his canonry of Christchurch, without being subjected to any test or subscription; but he preferred poverty and exile. At the Restoration, his fidelity had been rewarded with the bishopric of Worcester, from which in 1662 he was translated to Winchester. At the palace there Ken found his brother-in-law Walton, now again a widower, established as a constant guest. Mr. Bowles tells us (on the authority of family tradition from Dr. Hawes) that the Bishop's hospitality was a requital of assistance and shelter in the day of the Church's affliction; and he draws a pleasing picture of Piscator, strolling about Winchester as the favourite old man' of the schoolboys-such as he himself remembers the father of Public-orator Crowe, and poor Tom Warton.'

Morley bestowed on his chaplain a prebend at Winchester, the living of Brightstone in the Isle of Wight, and that of Woodhay in Hampshire. Contrary to the practice of the age, Kẹn gave up Brightstone on being presented to the other parish, as he was resolved not to undertake any pastoral care to which he could not apply himself in person. In 1672 he resigned Woodhay to his college-friend Hooper-probably with a view of being at liberty to attend more closely on the Bishop. It would seem to have been at this time that he entered on a course of preaching at a church in Winchester where there was no preaching minister'-the endowment, probably, being too small to secure the services of an incumbent whose accomplishments extended beyond reading prayers and homilies. His eloquence drew crowds of hearers, and his labours were rewarded by the conversion of many Anabaptists.

In 1674 was published the Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College'-an admirable little work, which in sixty years went through twenty-four impressions, and still retains its popularity. It was accompanied in the later editions by Hymns for Morning, Evening, and Midnight; two of which, although in an abridged form, and with needless variations of the words,-besides having found their way into our churches, - are still repeated daily in thousands of dwellings,'* and 'have been translated into the languages of the antipodes.' †

In 1675 Ken made the tour of Italy with his nephew, the younger Walton, whose skill as a draftsman is celebrated by Cotton in his continuation of the Complete Angler. It was the year of jubilee. Mr. Anderdon elaborately pictures the multitudes which flocked to the holy city, and is as warm in celebration of their faith as if pilgrimages were always purely what

* Macaulay, Hist., i, 432.

† Markland, p. 106.

they

they profess to be. This is one of the passages in the earlier portion of the 'Layman's' book which we hope to find altered in another edition; surely it is not impossible to depict the supposed feelings of devout Romanists without running out into admiration of their superstitions. Ken's travels drew on him a suspicion of Popery-for which there never was the slightest ground; indeed, the result of his observations was altogether opposite that if it were possible, he returned rather more confirmed of the purity of the Protestant religion than he was before.' (Prose Works, p. 4.) But assuredly he would never have thought to clear himself from the imputation of Romanism by drawing (like Mr. Anderdon) a contrast between the English and the Roman communions altogether to the advantage of the latter, and then subjoining, as it were condescendingly, a formal profession of his adhesion nevertheless to our Mother Church, in whose bosom we have been regenerated.' Not a few things of the like stamp call for the author's revision—and are indeed, as we have intimated, at variance apparently with his own more deliberate opinion.

After his return from Italy Ken lived peacefully at Winchester, until in 1679 he was appointed chaplain to the Princess of Orange. The office had been held by Hooper, who found, as Ken now did, the pious and gracious disposition of the English Princess insufficient to counterbalance her husband's cold harsh manners, his private immoralities, and the tone generally of his court. Ken felt himself bound to remonstrate with William on his conduct towards the Princess; and the dislike which he incurred by this honest discharge of duty was heightened by the firmness with which he insisted that Count Zulestein, the Prince's illegitimate uncle, should perform a promise of marriage under which he had seduced one of the maids of honour-the niece of Ken's first patron, Lord Maynard. William threatened to dismiss the chaplain, and Ken was very willing to go; but for the sake of appearances, he was requested to remain a year longer. During this time he was treated with increased respect; at the end of it he gladly returned to Winchester.

