Page:Life of Sir William Petty 1623 – 1687.djvu/197

 I am soe happy as to think soe—and my mind is soe quiet, that when I have done my letters, I intend to make an end of translating the 104th Psalm into Latin verse, for which, amongst all others, Buchanan himselfe was most famous. I do not hope to reach the admirable purity of his Latin, but in some other points to come neare him.'

Sir William's imprisonment was of short duration. While it lasted this translation of the 104th Psalm was his great solace. The occupation was one for which he could at least plead the example of Clarendon, who during his first exile had consoled himself by writing 'Contemplations and Reflections on the Psalms of David applied to the Troubles of this Time.' 'The Chancellors of both Kingdoms,' Sir William tells Southwell, speaking of this translation, 'are the cause why it was done at all; and ye farmers why it was done noe better. I have sent it you, because I said "I have done it;" but desire you not to show it, at least not as mine, for I do not value myself by my Poetry, no more than by my discretion; but the pride I take is in the Love of Truth and of a very few Friends. But you will ask why I meddled with the Poem at all—to which I answer you that my mind was sick, and that I tost and travelled from place to place, to find rest; which when I had in vain sought from truth and reason, I fell to this poetry; and when I was vexed in considering ye wicked works of man, I refreshed myself in considering the wonderful works of God; and wrote about fifty of these same verses the same night I was committed, after I had written my post letters.' 'Lord,' he exclaims soon afterwards, unable to help smiling at the absurdity of the situation, 'that a man 54 years old, should, after 36 years discontinuance, return to the making of verses, which boys of fifteen years old can correct, and then trouble Clerks of the Council and Secretaries of the Admiralty to read them.'

'I am not well,' he writes to Southwell in the autumn of