act chosen to divert the University with his wit, did it with so much sarcasm and abuse, and with such severe reflections upon the principal persons in that eminent body, that the Vice-Chancellor not suffering him any longer to continue in his scurrility, had ordered him to be pulled down. Our Mr. Rainbow, though unprovided, and without the least forethought, was called up to succeed him in that slippery place of honour; which difficult province (and made then more difficult by the pub lic reprimand of his predecessor,) he managed so dexterously, and made his extempore speech with so facetious an air, and delivered it so smoothly and agree ably, that far from dashing against the rock of censure, which the other had split upon, he procured the general satisfaction of his auditors, and a just applause to himself. Nor had he before this departure gained himself less esteem in that College of Magdalen, where he had been educated, than in that more public stage of the University: for, among others, Dr. Henry Smith, who was then Master of that College, being chaplain to the right honourable Thomas Earl of Suffolk, sometime Lord Treasurer of England, and presented by him to that place, and one who was an able judge of a scholar's worth, having taken notice of Mr. Rainbow's excellent parts and good deportment, was very desirous to have retained him in the College; but there being then no prospect of any preferment that might invite him to stay, the worthy Doctor consented, though not without some reluctance, to Mr. Rainbow's removal to Kirton School aforesaid, which laborious employment, so uneasy to most ingenuous persons, he discharged a little while with more satisfaction to those men, whose children were intrusted to his care, than to himself; for this new charge being not so agreeable to his inclinations, he quitted it ere long, and went to London, with two of three more of the same standing and College, after he had by the way paid a visit to his friends in Cambridge, and settled himself at Fuller's-rents.. When he went into sacred orders I cannot learn, for he hath în his diaries very rarely taken any notice of any preferment bestowed on him, as incompatible with that low and mean opinion he entertained of himself; only this I find, that the first time he preached was in April, 1632, at Glentworth, by which may be collected, that he was not admitted into orders till he had commenced Master of Arts. He staid a quarter of a year in Fuller's-rents, whence he removed to Sion College, for the benefit of the good library in that place. And he enjoyed himself and his friends freely and without noise; and as he thirsted after more knowledge, and daily improved it in that retirement, so he had in the year following some hopes of shewing it to the benefit of others, (though he was sufficiently averse to all ostentation) in becoming chaplain to that worthy and learned society of Lincoln'sInn; and there he met with no small encouragement in his pretensions, having gained the approbation of the most judicious persons concerned in that election; but he succeeded not in his design, another man, who had a louder voice, being preferred before him. And now, lest his disappointment should tempt him to despond, the all-wise God, who knew best what was fit for him, and who never fails those that diligently seek and serve him, as we may charitably conclude our Mr. Rainbow then did, since he hath left so many testimonies of his private devotion in his diaries; he, I say, did not forsake him in his exigency. For, after this generous dismission, rather than refusal of him at Lincoln's-Inn, where he staid two or three months, he was in June, the same year, made curate at the Savoy, and from thence invited to return to his beloved college of Magdalen, by Dr. Smith, the master, and some of the fellows, with the proffer of the first fellowship that fell. Any preferment in that place was likely to be acceptable to Mr. Rainbow; but the thought thereof had an irresistible charm to bring him thither, when seconded by the kindness of that society, which, in contradiction to the old proverb, forgot him not in his absence. The proffer was noble and tempting, and met with an agreeable success; for Mr. Rainbow upon this returned to the college, and accordingly, on Nov. 13, 1633, he was pre-elected fellow pro domino fundatore, of the foundation, and thereupon, in Jan. 28th following, he was admitted to the vacancy of the next fellowship. But that, it seems, as expectations often are but airy, did not soon fall, and therefore, that he might not have a title without profit, he was elected and admitted into a fellowship pro Doctore Goch, in June 24, 1634, which notwithstanding he would not accept of without a Salvo jure et interesse in his former election, lest it should prejudice his right to a fellowship of the foundation: to which condition the master and the fellows willingly consented. For they who so