nobility of soul, that indomitable perseverance, that sturdy self-reliance, and bold independence of spirit, which were at once the cause and secret of many of our fellow-countrymen of that age rearing themselves from a lowly condition of life to the highest offices in Church and State. If he had any virtue, it was not the virtue of the sturdy oak, but that of the creeping parasyte,-living by the embrace he gave.

He was the nephew of the good and great Barnaby Potter, Bishop of Carlisle*. He was born within the barony of Kendal, about the year 1591. That the barony of Kendal was the place of his birth, all writers agree in saying, but the whereabouts is a mystery which we have endeavoured in a former page to solve. With respect to his good old uncle, as a reference to the passage will show, we had no difficulty in finding a fitting origin, should any one be dissatisfied with Winster as his native placet. But with the nephew it is otherwise his character obliges us (to do what pleaders were wont to do, in order to give the superior Courts jurisdiction over causes of action arising abroad) it obliges us to lay the venue, or give him a settlement in the parish of Stepney, in the county of Middlesext. Westmester, wherever it may turn + See p. 97.

*See Life.

In pleading, it used to be stated thus: "At Paris, in the Kingdom of France,-to wit, in the parish of Stepney, in the county of Middlesex;" from this probably arises the common saying and belief that if a man has no parish he belongs to Stepney.

out to be, was the birth-place of both uncle and nephew. Kendal is assigned to them by some; but in this we do not agree, for reasons expressed more at large in a former page.

Being but twelve years younger than his uncle, and being a zealous Puritan in the early part of his ministry in the church, the probability is,—for we can place it no higher, that the village school of his native place was Scene I. Act I. of the Drama of Life, and that Mr. Maxwell (the puritanical tutor of the Bishop) was also the puritanical tutor of the nephew.

In 1606, at the age of fifteen, he became Clerk of Queen's College, Oxford,-where he was afterwards Tarbarder, Chaplain, Fellow, and Provost. He took his M.A. degree in 1613.

Soon after this he entered into Holy Orders, with duty at Abingdon, in Berkshire, where he was esteemed a zealous Puritanical lecturer, and much resorted to for his edifying way of preaching. It is remarkable that his uncle, and many others of our fellow-countrymen of the Calvinistic-Puritan sect, began their ministry in the Church at Abingdon. Not being a Queen's College living, we are a good deal at a loss to account for it; perhaps it was the accident of an accident whose history has passed away, or arose from that habit of clanship with which the genius of the North is said to unite her children. In 1620, he took his B.D., and in 1627 his D.D. degree.

On the 17th January, 1626, he became Provost of his College, on the resignation of his uncle. When the College little expected a vacancy, his uncle suddenly resigned, "self-denyingly, judging that his Church had more need of him as a Minister, than the College as a Provost;" or, as others say with more truth and honesty,-to make way for his nephew. Suspicion is not guilt, nor assertion proof; but none can read the account of this transaction and be satisfied, except of one thing, that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. may after this well "Chez les prêtres fortune vault bien mieux que la raison." As he died in 1645, he was Provost of the College nearly twenty years. His epitaph says he was durus studiorum exactor; and history assures us that the College flourished during his reign. But we set no great price upon this, for Colleges, like Kingdoms, sometimes flourish from other causes than the virtue or ability of their head ; sometimes, indeed, in very spite of their vices and ignorance.

With a slight change, one exclaim with Montaigne :

The Provost had now cast his bread on the waters. Henceforth, he was always fishing or mending his net; and by practice became an adept in the art and mystery of courtship. The little pilot boats that he sent up to discover the forces and currents of the atmosphere above disclosed to him that they were now setting strong around the

weather-beaten towers of Lambeth Palace; and that, if he wished to be secure against the coming storm, or to feather his nest, he must lose no time in setting his sails to that favored haven. This tack he took. After a great deal of seeking (says Wood), he was made Laud's creature; and, therefore, by the precise party was esteemed an Armenian. Laud was now, be it remembered, Archbishop of Canterbury. The first crumb that fell from the table at Lambeth, was a Chaplaincy in Ordinary to his Majesty, with a promise of a Canonry of Windsor; and then came a windfall in the Deanery of Worcester, which he obtained in the latter end of the year 1635. So far, so good; but his fortune was not to end here. The eagle, according to D'Alembert, is not the only animal that reaches the top of the pyramid.

In the year 1640, he was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford. This seems to have been anything but a bed of roses to him (a bed of thorns rather); troubles to him, caused in a great measure by the Puritanical and factious party of the University and city of Oxford. After this, the rebellion broke out, and he is said to have suffered much for the King's cause. For his sufferings, or under colour of his suffering in the Royal cause, in the month of January 1645, he was designed and nominated by his Majesty to the Deanery of Durham. But time and tide wait not even for courtiers, and he died before he was installed.

What his sufferings were is not recorded; the stricken deer suffers from the buffetings and blows of his own herd, and it may be that the precise party, to which Potter was so zealously devoted before the commencement of his idolatry to Laud, used him in some such way. Dr. Dummerar, the worthy Vicar of Martindale cum Moultrassie, (according to Sir Walter Scott) was, in those selfsame evil days and evil times, deprived of his living; and had, moreover, the poignant mortification of seeing Master Nehemiah Solsgrace ("the intrusive old Puritan howlet") there in his stead; and, what was more, the said Nehemiah darkening the gates of Martindale Castle*. The Vicar indeed was truly to be pitied! But we do not find that our fellow-countryman, Christopher, lost any cure of souls, nor any Lambeth dainties in the Royalist cause, nor that he was ever obliged to hide himself in the Eldon Hole, to escape the vengeance of those false crop-eared hypocrites, which infested the kingdom at that time, and to wait until Providence should proclaim to the world

"The King shall enjoy his own again."

However, the Dean of Worcester made the powers that be regard him as a martyr for conscience-sake, and that is some proof of his ability. It is stated, however, upon good authority, that

* Peveril of the Peak.