THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.
(After a Drawing by Count D'Orsay.)
Sir Matthew Hale (born November 1st, 1609) is but one of the many judges who have joined to eminence in the law the example of a devout mind and a life of religious zeal. He administered justice in the times both of the Commonwealth and of the Restoration. Stillingfleet and Baxter were amongst his friends, and his life of austerity witnessed to his consistent sympathy with Puritan ideals. Before him there came John Bunyan, for the then heinous crime of frequenting conventicles. He wrote with equal facility upon law, morals, and theology, and his MSS. are still amongst the treasures of Lincoln's Inn.
DEAN SWIFT.
Richard Baxter (born November 12th, 1615) had a career of singular variety. Sometimes thought of only as a pioneer of Nonconformity and the author of the "Saint's Everlasting Rest," he shared in the startling changes of his period. He had tried in early years a courtier's life; he received holy orders from the Bishop of Worcester; he was for a time a chaplain to the Parliamentary forces; he was on Cromwell's Committee to "settle the fundamentals of religion"; he was, a few years after, a chaplain-in-ordinary to King Charles II.; he might have been Bishop of Hereford; and he lived to be tried for sedition before Judge Jeffreys. He is known to many, who are not familiar with his other works, by the hymn "Lord, it belongs not to my care." Curiously enough, this hymn is said to have been repeated, during his last illness, by the late distinguished physicist, Professor James Clerk Maxwell, who also is a November worthy, born on the 13th of this month.
WILLIAM COWPER.
(From the Painting by G. Romney.)