contrived to make his very scraps and intercalary minutes profitable; and, accordingly, during those short intervals between dressing and dinner, and such like attendances, when he could not engage in the texture of his study, he used to get the best penned English books, and read them aloud; which he said he did to form and improve his English style and pronunciation. And on such occasions he used to say it was pity to lose any of his time. And for the advantage of his Latin he used to keep his accounts in that language, and as near the classic as he could."

His relaxations from study were few and simple. Society, late in the evening, after a hard day's work, he loved. Music, too, was also a favourite resource, and he began to indulge himself on the organ, till "his under neighbour, a morose and importune master of arts," took to playing at bowls in his room, in order to show his sense of the disturbance, and retaliate on the musician. His morbid sensibilities appear to have found an innocent and amiable amusement in cultivating spiders, and observing their habits and modes of life. Roger North had either a similar taste himself, or had got his information from his brother, for he enlarges upon the subject.

"The Doctor had found out one petit entertainment in his study, besides books; and that was keeping of great house-spiders, in wide-mouthed glasses, such as men keep tobacco in. When he had them safe in hold, he supplied them with crumbs of bread, which they ate, rather than starve. But their regale was flies, which he sometimes caught and put to them. When their imprisonment appeared inevitable, they fell to their trade of making webs, and made large expansions and more private recesses. It pleased him to observe the animals manage their interests in the great work of taking their prey. If it was a small fly given to them, no more ceremony, but take and eat him; but if a great master flesh fly, then to work, twenty courses round, and perhaps not come near him, for he had elaws sharp as cats, and, after divers starts to and fro, a web was with an hind leg dexterously clapt over two or three of his legs: after all his claws were in that manner secured, then, at a running pull, a broad web was brought over him, which bound him hand and foot, and, by being fixed to the spider's tail, the fly was carried off into one of his inmost recesses, there to be feasted upon at leisure."

His love of society, and his manner in it, are thus mentioned:

"When the Doctor was abroad, and absent from his studies, either by visits, friendly meetings or attendances, his chief delight was in discourse. And he would apply himself to all sorts of company in a brisk and smart manner; for he was very just and ready in his speech, facetious, and fluent, and his wit was never at a nonplus. I have known him at act, keep suppers as merry as the best, and, though he drank little or nothing, he sparkled and reparteed, not only saving himself harmless, (for the sober man is commonly the mark) but returning bite. His sobriety was so extraordinary, that, with entire assurance, I can affirm, that never in all his life did he know what a cup too much (as they term it) was. And this continence was more singular in him, who was really a wit in conversation, and his company desired by all people that knew him; and it is well known how much such qualifications induce men to come under the jurisdiction of the bottle. But this abstemiousness in extremity proved of ill consequence to his health, as will be showed in fit place."

It appears, however, that he did not relish the society of his college. "He did not love morosity and sour looks," which caused him to look out for another residence in the university, more agreeable to his taste. He accordingly resigned his fellowship, and took up his abode in Trinity, where, it seems, he perceived more of the humane and the polite, than in the lesser colleges; and, above all, his inducement was his value for the more than thrice excellent master, Dr. Barrow.

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" He had long ago contracted a familiar acquaintance, I may say friendship, with him, and they used each other in a most delightful communication of thoughts. The good Dr. Barrow ended his days in London, in a Prebend's house that had a little stair to it, out of the cloisters, that made him call it a man's nest, and I presume it is so called to this day. The master's disease was an high fever. It had been his custom, contracted when (upon the fund of a travelling fellowship) he was at Constantinople, in all his maladies to cure himself with opium; and, being very ill, probably he augmented his dose, and so inflamed his fever, and at the same time obstructed the crisis; for he was a man knocked down, and had the eyes as of one distracted. Our Doctor seeing him so, was struck with horror; for he, that knew him so well in his best health, could best distinguish; and when he left him, he concluded he should see him no more alive, and so it proved.”

The biographer, in describing the college habits of his brother, introduces some observations on the manners of the university in his time, which are interesting to those who have an opportunity of comparing them with their own very different experience.

