impressions there; but after he had conferr’d with Prince and Prelate, (who never denyed him any thing frowardly or ignorantly, but admitted all, which primitive and uncorrupted Rome for the first 500 years had exercised,) he declared he found, That they resolved to deal with his Master, the Pope, as wrestlers do with one another, take him up to fling him down.  And therefore tho’ I cannot say, I know, that he wrote his Icon Basilike, or Image, which goes under his own name; yet I can say, I have heard him, even unto my unworthy selfe, say many of those things it contains:  and I have bin assur’d by Mr. Levett, (one of the Pages of his Bedchamber, and who was with him thro’ all his imprisonments) that he hath not only seen the Manuscript of that book among his Majestie’s papers at the Isle of Wight, but read many of the chapters himselfe:  and Mr. Herbert, who by the appointment of Parliament attended him, says, he saw the Manuscript in the King’s hand, as he believed; but it was in a running character, and not that which the King usually wrote.  And whoever reads his private and cursory letters, which he wrote unto the Queen, and to some great men (especially in his Scotch affairs, set down by Mr. Burnet, when he stood single, as he did thro’ all his imprisonments) the gravity and significancy of that style may assure a misbeliever, that he had head and hand enough to express the ejaculations of a good, pious, and afflicted heart; and Solomon says, that affliction gives understanding, or elevates thoughts:  and we cannot wonder, that so royal a heart, sensible of such afflictions, should make such a description of them, as he hath done in that book.

And tho’ he was of as slow a pen, as of speech; yet both were very significant:  and he had that modest esteem of his own parts, that he would usually say, He would willingly make his own dispatches, but that he found it better to be a Cobler, than a Shoomaker.  I have bin in company with very learned men, when I have brought them their own papers back from him, with his alterations, who ever contest his amendments to have bin very material.  And I once by his commandment brought him a paper of my own to read, to see, whether it was suitable unto his directions, and he disallow’d it slightingly:  I desir’d him, I might call Doctor Sanderson to aid me, and that the Doctor might understand his own meaning from himselfe; and with his Majestie’s leave, I brought him, whilst he was walking, and taking the aire; whereupon wee two went back; but pleas’d him as little, when wee return’d it:  for smilingly he said, A man might have as good ware out of a Chandler’s shop:  but afterwards he set it down with his own pen very plainly, and suitable unto his own intentions.  The thing was of that nature, (being too great an owning of the Scots, when Duke Hamilton was in the heart of England so meanely defeated, and like the crafty fox lay out of countenance in the hands of his enemies,) that