As things then stood, the disagreements with the Prince of Orange were not likely to do Ken disservice with Charles II.— uncle to both William and Mary. Immediately on his arrival from Holland in the autumn of 1680 he was appointed one of the royal chaplains. About this time the Court paid frequent visits to Winchester, chiefly for the sake of hunting in the New Forest. In 1683 Charles laid the foundation of a new palace there; but while it was in progress there was a difficulty in lodging the sovereign and his train-including his seraglio. On one

occasion Ken's prebendal house was marked out for Nell Gwyn. He highly resented such a pollution-declaring that a woman of ill repute ought not to be endured in the house of a clergymanespecially the King's chaplain.' Nell was forced to seek other lodgings; and it is said that the Dean, more complaisant than the Prebendary, added to his residence a small building for her especial accommodation.*

In July, 1683, Ken received a very complimentary invitation from Lord Dartmouth to accompany him in an expedition to Tangier. It has been supposed that in accepting it he was influenced by the hope of relieving Christian captives in Africa; but this is evidently a groundless conjecture. The fleet sailed from Portsmouth on the 10th of August, and after it had put out to sea the object of the voyage was made public. Tangier, which had come into the possession of the British crown as a part of the dowry of Charles's queen, was about to be abandoned. Vast sums of money had been squandered on the improvement of its fortifications; and these works Lord Dartmouth was now commissioned to destroy.

The expedition has found its chronicler in one of Lord Dartmouth's council-to wit, Mr. Samuel Pepys-the same whose reputation as an able and efficient public servant has in our time been somewhat unfairly obscured by the disclosure of his foibles in the famous Diary. The outset was full of hope. Pepys congratulates himself on the prospect of 'going in a good ship, with a good fleet, under a very worthy leader, in a conversation as delightful as companions in the first form in divinity, law, physic, and the usefullest parts of mathematics, can render it—namely, Dr. Ken, Dr. Trumbull, Dr. Lawrence, and Mr. Sheres; with the additional pleasure of concerts (much above the ordinary) of voices, flutes, and violins; and, to fill up all, good humour, good cheer, some good books, and a reasonable prospect of being home again in less than two months.' (i. 326.) And Evelyn writes to him with a pleasant affectation of envy You leave us so naked at home that, till you return from Barbary, we are in danger of becoming barbarians. The heroes are all embarked with my Lord Dartmouth and Mr. Pepys; nay, they seem to carry with them not a colony only, but a college, nay, a whole university; all the sciences, all the arts, and all the professors of them too.' (ib. 327.)

* Mr. Bowles (vol. ii. p. vi.) gives, from the information of Bishop Huntingford, a more highly coloured and less probable Wintonian version of the story-that Nell took possession of Ken's house during his absence, and that, finding her deaf to entreaty, he was obliged to order a portion of the roof to be taken off!'

The Tangier Journal is in the first volume of Pepys' Life, Journals, and Correspondence, London, 1841; a distinct work from the Diary—to the success of which we no doubt owe its appearance.

These

284

Life and Works of Bishop Ken.

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These hopes, however, were but poorly realized. Of Lawrence, the physician, the record says nothing more; Sheres, the savant, who had been at Tangier before, was found to have caught too much of its morality in more ways than one; Trumbull, the civilian, proved to be a poor creature, always wishing himself in Doctors Commons, and so utterly useless that at last his companions were glad to send him home; the absence from England was four times as long as had been expected; the African climate proved very unhealthy; and the society of Tangier was intolerable.