much desired his company, would not, to enjoy it, scruple at any thing which was not in consistent with their oaths and statutes. In pursuance of which design, on December 19th following, they unanimously decreed, that his first election and admission should be sufficient for him to obtain and enjoy what fellowship soever first and next vacant, unless appropriated to some school or scholarship by its original foundation. Which decree extended to four fellowships more than his first admission; a thing so uncommon, that I am assured, from a very good hand, the like instance cannot easily be met with in that college books. We have seen Mr. Rainbow resettled in that college, let us, in the next place, see whether he answered the expectations and hopes which had been conceived of him. To understand this the better, we will consider him under a double capacity, as a preacher and as a tutor. As to the former of these, though I cannot, as I have already mentioned, find the time when he entered into holy orders, yet I am informed, that after his fixing again in the university he preached two sermons at St. Paul's Cross, the one in Sept. 28, 1634, upon John vi. 27. which he printed at the entreaty of his friends, and intitled it, Labour forbid den and commanded, and dedicated the same to Sir John Wray, Bart, and his brother Mr. Edward Wray: and another in 1639. And in the university he became a very celebrated preacher, as he had formerly been highly respected for some other exercises performed by him there in his younger years: for his sermons before the university were heard with great applause. His audience was always crowded and thronged; and, to give you one instance of the great esteem he had publicly gained as an eminent preacher, I need only to mention, that when he who was appointed to preach in the University Church, failed to perform that duty, the vice-chancellor that then was, earnestly desired Mr. Rainbow to supply that public defect; which, though unwilling to undertake, as having neither any notes about him, nor time for premeditation, at last, through the solicitation of that public person, he condescended to it; and his ready parts and great abilities enabled him, by God's blessing thereon, to perform that difficult task with satisfaction, and even admiration, which his modesty would have dissuaded him from attempting. This was indeed a public trial and attestation of his worth, and that before so eminent and learned a society; and therefore, when in the sequel of this performance he found himself but too apt in cases of this nature to be pleased and elated with the vain praises, as he styled them, of a frothy wit, he, upon serious cousider. ation with himself, finding such encomiums to be but glittering nothings, and no fit objects for his contemplation, which should not fix upon any thing but more lasting and solid joys, and begging the Divine assistance to the completing of that pious design, did set himself to bend his studies another way, though with much more difficulty and toil to himself; since those, by him, unaffected flowers of rhetoric which appeared, and those sparkling rays of wit which shone forth in his first performances at the university, as well as in the late mentioned sermon, Labour forbidden and commanded, though they came to him naturally in a manner, and with much ease, did not, in his judgment at least, tend to the advancement of God's glory, which is the principal end of our nativity, and which, he wisely and truly judged, ought to be the chief end and design of every sermon. He did not think that a sermon, or rather an harangue, garnished with tropical and figurative flowers, and beautified with gay similes, taken from the historians and poets, could contribute much to the sav ing of a soul. It was not a laboured oratorical sentence, a round period, or a quaint expression, that could, in his opinion, much assist to the completing of that grand affair, among the unlearned. He judged a plainness of matter, a clearness and perspicuity of style in the expounding of the sacred oracles of the Old and New Testament, and adapting and applying them home to the consciences and spiritual necessities of the meanest persons, and that in an easy and familiar language, was the grand design of a true Christian orator, in persuading his audience to the love and imitation of the great Captain of our salvation, Jesus Christ; to adore him sincerely here, and to enjoy him eternally hereafter, by our being adopted into that happy number of his brethren. For the persuading of one poor soul, whom our blessed Saviour hath redeemed with his dear blood, to live as a Christian ought to do, first by working upon the judgment, and then by engaging the affections, is of an infinite more value than to acquire the empty glory of being accounted a Christian, a Demosthenes, or a Cicero; to rival in eloquence a Lactantius, a Chrysostom, or a Bernard. And in this method