Besides his excellent naturall memorie, he acquired the artificiall way of memorie.
He wrote his owne life (which his grandsonne Sir John Hoskyns, knight and baronet, haz), which was to shew that wheras Plutarch, ..., ..., etc., had wrote the lives of many generalles, etc., grandees, that he, or an active man might, from a private fortune by his witt and industrie attained to the dignity of a serjeant-at-lawe—but he should have said that they must have parts like his too.—This life I cannot borrowe.
He wrote severall treatises. Amongst others:—
- a booke of style;
- a method of the lawe (imperfect).
His familiar letters were admirable.
He was a close prisoner in the Tower, tempore regis Jacobi, for speaking too boldly in the Parliament house of the king's profuse liberality to the Scotts. He made a comparison of a conduit, whereinto water came, and ran-out afarre-off. 'Now,' said he, 'this pipe reaches as far as Edinborough.' He was kept a 'close prisoner' there, i.e., his windowes were boarded up. Through a small chinke he sawe once a crowe, and another time, a kite; the sight whereof, he sayd, was a great pleasure to him. He, with much adoe, obtained at length the favour to have his little son Bennet to be with him; and he then made this distich, viz.:—
Parvule dum puer es, nee scis incommoda linguae,
Vincula da linguae, vel tibi vincla dabit.
Thus Englished by him:—
My little Ben, whil'st thou art young,
And know'st not how to rule thy tongue,
Make it thy slave whil'st thou art free,
Least it, as mine, imprison thee.
[1747]I have heard that when he came out of the Tower, his crest (before expressed) was graunted him, viz., 'a lyon's head couped or, breathing fire.' The serjeant would say jocosely that it was the only lyon's head in England that tooke tobacco.