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Rh history, and thoroughly acquainted with the spirit and policy of those nations. The legal and constitutional history of his country were the objects of his particular study, both of which he had pursued with so much perseverance as to be esteemed one of the first lawyers of his age. He wrote with great facility, and was the author of several political and religious publications and historic narratives; but the largest and most valuable of all his works of this description was unfortunately lost, or, as some insinuate, maliciously destroyed; this was "A History of the Troubles in Ireland, from 1641 to 1660." He was one of the first English peers who distinguished himself by collecting a choice library, which he did with much care and at a great expense, designing it to remain in his family, but owing to some circumstances which have not been explained, his books, a few months after his decease, were exposed to sale by a Mr. Millington, a famous auctioneer of that period. This sale has been rendered memorable by the discovery of the Earl's famous memorandum in the blank leaf of an, which was as follows: "King Charles the Second, and the Duke of York did both (in the last session of parliament 1675), when I shewed then in the lords' house the written copy of this, wherein are some corrections and alterations (written with the late King Charles the First's own hand), assure me that this was none of the said King's compiling, but made by Dr. Gauden, Bishop of Exeter, which I here insert for the undeceiving others in this point by attesting thus much under my hand, ." But perhaps the reader will doubt the genuineness of this memorandum, if he reads "A Vindication of King Charles the Martyr," published in quarto, in 1711. Indeed Bishop Burnet, in his History of his own Times, vol. i. p. 50, relates pretty near the same foolish story; but if the reader carefully considers that passage, be will evidently see it destroys itself, for, amongst other things that may be justly observed against the veracity of that account, he (Burnet) speaks of the Duke of Somerset and the Earl of Southampton, as living at a time when it