of preaching did he continue till death put a period to his labours and toils. You have seen him in a public capacity as a preacher, now consider him in his private one as a tutor. In the year 1635 he began to take pupils, whom he instruct ed with so much care, and by his frequent lectures, both in the mysteries of philosophy, and in that, to which the other ought always to be subservient, the funda mentals and necessary superstructure of religion, as well as by his constant inspection into their manners and behaviour, fearing that otherwise, while they perused the large volumes of the sage and quick sighted heathen philosophers, they should forget that they were Christians; and should not remember God, the first cause and author of all, while they wandered in the maze and labyrinth of second causes; and, lastly, lest while they dwelt upon the study of ethics, they should contradict the divine precepts of their own religion, by a deplorable immorality. So that Dr. Henry Smith, whom I have had occasion to mention twice, as his great friend, pleased with his real industry, as well as satisfied with his acute parts, which he had the opportunity of knowing better by the assiduity of his company, committed to his care the two sons of Theophilus, Earl of Suffolk, who had been recommended to his own, when at the same time another nobleman, my Lord Daincourt, had en trusted Mr. Rainbow with the like number. Which trust he did so far answer, that, joined to the often visits he made the Earl of Suffolk, in the company of the earl's sons, from Cambridge, during the time of that noble person's long affliction upon the racks of the gout, acquired him not only an high esteem at that time, but made way for his higher advancement in the Church afterwards, through the favour and kindness (I might have added the true gratitude,) of that noble family. For the earl by this means came to have a true knowledge of Mr. Rainbow's real worth, and from thence contracted an high value for him, and a kindness proportionable thereto. To return again to Cambridge, from whence we have been absent a while at Audley Inn, it was after his settlement in the college that the frequency of his visits to Dr. Smith occasioned an acquaintance and kindness between Mr. Rainbow and Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, daughter to the said worthy doctor, whose virtues I would have mentioned in this place, if her modesty (she being yet alive) did not restrain me from doing it, and withal make that character I might now give her, look like flattery in me to her now while living, which would be but justice and a debt to her virtues when dead. Therefore, to wave this just panegyric, I must only add, that then began that virtuous affection between REMEMBRANCER, No. 64. them, which continued for several years before it was completed by the conjugal tie, by reason of the iniquity, and the threatening of those (to give them a soft epithet) cloudy times. In the year 1639, our Mr. Rainbow was chosen dean of the college, which office he discharged with great care and prudence; discouraging and punishing the vicious, and encouraging the diligent and sober young students. Upon the 20th day of April he fell into a dangerous swoon, so that that day wherein he first drew breath, had like to have proved the day of his death; and hence, after his recovery, he had meditations suitable thereto, to be seen in his diary. I have already mentioned what favour he had gained of the Earl of Suffolk, one of whose ancestors had founded that college: consequent of the high opinion that earl had of Mr. Rainbow's integrity, in making a settlement of his estate in the year 1640, he did him the honour, among other trustees, to make him one; as remembering not only how careful a tutor he was over his sons, but how happy an instrument he had that year been in reconciling a difference between himself and his eldest son. This great trust Mr. Rainbow, because young, undertook with some unwillingness; but he discharged it afterwards with all imaginable fidelity; therein not proposing to himself the least improvement of his own private fortunes, but the advantage of that noble family; and, while he continued therein, after the death of Earl Theophilus, which happened in June, in the year last mentioned, though his care for the estate of his honourable charge was great, yet was it no less for the great concern of their souls, without which the other had been less valuable; and over whom, agreeable to his function, he was very watchful and diligent, and God was not wanting to bless his pious endeavours therein with a suitable return. Which happiness was not confined to those noble youths he had under his peculiar tuition, but extended to other young persons of the nobility who frequented that family. For he observing some extravagancies in them, too incident to men of their figure, and who meet with many temptations, and especially with