“ The Doctor conformed to all the orders of the college, seldom ate out of the hall, and then upon a fish day only, being told it was for his health. He was constantly at the chapel prayers, so much, as one may say, that, being in town, he never failed. This, in the morning, secured his time, for he went from thence directly to his study, without any sizing or breakfast at all. Whilst he was at Jesus College, coffee was not in such common use as afterwards, and coffee-houses but young. At that time, and long after, there was but one, and that kept by one Kirk. The trade of news also was scarce set up; for they had only the Public Gazette, till Kirk got a written news letter circulated by one Muddiman. But now the case is much altered; for it is become a custom, after chapel, to repair to one or the other of the coffee-houses, for there are divers, where hours are spent in talking; and less profitable reading of newspapers, of which swarms are continually supplied from London. And the scholars are so greedy after news, (which is none of their business,) that they neglect all for it, and it is become very rare for any of them to go directly to his chamber after prayers, without doing his suit at the coffee-house; which is a vast loss of time, grown out of a pure novelty; for who can apply close to a subjeet, with his head full of the din of a coffee. house. 'I cannot but think, that since coffee, with the most, is become a morning refreshment, the order, which I knew once established at Lambeth-house, or some. what like it, might be introduced into the colleges, which was for the chaplains and gentlemen officers to meet every morning in a sort of still-house, where a good woman provided them with liquors, as they liked best; and this they called their coffee-house."

But, to return to the Doctor himself. Soon after he took orders, it fell to his lot to preach before the king, (Charles II.) at Newmarket. " This was a great trial of his spirits, and he went with great reluctance of mind; but reason and resolution prevailed. He said, that he made it a law to himself to confine his view, above the people, to a certain space, which he was not to exceed; and in speaking to a multitude, it is a good rule to mind none of them.” Mr. North managed to sueceed both with the king and the ladies.

"The king was pleased to signify his approval of it by saying, as he came out of the church, that the preacher would soon be a bishop; and if his majesty had lived a little longer, he might have proved bimself a prophet; but his, as well as the Doctor's untimely death, fell in the way of that event. The ladies also were pleased to accept the Doctor's discourse. One of them, being asked how she liked Mr. North's sermon, said, that he was a handsome man, and had pretty doctrine."

Of the Doctor's person, which the lady admired, there is a very minute description, drawn in a manner not much unlike the style of Defoe, which indeed that of the biographer frequently resembles. Vol. I. No. 3.-Museum.

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“ As to his person and constitution, excepting only the agreeable air of his countenance, and forid head of' faxen hair, I have little to produce that may be commended. His temperature of body, and his austere course of life, were ill matched, and his complexion agreed with neither; for his face was always tincted with a fresh colour, and his looks vegete and sanguine, and, as some used to jest, his features were scandalous, as showing rather a madam entravestrie, than a book

But his flesh was strangely flaccid and soft, bis going weak and shuffling, often crossing his legs, as if he were tipsey, his sleep, seldom or never, easy, but interrupted with unquiet and painful dreams, the reposes he had were short and by snatches,—his active spirit had rarely any perfect settlement or rest.”

His mind seems always to have been in a state of fermentation, which fretted his pigmy body to decay."

“It is certain he was overmuch addicted to thinking, or else he performed it with more labour and intenseness than other men ordinarily do; for, in the end, it will appear he was a martyr to study. He scarce ever allowed himself any vacation; what he had, was forced upon him. There was no undertaking, no occurrence, how trivial soever, whereof all the circumstances or emergencies that possibly might concern him, were not valued and revolved in his mind, lest he should be so unhappy as to oversee any, as if mere trifles had been cardinal to the interests of his whole life. It he was to ride to his father's house, walk to chur i, or make any visit in town, he was in pain about the contigents, and so low as to fret at the fancy he had, that the people in the street looked on him. He was, in a word, the most intense and passionate thinker that ever lived and was in his right mind.”

