ssion that we begin truly to see the
man, and to discover the sort of ability on which the success of his
closetings depended. We find Baillie holding, in his simplicity, that
in order to draw the heart of the King from Episcopacy, nothing more
could be necessary than just fairly to submit to him some sound
controversial work, arranged on the plan of the good man's own
_Ladensium_; and urging on Sharpe, that a few able divines should be
employed in getting up a compilation for the express purpose. Sharpe
writes in return, in a style sufficiently quiet, that His Majesty, in
his very first address, 'has been pleased to ask very graciously about
Robert Baillie,' a person for whom he has a particular kindness, and
whom, if favours were dealing, he would be sure not to forget. He
adds, further, that however matters might turn out in England, the
Presbyterian Establishment of Scotland was in no danger of violation;
and lest his Scotch friends should fall into the error of thinking too
much about other men's business, he gives fervent expression to the
hope 'that the Lord would give them to prize their own mercies, and
know their own duties.' Even a twelvemonth after, when on the eve of
setting out for London to be created a bishop, he writes his old
friend, that whatever 'occasion of jealousies and false surmises his
journey might give,' of one thing he might be assured, 'it was not in
order to a change in the Church,' as he 'would convince his dear
friend Mr. Baillie, through the Lord's help, when the Lord would
return him.' He has an under-plot of treachery carrying on at the same
time, that affects his 'dear friend' personally. In one of his letters
to the unsuspecting chronicler, he assures him that he was 'doing his
best, by the Lord's help,' to get him appointed Principal of the
University of Glasgow. In one of his letters to Lauderdale, after
stating that the office, 'in the opinion of many,' would require a man
'of more acrimony and weight' than 'honest Baillie,' he urges that the
presentation should be sent him, with a blank space, in which the name
of the presentee might be afterwards inserted.

Baillie, naturally slow to suspect, does not come fully to understand
the character of the man until a very few months before his death. He
then complains bitterly to his continental correspondent, amid the
ruin of the Church, and from the gloom of his sick-chamber, that
Sharpe was the traitor who, 'piece by piece, had so cu