Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 01.djvu/417

 scientiousness in the distribution of patronage. Simony was one of the three vices (the other two were usury and sacrilege) which he specially abhorred, and he frequently involved himself in trouble and expense rather than institute to livings men whom he thought to be morally liable to the charge. Though he strove to show his gratitude to the friends of his youth, notably to Ward, Mulcaster, and Watts, who had helped him in his education, by seeking out their worthy relations for promotion, he never allowed favouritism or nepotism to influence him; he always strove to find the fittest man for the post which he had to fill, often to the great surprise of the recipient; hence many men, who were then or afterwards eminent, owed more or less to his discernment. He was the earliest patron and friend of Matthew Wren, subsequently the famous bishop of Norwich and of Ely, and one of the earliest who offered to befriend John Cosin, the still more famous bishop of Durham. William Laud, Meric Casaubon ‘for his own and his father's merits,’ Peter Blois, one of his fellow-translators of the Bible, Nicholas Fuller, ‘the most admired critic of his time,’ and many others of more or less note were indebted to him. Finally, a great prelate, while firm as a rock in his own convictions, must be large-hearted and tolerant of those who differ from him. And this was Andrewes's character. Take, as an instance, his reply to Du Moulin on episcopacy, remembering that the writer was himself a very decidedly high churchman: ‘Though our government be by divine right, it follows not either that there is no salvation, or that a church cannot stand without it; he must needs be made of iron and hard-hearted that denies them salvation. We are not made of that metal,’ and so forth. Or take his attitude in regard to worship. Personally he valued a high ritual, and therefore, both as bishop of Ely and as bishop of Winchester, he had his private chapels adorned with what Prynne calls ‘popish furniture;’ ‘the altar 11/4 yards high, and a cushion, two candlesticks with tapers, the daily furniture for the altar; a cushion for the service-book, silver and gilt canister for the wafers, like a wicker-basket, and lined with cambric lace; the tonne (flagon) upon a cradle, the chalice covered with a linen napkin (called the aire) on a credence; a little boate out of which the frankincense is poured, a tricanale for the water of mixture; the faldstory, whereat they kneel to read the litany’—and much more which the reader will find in ‘Canterburie's Doome,’ not only described, but ‘expressed to the life in a copper-piece.’ Prynne of course records it all with disgust, but on others it made a very different impression. ‘His chapel,’ writes his earliest biographer, ‘was so devoutly and reverently adorned, and God served there with so holy and reverend behaviour, that the souls of many that came thither were very much elevated; yea, some that had bin there desired to end their dayes in the Bishop of Elye's chappell.’ But, much as Andrewes valued such a service, he never forced it on others; he was ‘content with the enjoying without the enjoining’. His intimacy with, and kindness to, distinguished foreigners, some of whom held very different views from his own (Du Moulin, the Casaubons, Cluverius, Vossius, Grotius, and Erpinius), is another proof of his large-heartedness. Isaac Casaubon, in his ‘Ephemerides,’ constantly refers to the wonderful piety and learning of the (then) Bishop of Ely, and his kindness towards himself. Perhaps one must not lay too much stress on the fact that two poets, one an extreme high churchman, Richard Crashaw, the other a puritan, John Milton, celebrated him in verse; for Milton's elegy was written when the poet was only seventeen, and when his puritanism was not yet developed; but we may note that it was a puritan publisher (Michael Sparke) who said that ‘to name him was enough praise.’ The fact also that Bacon consulted him frequently about his philosophical works is a proof of the width of Andrewes's sympathies.

(2) As a preacher, Andrewes was generally held to be the very ‘stella prædicantium,’ an ‘angel in the pulpit.’ But in the later days of Charles II a reaction set in against the old style of sermons with their Greek and Latin quotations, plays upon words, and minute analyses of the text. Andrewes was rightly held to be the most distinguished representative of the old style, as Tillotson was of the new; hence praise of the latter is frequently combined with depreciation of the former. This depreciation has continued in some quarters to the present day, but in others there is a growing disposition to do justice to the most admired preacher in the palmiest days of English literature. His sermons are, no doubt, more full of word-play than the taste of later days approves of; but we can well believe that his ‘verbal conceits’ would tend to impress the truths he wished to convey more deeply upon his hearers. To take an instance: in one of his grandest sermons, on the ‘Nativity,’ he says: ‘If this child be Immanuel, God with us, then without this child, this Immanuel, we be without God. “Without Him in this world,” saith the apostle, and if without Him in this, without Him in the next; and if with-