A compleat history of the most remarkable providences both of judgment and mercy, which have hapned in this present age extracted from the best writers, the author's own observations, and the numerous relations sent him from divers parts of the three kingdoms : to which is added, whatever is curious in the works of nature and art / the whole digested into one volume, under proper heads, being a work set on foot thirty years ago, by the Reverend Mr. Pool, author of the Synopsis criticorum ; and since undertaken and finish'd, by William Turner...

His CHARACTER.

It must be confessed, 'tis a bold and dangerous thing to attempt the Character of one of the greatest Men which our Age has produced, especially for one who had not the Honour of any Personal intimacy with him. All that's to be done is from what has been already said, and what other Memoirs are left of him, to endeavour at something so like him, that any one who sees it, may say, 'twas meant for the Picture of the Great Essex, how infinitely soever it must of ne∣cessity be short of its Original.

The first thing then Remarkable in him, and which alone would sufficiently distinguish him, is, That he was a Person of strict Morals, and severe Piety; and that in the midst of a Court

and Age not very Famous for either. Nor did this degenerate into Superstition or Weakness. He was a refin'd Politician, without what some will say 'tis impossible to be so, and that's Dissi∣mulation. When Affronts were offer'd him, he did not, as others, dissemble 'em, but, like him∣self only scorn and conquer 'em; even tho' of the highest Nature, and which generally pierce deepest into Persons of his Figure and Character. He was, as all the rest here commemorated, a firm Lover of his Country and Religion, the true Character of a true English-man; and en∣gaged on their sides against the then Duke of York, and other Ministers, not from any mean Pique, or little discontented Humour, which he was very much above; but meerly from the true Respect he had for them, and a sense of that imminent Danger they were in, which his piercing Judgment and long Experience made him more sensible of, and his Courage and Vertue more concern'd at, than others; not only those who fat unconcern'd Spectators, or shared in their Ruins; but even then most of them who were engaged with him in the same Common Cause of their Defence and Preservation. Nothing of such an impatience, or eagerness, or black Melancholy could be discern'd in his Temper or Conversation, as is always the Symptom or Cause of such Tragical Ends, as his Enemies would perswade us he came to.

Lastly, What may be said of most of the rest, does in a more especial and eminent manner agree to the Illustrious Essex; and than which nothing greater can be said of Mortality, He liv'd an Hero, and dy'd a Martyr.