Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/457

 that he had no regard to the souls of his scholars, though he himself was a minister, never causing them to take notes of his sermons in writing, or so much as to repeat any one note they had learned out of them.' His next teacher was a Mr. Henry Reynolds, 'dwelling in St. Mary Axe parish in London,' whom he describes as a mere pretender, and whose reputation had been won for him by his daughter, Bathshua, a young woman of extraordinary ability who had 'much more learning than her father.' Nevertheless, D'Ewes tells us that he made good use of his time while at this school, acquired some knowledge of French and Greek, and 'to write a moderate good English phrase.' Above all, under Reynolds's influence he became strongly affected in favour of the puritan theology, 'and attained, even at my fourteenth year, to two or three several " Forms of Ex- temporary Prayer," which I was able not only to make use of in secret, being alone, but even in family also before others.' He had some disagreement with Reynolds in 1616, and as his parents had now removed to Stow Langtoft Hall in Suffolk, they were prevailed on to place him under John Dickenson, upper master of Bury School, with whom he remained for a year and a half, and to whom he gives the credit of having taught him more than any of his other teachers. It seems clear that Dickenson first stimulated in young D'Ewes that ardent enthusiasm for learning and that passion for research which characterised him through life. On 21 May 1618 he entered as a fellow commoner at St. John's College, Cambridge, under the tutorship of Richard Holdsworth, one of the fellows, who was subsequently professor of theology at Gresham College. Shortly after his entrance at Cambridge his mother died, and this event contributed to increase the somewhat sombre and ascetic habits of the young man. He gives a very dark picture of the manners of Cambridge at this time, but as he had no difficulty in finding congenial friends who were strongly inclined to his own puritanical opinions, it is probable that he exaggerates the follies and irregularities of those with whom he did not think fit to associate. For himself he was a hard student and a diligent attendant at lectures and the ordinary university exercises. In September 1620 his father, who appears to have been a very difficult person to get on with–passionate, obstinate, and avaricious–ordered him to remove from Cambridge and enter at the Middle Temple. Some dispute arose regarding the chambers to which he laid claim, and D'Ewes took up his residence with his father at the office of the six clerks in Chancery Lane. The office was burnt down next year, and his father lost nearly 6,000l. by the conflagration. After this he removed to the Temple, though no record of his admission at the inn has been found. He was called to the bar on 27 June 1623, but though he was indefatigable in his attendance at the 'moots' and disputations which were then part of a barrister's training in the Inns of Court, he never seems to have laid himself out for securing a large practice, and devoted himself rather to the study of history and legal antiquities. He tells us that it was on 4 Sept. 1623 that he first began 'studying records at the Tower of London,' and from that day till his death he never ceased to be an enthusiastic student of our ancient muniments and a constant copyist and analyser of such manuscripts as would throw any light upon English history. He had already conceived some very ambitious designs, intending, as he says, 'if God permit and that I be not swallowed up of evil times, to restore to Great Britain its true history the exactest that ever was yet penned of any nation in the Christian world.' If he erred, as antiquaries have been prone to err, by over-estimating their powers of carrying out their projects, it was not because he under-estimated the value and the completeness of the evidence which lay ready at hand. About this time he became acquainted with Sir Robert Cotton, who took great notice of him, gave him much encouragement, and introduced him to Selden, 'a man,' he says, 'exceedingly puffed up with the apprehension of his own abilities.' The example and countenance of Sir Robert Cotton acted as a great stimulus upon him, and led him to turn his attention to constitutional history. In 1625 he came upon ' an elaborate journal I had borrowed of the parliament held in the thirty-fifth year of Queen Elizabeth,' of which he seems to have made an analysis, and thus laid the foundation of his great work on the parliamentary history of the queen's reign. In this year too his attention was first turned to the importance of numismatics. In 1626 he joined with Sir Robert Cotton in investigating the claim of Robert Vere to the earldom of Oxford, as against Robert Bertie, lord Willoughby d'Eresby, who had assumed the title, and so completely established the right of his client that the earldom was confirmed to him by the House of Lords in the next parliament (the 'case' which D'Ewes drew up on this question is now among the manuscripts of Lord Mostyn at Mostyn Hall, Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. 356 b). In August of this year he gave up his practice at the bar just at a time when a brilliant career seemed