He shared with the fastidious Gray, to whose character the Doctor's bears a striking resemblance, a great dissatisfaction with his own works, together with a morbid longing after perfection in his productions; and what brings the comparison more home, he had, like the poet, an utter dislike to have his likeness taken. To such a pitch indeed had this disgust risen,-such unnatural importance did it occupy in his mind, that he seems to have been haunted with the idea, that the mere impression of his person was laid in wait for; as he actually, every morning, designedly obliterated the print in the bed where he had lain.

“He was always exceeding thoughtful and full of notions. He could not rest from working upon his designs, and, at the same time, so diffident of the event, that, between impulse and despair, he was like Mahomet in his tomb, or, as they say, Erasmus, hung; Despair had the greatest influence; and it sat so hard upon his spirits, that he desired rather to be utterly forgot, than that any memorial of his dealings in literature should remain, to show that such a one as he existed, which should not be proof against the teeth of the next ages. After he had the government of himself, he would not endure that a picture should be made of him, though he was much courted and invited by Sir Peter Lely to it. And what was very odd, he would not leave the print in his bed where he had lain, remain undefaced.”

He was also like Gray in this respect that all his deep and long continued researches came to nothing. The only evidence of the learning and application of both of them, was a heap of notes. Those of Gray have lately seen the light;—the papers of North were all, by his especial direction, before his death, committed to the flames. If the task had been left to his younger brother, we may guess from his language, and, indeed, from his having disobeyed the injunction, in the only instance within his power,-in spite of “the pleasant impreeation,

,—that the world would have been the better for the industry of this elaborate thinker.

" - And must profess under no small concern, that all his books and papers fell not into my hands as those did. It had been a shrewd temptation to have snapt a parole or trust prejudicial to no account but of the fire. But his humour was to hold all within himself, till he was entirely satisfied that no slip or oversight might give disadvantage to his cause or himself, lest any less guarded words or expressions should escape him. Nothing could have secured him better in that point, than the participation of his friends. In a critic of works, an author has but one eye upon his own; but, upon another's, he hath two, and spectacles to boot. He was so deeply concerned for his cause, as well as his own esteem, that he durst not trust even a friend with either. And he had a dread lest this little note book, of which I have given an account, might happen to stray, and fall into unknown persons' hands, who possibly might misconstrue his meaning. In contemplation of which contigent, he wrote upon it this pleasant imprecation :-I beshrew his heart, that gathers my opinion from any thing he finds wrote "here."

After Dr. Barrow's death, Dr. North was appointed to succeed him in the mastership of Trinity, an elevation which might be supposed to put the crown on the honourable ambition of a retired and studious

a scholar. With his rise to this dignity, however, ended all the happiness which his peculiar temperament had hitherto allowed him to enjoy. In place of retirement, he found solitude; the social converse in which he had, till now, indulged, seemed unbecoming the gravity of his station; and what more than all tended to render the change a miserable one, he found himself thwarted by the eight senior fellows, who had, during the time of the two last masters, governed the college without interference. When the new master began to exert his authority, the seniors opposed him, and he was quickly involved in quarrels, which, harassing his feeble and sensitive frame, hastened his death. Being near his end, he ordered that he should be buried in the outward chapel, that the fellows might trample upon him dead, as they had done living.

The austere and abstemious course of life which he led, would, however, conduce as much as any thing to bring on the fatal sickness which terminated in his death. 'He is bere drawn with the manners of a hermit, and the spirit of a martyr.

