Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/431

Rh illegality. Having few religious scruples, he attended the king to mass, and kneeled with the rest; but had no dispensation to receive the Romish Faith, or to force it upon others; for when the priests, encouraged by his appearances of compliance, attempted to convert him, he told them, as Burnet has recorded, that he was willing to receive instruction, and that he had taken much pains to believe in God who made the world and all men in it; but that he should not be easily persuaded that man was quits, and made God again.

A pointed sentence is bestowed by successive transmission on the last whom it will fit; this censure of transubstantiation, whatever be its value, was uttered long ago by Anne Askew, one of the first sufferers for the Protestant Religion, who, in the time of Henry VIII. was tortured in the Tower; concerning which there is reason to wonder that it was not known to the Historian of the Reformation.

In the Revolution he acquiesced, though he did not promote it. There was once a design of associating him in the invitation of the prince of Orange; but the earl of 2