BISHOP BURNET AND HUMPHREY HARDCASTLE. HARDCASTLE. I AM curious, my lord Bishop, to know somewhat about the flight and escape of my namesake and great uncle Sir Humphrey Hardcastle, who was a free-spoken man, witty, choleric, and hospitable, and who cannot have been altogether an alien from the researches of your lordship into the history of the two late reigns. BURNET. Why, Mr. Hardcastle, I do well remember the story of that knight, albeit his manners and morals were such as did entertain me little in his favour. For he hunted and drank and fornicated, and (some do averr) swore, which however, mark me, I do not deliver from my own knowledge, nor from any written and grave document. I the more wonder at him, as he had lived among the Roundheads, as they were contemptuously called, and the minister of his parish was Ezechiel Stedman, a puritan of no ill repute. Howbeit he was ensnared by his worldlymindedness, and fell into evil courses. The Lord, who permitted him a long while to wallow in this mire, caught him by the heel, so to say, as he was coming out, and threw him into great peril in another way. For although he had mended his life, and had espoused your great aunt Margaret Pouncey, whose mother was a Touchet, two staid women, yet did he truly in a boozing-bout, such as some country-gentlemen I could mention do hold after dinner, say of the Duke, James, a murrain on him, is a papist. Now among the others of his servants was one Will Taunton, a sallow shining-faced knave, sweaty with impudence. I do remember to have seen the said Taunton in the pillory, for some prominent part he had enacted under the doctor Titus Oates; and a countrywench, as I suppose her to have been from her apparel and speech, said unto me, plucking my sleeve, Look, parson, Will's forehead is like a rank mushroom in a rainy morning; and yet, I warrant you, they shew it forsooth as the cleanest and honestest part about him. To continue: Will went straitway, and communicated the words of his master to Nicolas Shottery, the Duke's valet. Nick gave unto him a shilling, having first spatten thereon, as he, according to his superstition, said, for luck. The Duke ordered to be counted out unto him eight shillings more, together with a rosary, the which, as he was afraid of wearing it (for he had not lost all grace), he sold at Richmond for two groats. He was missed in the family, and his roguery was scented. On which, nothing was foolisher, improperer, or unreasonabler, than the desperate push and strain Charles made, put upon it by his brother James, to catch your uncle Hum Hardcastle. Hum had his eye upon him, slipped the noose, and was over into the Low-Countries. Abraham Cowley, one of your Pindarique Lyrists, a great stickler for the measures of the first Charles, was posted after him. But he played the said Abraham a scurvy trick, seizing him by his fine flowing curls, on which he prided himself mightily, like another Absalom; cuffing him, and, some do say, kicking him in such dishonest wise as I care not to mention, to his, the said Abraham's, great incommodity and confusion. It is agreed on all hands that he handled him very roughly, sending him back to his master with a |