoever he resolved to doe, and
not to be wearyed by any paynes that were necessary to that end, and
therfore havinge once resolved not to see London (which he loved above
all places) till he had perfectly learned the greeke tonge, he went to
his owne house in the Country, and pursued it with that indefatigable
industry, that it will not be believed, in how shorte a tyme he was
master of it, and accurately reade all the Greeke Historyans. In this
tyme, his house beinge within tenn myles of Oxford, he contracted
familiarity and frendshipp with the most polite and accurate men of
that University; who founde such an immensenesse of witt, and such
a soliddity of judgement in him, so infinite a fancy bounde in by a
most logicall ratiocination, such a vast knowledge, that he was not
ignorant in any thinge, yet such an excessive humillity as if he had
knowne nothinge, that they frequently resorted and dwelt with him,
as in a Colledge scituated in a purer ayre, so that his house was
a University bounde in a lesser volume, whither they came not so
much for repose, as study: and to examyne and refyne those grosser
propositions, which lazinesse and consent made currant in vulgar
c