one, that of flattery, the bane of youth, wrought so upon,their spirits by his cogent reasons, and insinuating rhetoric, that they gratefully accepted of some prayers composed by Mr. Rainbow, which was suited to their particular con'dition, as was apparent by some papers seen after his death; and those noble per E e His great friend, Dr. Henry Smith, dying, and the mastership of Magdalen College becoming thereby vacant, in October, 1642, Mr. Rainbow having formerly had a promise and grant of that place upon the first vacancy, from the Right Hon. Theophilus Earl of Suffolk, was now admitted into it, with the concurrence of his son, Earl James. And now seeing himself set upon an higher ground, and consequently his actions thereby exposed more to the public view and censure, his next and chief care was to discharge his new trust conscientiously; and therefore having, while he was a fellow of that same college, taken notice that some very hopeful young men had, upon their being too early advanced, fallen from their former studious and virtnous course of living into debauchery, he, upon his accession to the mastership, resolved not to admit any man to a fellowship, who had not first commenced master of arts; that their longer stay before their preferment might give the college a clearer demonstration of their worth, and they thereby might become, as it were, probationers for three years. sons had ever afterwards a just veneration of Northumberland, to the Lady Elizabeth and a true kindness for him. Hence be Howard. became so much the favourite of the families of Suffolk, Northumberland, Warwick, and Orrery; and, since I have mentioned the last, I cannot forbear to add, that he who first bore that title hath, in his Divine Poems, which he wrote in his declining years, bating the difference of the languages, outstripped those of Prudentius, (who also composed in his old age,) in the richness of fancy, and in delicacy of expression. And as he had in other topics, composed for his diversion, shewn that he wanted not a chaste and elegant style, even when he treated on less severe and serious subjects, so hath he in those his poems on the Festivals, acquired a reputation which will never be denied his merit, till wit and judgment be exiled the world, no more than posterity can, without the highest injustice, refuse the title of a most accurate experimental philosopher to his yet surviving brother, and our Bishop's friend, the Hon. Mr. Robert Boyle; a gentleman who is no less happy in, and respected for a sweetness of temper, than for his ingenuity; and the present age seems so much in love with his philosophical experiments, and discourses upon them, by which he hath signalized himself to the greatest part of Europe, that even a critic of another nation, not very ready to bestow compliments upon others, but when even compelled thereto by truth, cannot deny, but that his experiments and reflections have always an air of solidity; to which may be justly added, that as he hath enriched natural philosophy with his choice observations, so hath he, in contradiction to the trite objection of such students, being near neighbours to Atheists, made that dear mistress an handmaid to religion. But I now forget that I trespass against the reader's patience by this long digression, as well as hereby offend this religions gentleman's modesty, for which, after I have craved pardon of both, I shall return to Mr. Rainbow; whom we shall, according to the series of his history, find ready to attend the young Earl of Suffolk, Jaines, to the Long Parliament, in October 1640. A parliament, a small part of which afterwards, under the specious pretence of a thorough reformation, brought one of the best of our kings, Charles the Martyr, to the block, and laid waste that Church of England, which hath been long the glory and bulwark, under God, of the reformed religion, and the envy of the Romish, In 1642 Mr. Rainbow had the honour to marry the Right Hon. Algernon, Earl He took the degree of Doctor in Divinity in the year 1646, when his chief question, on which he made his thesis, was, that Ecclesia Anglicana tenet omnia ad salu tem necessaria. A point which he durst defend in the worst of times, when that Church was so much oppressed for asserting her loyalty to God and the King; for her agreement with the primitive Church in not rebelling against a lawful magistrate, and in owning the Jus Divinum of the episcopal hierarchy and liturgy. But that black storm, which, occasioned by the sins of this nation, then surfeiting of ease and plenty, was permitted a while to hover over our heads in black clouds, broke out at last in dreadful thunders upon our trembling Israel, and tore down all that opposed its way. In this common calamity Dr. Rainbow had his share, both by sympathizing with the losses of others, and by his particular sufferings. The royal martyr's death was that which, in a terrible manner, opened