offer a kind of religious advice best suited for these times.

The name of Dorothy, Lady Pakington, is now prefixed for the first time; because it is presumed that the evidence ascribing it to that excellent person is sufficiently strong to warrant the appearance of her name in the title-page. It is certainly one of the most remarkable cases in the history of letters, that the name of the author of a series of treatises so popular should have remained so effectually concealed. Never were so many anonymous writings published with a design so pure. The opinion, however, which assigns them to Lady Pakington is not of any recent origin; it has been handed down from the time of the first appearance of these writings; it has lately become more general, and it is confirmed by private tradition, as well as some public testi

monies.

It is well known that the house of Sir John Pakington, Bart., Westwood, in the county of Worcester, was a place of refuge in the time of Cromwell's usurpation to many eminent sufferers of the King's party, and especially to that pattern of Christian constancy and primitive zeal for the truth, Dr. Henry Hammond, whose life and writings remain

for the instruction of all ages that have come after. Here that great and good man was cherished for the last ten years of his life by the worthy owner of the mansion and his pious lady; and here, just before the restoration of the royal family, according to his own heart's prayer, he peacefully resigned his soul to his Maker, April 25, 1660.

It was known at the first appearance of these treatises, that the author was a friend of Hammond; and this is almost the only fact concerning the author, which can be said to have been certainly known. Lady Pakington's warm regard for her distinguished guest was such as to give her the best of all possible titles to be called his friend: it is instanced in other particulars mentioned in Bishop Fell's Life of Hammond, and more especially by the following impressive and affecting anecdote:

"There was one Houseman, a weaver by trade, but by weakness disabled too much to follow that or any other employment, who was an extreme favourite of Dr. Hammond's. Him he used with a most affectionate freedom, gave him several of his books, and examined his progress in them, invited him, nay, importuned him still, to come for whatever he needed, and at his death left him ten pounds as a legacy. A

little time before his death, he and the Lady Pakington being walking, Houseman happened to come by; to whom, after the Doctor had talked a while in his usual friendly manner, he let him pass; yet soon after called him back with these words: Houseman, if it should please God that I should be taken from this place, let me make a bargain between my lady and you, that you be sure to come to her with the same freedom you would to me for any thing you want.' And so with a most tender kindness gave him his benediction. Then turning to the lady, he said, 'Will you not think it strange I should be more affected at parting from Houseman than from you ?'"1

It cannot be surprising that one whose Christian benevolence and discernment were thus appreciated by Hammond, should have been, as Fell relates of her, a person who delighted much in the attractive discourses of her guest, and who could imbibe their spirit. It has long been handed down and confidently received as a family tradition, and there is a small apartment in the top of the house at Westwood, which has always been pointed out as the room in which Lady Pakington, with the assistance

'Fell's Life of Hammond, ed. 1661. p. 162, 3.

of Dr. Hammond and Bishop Fell, arranged that excellent work, The Whole Duty of Man.1

Lady Pakington was the daughter of Thomas, Lord Coventry, keeper of the great seal of England for the first sixteen years of the reign of Charles I. a man, as Clarendon testifies, of great abilities and the strictest integrity, whose death, in 1640, at the beginning of the Long Parliament, was looked upon as a singular misfortune to the King's cause. She was married to Sir John Pakington, a loyal and upright adherent to the same party, who, after the loss of 40,000l. expended in defence of his sovereign, and having been tried for his life under the government of the usurpers, lived to be returned member of parliament for his native county of Worcester in the first parliament which assembled upon the restoration. The attachment of Sir John Pakington to the suffering Church had been well proved in the days of her trial; as it appears that a friendly correspondence was constantly kept up between the house at Westwood and the loyal divines who were num bered among Hammond's friends, particularly Fell, Allestree, and the good and learned Bishop Sander

This is stated from information kindly communicated to the editors by John S. Pakington, Esq. of Westwood, M.P. for Droitwich.

son; and his joy, when the Church and episcopacy were restored, is strongly marked in the annals of the time. When Dr. George Morley, the newly appointed Bishop of Worcester, came, in September 1661, to take possession of his see, "the noble and loyal gentleman" rode out to meet him, two miles from the city, at the head of "his gallant troop of volunteers," and so escorted him onwards, till he was joined nearer Worcester by the lord lieutenant and a number of other loyalists, of the magistracy, gentry, and clergy of Worcestershire.' Lady Pakington appears to have lived many years in happy union with her husband; and dying in 1679, was buried near the grave of her friend Dr. Hammond, in the church of Hampton Lovel, the parish-church of Westwood. A memorial of her, inscribed on the monument of her grandson, speaks of her as exemplary for her piety and goodness, and justly reputed the authoress of the Whole Duty of Man.

The other authorities for attributing these writings to Lady Pakington may be briefly enumerated. The learned Dr. Hickes, whose troubled life did not prevent him from rendering the greatest aid to the cause of religion and letters, is said, in his early days,

1 Letter from Worcester, dated September 14, 1661, in Kennett's Chronicle, p. 535.