“I have already accounted for his thoughtful and studious course of life, and habitual fulness and care in his mind. But after he came into a post of magistracy, all his solicitudes exasperated, and the ordinary refreshments, which he sometimes met with before, failed. And I must add, that as his course of life, so his diet, was severe to himself, for he was always sober and temperate, and scarce spared the time of eating from thinking. After morning prayer and a solitary dish of coffee, he retired to his study at the end of a gallery, and there he was fast till noon, unless college or university affairs called him out. After his meals, a mea. gre dish of tea, and then again to his post till chapel and supper; and then if he had any friendly conversation, it was still in a studious way; that is, discoursing of abstruse matters, which, however pleasant to him, kept his head at work. His chief remissions were when some of his nearest relations were with him, or he with them: and then, as they say, he was whole-footed: but this was not often, nor long together. Some of them used to be free with him; and, in his own way, between jest and earnest, tell him he must indulge a little, go abroad, and be free with a glass of wine, with good company, in his college, as he used to be with them: that his self-denial would endanger his life, and the like. To wbich sort of discourse, I have heard bim return a tradition of Bishop Wren, who, when he was told he must not keep Lent, his body would not bear it, Will it not, said he, then it is no body for me. And the Doctor, by his life of perpetual thinking, had settled his mind in a resolution so stiff, that he often seemed rather morose and humoursome, than, as his constant profession was, to be governed by reason. When his friends have been importunate with him, to say (in the common forms of free converse) Why? and for what reason? He hath answered, Reason is to govern me, but my mill jo at reason to every body else."

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Such at length was the state of his health, that he was compelled to withdraw from every thing which might, in the slightest degree, disturb the equanimity of his mind. He could no longer play his part in a college wrangle, which, at first, he had done with a great deal of readiness and decision, for the penalty was a fit. And it is remarkable, that during an occasional interference of this kind, the fatal stroke was inflicted, which soon hurried him to his grave. It was determined in a meeting of the master and seniors, which had not passed without considerable dispute, that two of the students of the college should be admonished for being disorderly. The master was reprimanding them with more than usual acrimony and warmth, when, in the act of speaking, he dropped on the floor. This fit deprived him of the use of one side, and he never regained the entire use of his faculties. He, however, in some measure, recovered, and dragged on a miserable existence till he died, in 1683, aged a little more than thirty-eight years, and was buried in the ante-chapel, as he had himself directed. After the paralytic stroke, just mentioned, when he had partly come to his senses, he gave to his brother this extraordinary account of his feelings during the access of the fit.

"He told me the images in his mind during this infliction, as far as he could remember them. First, during his admonishing, he perceived himself to lean towards the left side; and the leg that should have sustained him seemed to have lost its bone, and to be like the finger of a glove; by which it was plain to him, that he must fall, and accordingly he gave way to it. After this, he remembered nothing at all that had happened to him, until, by the help of his mother, he had taken a little rest. And then, in a dreaming manner, his conceit was, that he had got a strange leg in bed with him, and was much perplexed which way to get rid of it; whether he should call to have it taken away or not. And it was a great while before he could bring himself, even awake, to own it."

The biographer then proceeds to narrate the situation of his brother after his partial recovery, and gives this awfully affecting picture of an intellect in ruins.

"It is an uneasy task, but (according to the profession I make of truth for better or worse) necessary to show the miserable decay of the Doctor's thinking and memorial capacities. What is the difference between manhood and puerility, but that the former hath a large stock of useful memoirs, and also strength habituated to action, which the latter wanting, runs after levities, and any thing for variety, without choice, unless appetite or inclination (and even that flows from experience) draws it. Suppose an hurricane to fall upon a sound man's memory, and obliterate great part of his collections, and confuse the rest, as one may imagine a fine poem wrote upon the sands, and much ruffled by the wind-there may be enough left to show it had been good sense, but the dignity of the verse lost. So the man would lose his judgment of true values, and relapse into a sort of puerility, but still his moral character, that is his will to do good or evil, remains unaltered. This was the case of our good Doctor. The seat of his memory was ruffled by the disease falling upon his brain and nerves, which had made such havoc, that he had no firm notion of himself or of any thing, but had his experience to gather, and his understanding to frame over again. After he could lie awake and think, I guess he had some reflection, that he had been over severe with himself by too much hard study and abstemiousness, which, possibly, brought that disease over him and then fancied, he must cure himself by a course clean contrary; and accordingly he thought, that now he must be merry and jolly. Pursuant to this (conjectured) model, the company that assisted about his bed to entertain him, must find merry tales to tell, and if a little smutty the mirth paid for it. The lighter sort of books and frivolous comedies were read to him, and he heard them with notable attention, and at the quaint passages was usually affected, and often laughed, but (as his visage was then distorted) most deformly. After