He was one of the Assembly of Divines, and <Bulstrode> Whitlock, in his memoires, sayes that he was wont to mock the Assembly men about their little gilt Bibles, and would baffle them sadly: sayd he, 'I doe consider the original.'
[952]<Richard> Montague, <bishop> of Norwich, was his great antagonist; vide the bookes writt against each other.
He never owned the mariage with the countesse of Kent till after her death, upon some lawe account. He never kept any servant peculiar, but my ladie's were all at his command; he lived with her in Aedibus Carmeliticis (White Fryers), which was, before the conflagration, a noble dwelling.
He kept a plentifull table, and was never without learned company. He rose at ... clock in the morning (quaere Sir J. C.[BM]) and went to bed at....
He was temperate in eating and drinking. He had a slight stuffe, or silke, kind of false carpet, to cast[953] over the table where he read and his papers lay[954], when a stranger came-in, so that he needed not to displace[955] his bookes or papers.
He wrote ...: vide A. Wood's Antiq. Oxon. for the catalogue of the bookes writt by him.
He dyed of a dropsey; he had his funerall scutcheons all ready ... moneths before he dyed.
When he was neer death, the minister (Mr. <Richard> Johnson) was comeing to him to assoile him: Mr. Hobbes happened then to be there; sayd he, 'What, will you that have wrote like a man, now dye like a woman?' So the minister was not let in.
He dyed in Aedibus Carmeliticis (aforesayd) the last day of November, Anno Domini 1654; and on Thursday, the 14th day of December, was magnificently buryed in the Temple church. His executors were Matthew Hales (since Lord Chiefe Justice of the King's Bench), John Vaughan (since Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas), and Rowland Jewkes, Esq.: quaere the fourth executor[BN]. They invited all the Parliament men, all the benchers, and great officers. All the judges had[956] mourning, as also an abundance of persons of quality. The Lord Primate of Ireland, <James> Usher, preach't his funerall sermon.