Having this occasion to mention Thomas Lord Cromwell, the famous Earl of Essex, who was our author’s warmest patron, I am persuaded my readers will forgive me a digression which will open to them the noblest instance of gratitude and honour in that worthy nobleman, that ever adorned the page of an historian, and which has been told with rapture by all who have writ of the times, particularly by Dr. Burnet in his history of the Reformation, and Fox in his Martyrology.—­Thomas Lord Cromwell was the son of a Blacksmith at Putney, and was a soldier under the duke of Bourbon at the sacking of Rome in the year 1527.  While he was abroad in a military character, in a very low station, he fell sick, and was unable to follow the army; he was observed one day by an Italian merchant to walk very pensive, and had all the appearance of penury and wretchedness:  The merchant enquired of him the place of his birth, and fortune, and upon conversing with Cromwell, was so well pleased with the account he gave of himself, that he supplied him with money and credit to carry him to England.  Cromwell afterwards made the most rapid progress in state-preferments ever known.  Honours were multiplied thick upon him, and he came to have the dispensing of his sovereign’s bounty.  It happened, that this Italian merchant’s circumstances decayed, and he came to England to sollicit the payment of some debts due to him by his correspondents; who finding him necessitous, were disposed to put him off, and take the advantage of his want, to avoid payment.  This not a little embarrassed the foreigner, who was now in a situation forlorn enough.  As providence would have it, lord Cromwell, then Earl of Essex, riding to court, saw this merchant walking with a dejected countenance, which put him in mind of his former situation.  He immediately ordered one of his attendants to desire the merchant to come to his house.  His lordship asked the merchant whether he knew him? he answered no:  Cromwell then related the circumstance of the merchant’s relieving a certain Englishman; and asked if he remembered it?  The merchant answered, that he had always made it his business to do good, but did not remember that circumstance.—­His lordship then enquired the reason of his coming to England, and upon the merchant’s telling him his story, he so interested himself, as soon to procure the payment of all his debts.—­Cromwell then informed the merchant, that he was himself the person he had thus relieved; and for every Ducat which the merchant had given him, he returned to the value of a hundred, telling him, that this was the payment of his debt.  He then made him a munificent present, and asked him whether he chose to settle in England, or return to his own country.  The foreigner chose the latter, and returned to spend the remainder of his days in competence and quiet, after having experienced in lord Essex as high an instance of generosity and gratitude as perhaps ever was known.  This noble act of his lordship, employed, says Burnet, the pens of the belt writers at that time in panegyrics on so great a behaviour; the finest poets praised him; his most violent enemies could not help admiring him, and latest posterity shall hold the name of him in veneration, who was capable of so generous an act of honour.  But to return to Ferrars.