What a chaplain,' says Pepys, did the Admiralty send to my Lord Dartmouth in the Grafton !a little, deaf, crooked fellow, full of his design of going a hunting with my Lord.' It would seem that this worthy was superseded by the chaplain whom Dartmouth had chosen for himself, for we hear nothing more of him. The outward voyage, which lasted five weeks, passed not unpleasantly. On the Sundays Ken read prayers and preached; and his sermons at sea as on shore had usually the good fortune to please Mr. Pepys, whose criticism in such matters, as our readers may perhaps remember, was severe if not always judicious. Even here indeed we meet with a notice that 'Dr. Ken made a weak sermon' (i. 384); and at another time praise and blame are thus, mixed-Dr. Ken made an excellent sermon, full of the skill of a preacher, but nothing of a natural philosopher, it being all forced meat.' (i. 363.) :

The supper-table was enlivened by a series of discussions on the subject of spirits between Ken and Pepys, which, although on one occasion the disputants waxed 'very hot,' appear to have been amicably conducted. Pepys took the sceptical side, and we have little doubt that he got beyond his depth; but Mr. Anderdon and Mr. Markland must allow us to suspect that Ken may have been a little too credulous. Much of the good Doctor's time was now devoted to the composition of a poem on the history of St. Edmund, the royal martyr who gives his name to the pleasant town of Bury. The biographers, in speaking of this epic, all indicate horror of its tediousness. Both Bowles and Anderdon seem to have been afraid even to re-open the book in order to ascertain the number of cantos; for one states it as fourteen and the other as twelve, while Markland rightly says thirteen. We do not pretend to know much of what is in these cantos; the arguments read like a burlesque, and the verses, where we have looked at them, are no better. The subject, although taken from old Saxon history, and surrounded with a strange machinery of fiends and angels, is made to bear on the settlement of our ecclesiastical matters at the restoration of Charles II. Edmund in his exile has a vision of the Ideal Church,

Church, and is commanded to reform the Anglian in accordance with it. A synod is held at Bury. Romano, the advocate of the papacy, sly Proteo,' who seems to be meant for Shaftesbury, and other personages good and bad, have each his say; and at last the Anglo-Saxon Church is happily established on a basis which exactly agrees with the Common Prayer Book and the Thirty-nine Articles. No one, we imagine, will dispute Mr. Anderdon's opinion (p. 131) that it would have been well if the epic, like its hero in one stage of his adventures, had been committed to the bosom of the deep.

Tangier was under the government of Colonel Kirke-soon to earn lasting infamy in the suppression of Monmouth's rebellion. The corruption in matters of administration-the frightful immorality and disorder of the place-filled Ken with dismay. The Pepysian Journal notices on Sunday, September 30, 'A very fine and seasonable but most unsuccessful argument from Dr. Ken, particularly in reproof of the vices of this town. I was in pain,' adds Mr. Pepys, for the governor and the officers about us in church; but I perceived they regarded it not.' The loose company at table,' when the restraint of Lord Dartmouth's presence was removed, sometimes drove the councillor and the chaplain to dine together in private; and they talked on the viciousness of the town and its being time for Almighty God to destroy it.' Again, on October 28, there was very high discourse between Dr. Ken and me on the one side, and the governor on the other, about the excessive liberty of swearing we observed here. The Doctor, it seems, had preached on it to-day.' Ken succeeded, however, in thwarting Governor Kirke's attempt to appoint a worthless fellow, brother of his Excellency's mistress, to the chaplaincy of Sir Cloudesley Shovel's ship.

Walton

In April, 1684, Ken again landed in England. had died during his absence, at the age of ninety, leaving him a seal-ring, which he himself had received as a bequest from Dr. Donne; and within a few months he had also to lament the loss of his patron, the pious and munificent Morley. By this, however, a way was opened for Ken's own advancement to the episcopate, as the successor of Mews, who was translated from Bath and Wells to Winchester. The appointment was creditable to the King, for it is said that without solicitation he bestowed the see on Ken, as the little fellow who refused to give poor Nelly a lodging.'

On Jan. 25, 1684-5, he was consecrated at Lambeth ; and within little more than a week, he was summoned, with other prelates, to attend the death-bed of Charles. Both as being the most in favour of all the bishops,' and as the most persuasive speaker, he seems

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