debted to the Reader, and intend to
make him sudden payment,--hearing of Mr. Herbert's sickness, sent
Mr. Edmund Duncon--who is now Rector of Friar Barnet in the County of
Middlesex--from his house of Gidden Hall, which is near to Huntingdon,
to see Mr. Herbert, and to assure him, he wanted not his daily prayers
for his recovery; and Mr. Duncon was to return back to Gidden, with an
account of Mr. Herbert's condition. Mr. Duncon found him weak, and
at that time lying on his bed, or on a pallet; but at his seeing
Mr. Duncon he raised himself vigorously, saluted him, and with some
earnestness enquired the health of his brother Farrer; of which Mr.
Duncon satisfied him, and after some discourse of Mr. Farrer's holy
life, and the manner of his constant serving God, he said to Mr.
Duncon,--"Sir, I see by your habit that you are a Priest, and I desire
you to pray with me:" which being granted, Mr. Duncon asked him, "What
prayers?" To which Mr. Herbert's answer was, "O, Sir! the prayers of
my Mother, the Church of England: no other prayers are equal to them!
But at this time, I beg of you to pray only the Litany, for I am
weak and faint:" and Mr. Duncon did so. After which, and some other
discourse of Mr. Farrer, Mrs. Herbert provided Mr. Duncon a plain
supper, and a clean lodging, and he betook himself to rest. This Mr.
Duncon tells me; and tells me, that, at his first view of Mr. Herbert,
he saw majesty and humility so reconciled in his looks and behaviour,
as begot in him an awful reverence for his person; and says, "his
discourse was so pious, and his motion so genteel and meek, that after
almost forty years, yet they remain still fresh in his memory."

The next morning Mr. Duncon left him, and betook himself to a journey
to Bath, but with a promise to return back to him within five days;
and he did so: but before I shall say any thing of what discourse then
fell betwixt them two, I will pay my promised account of Mr. Farrer.

[Sidenote: Mr. Nicholas Ferrer]

[Sidenote: Little Gidden]

Mr. Nicholas Farrer--who got the reputation of being called Saint
Nicholas at the age of six years--was born in London, and doubtless
had good education in his youth; but certainly was, at an early age,
made Fellow of Clare-Hall in Cambridge; where he continued to
be eminent for his piety, temperance, and learning. About the
twenty-sixth year of his age, he betook himself to travel: in which
he added, to his Latin and Greek, a perfect kno