[97] Thus Henry More’s biographer, the Rev. Richard Ward, says “the late Mr. Chiswel told a friend of mine that for twenty years together after the return of King Charles the Second the Mystery of Godliness, and Dr. More’s other works, ruled all the booksellers in London” (Life of More, 1710, pp. 162–63). We have seen the nature of some of More’s “other works.” [↑]
[98] The Reasonableness of Scripture Belief, 1672, Epist. Ded. [↑]
[99] Rep. 1675; 2nd ed. 1691; rep. in the Phœnix, vol. ii, 1708; 3rd ed. 1736. [↑]
[100] A very hostile account of him is given in Dict. of Nat. Biog. He was, however, the friend of Cowley, and the “M. Clifford” to whom Sprat addressed his sketch of Cowley’s Life. He was also a foe of Dryden—the “malicious Matt Clifford” of Dryden’s Sessions of the Poets; and he attacked the poet in Notes on Dryden’s Poems (published 1687), and is supposed to have had a hand in the Rehearsal. He was befriended by Shaftesbury. [↑]
[101] Tract. Theol. Polit. c. 15. [↑]
[102] Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses, ii, 381–82; Granger, Biog. Hist. of England, 5th ed. v, 293. [↑]
[103] Johnson’s Life of Dr. Watts, 1785, App. i. [↑]
[104] Toulmin, Hist. of the Prot. Dissenters, 1814, citing Johnson’s Life of Dr. Watts. [↑]
[105] It has been suggested that this was really written by Clifford, for posthumous publication. The humorous sketch of “His Character” at the close, suggesting that his vices seem to the writer to have outweighed his virtues, hints of ironical mystification. [↑]