the eyes of all those who before would not, or could not see, that, under the mask of piety, rebellion lorded it over loyalty; when one of the most horrid villanies that the sun ever saw in this nation, was perpetrated in open day! A pious king, and one who held his crown of none but his great Creator, first hauled to a tribunal, (an act not to be paralleled in all preced mourner for losing her orthodox governor, was presented by the Earl of Suffolk to a small living at Little Chesterford, near Audley Inn, in Essex, in 1652, which he accepted, when he saw no probability of that dark cloud dispersing, which still hung over this then distempered nation. ing ages,) who, when he had justly denied In the fall of this tall cedar, the other trees of our forest were rudely shaken, and though they were not all hewn down by the fatal axe, yet were they sore cut; their boughs and branches at least lopped off, unless that some of the shrubs escaped, because their lowness excused them from the levelling stroke. Thus several persons truly noble, both for descent and proper merit, attended their most gracious sovereign in his suffer ings, even to his fall and their death; whose greatest crime was that, for which disinterested posterity will have them in the highest admiration, their loyalty. Because they could not consent to usurpations in the civil government, and to innovations in the ecclesiastical, they must be martyrs; or taught to obey in that new way of gospelling, by pike, gun, and dra. goons. This, among many other confessors, was the fate of our Dr. Rainbow, who, for refusing a protestation against the king, in 1650, lost his mastership of Magdalen, which he had hitherto kept by the powerful intercession of his noble friends; and which he was very willing to sacrifice, rather than to make a sacrifice of his conscience to those Anakims, which had nothing to entitle them to the government but violence and rapine. He had been a mourner before this in the general loss of the nation, in the horrid murder of their gracious sovereign, and was a particular one in the interment of that truly religious lady, the Lady Susanna, Countess of Suffolk; the history of whose virtues is far from being Apocryphal. Nor did she want a faithful historian in Dr. Edward Rainbow, who, in May 13, 1649, made her funeral sermon, in a pathetical and moving air, but did it as far from flattery, as she was above it; since he spoke nothing but what he believed, and was not her orator to present her virtues in a gaudy dress, but her faithful his. torian, to deliver what he knew upon good grounds to be true. Dr. Rainbow being exiled from Magdalen college, by the order of the Rump Parliament, which college now became a But lie, who had lost the mastership of college for his loyalty, was resolved not to stain his conscience by a base submission to those usurpers, in the acceptance of that place; and therefore held it only by my Lord of Suffolk's presentation, without being settled therein according to the prevalency of those licentious times, by their triers. In which privacy, since we have found him settled, we will see how he managed in that critical juncture, after I have subjoined, that it was in this year 1652, that he married Mrs. Elizabeth Smith, his predecessor's daughter, who, without flattery I speak it, were so happy in each other, that those who had the longest acquaintance with them, uever heard an harsh word fall from them against each other: a felicity rarely to be found! and which ought to be mentioned to their honour; and which doubtless was a true sign that they were both unfeigned votaries to virtue. In this his recess, a place much more agreeable to his inclination than merit, did Dr. Rainbow continue for some years. And though he was so far retired from the noise and bustles of those tumultuous times; yet he knew he could not retire out of the piercing eye of the Almighty, with whom he had to do. He knew it was as much incumbent on him to do his duty there, as in a more conspicuous station; and therefore, though he could not use the English Liturgy, yet he used some of those excellent prayers of which it is composed, and that not only in his private family, but also composed such prayers as he used in the Church out of those in the Liturgy; and so gradually brought the ignorant people to affect the common prayers, a little transformed and altered, who disliked the Common Prayer Book itself, they knew not why. Nor was he satisfied with his own practice alone in this case; when therefore he lodged one night at a clergyman's house, an old acquaintance of his, who then used other prayers in his family, he out of civility to him commended his friend's form of prayer, but advised him for the future to use the prayers of the Church, for there were none other like them. Nor did this pious doctor look upon his constant preaching to be a sufficient discharge of his duty, and that which would |