Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/308

298 it was his intereſt to change his opinion, if he could, and that whenever he found reaſon ſo to do, he would obey the ſenſe of his own mind.’ Some few days after this he was diſcharged. ‘During the dependency of this affair (ſays Mr. L’Eſtrange) I might well be ſeen at Whitehall, but that I ſpake to Cromwel on any other buſineſs than this, that I either ſought, or pretended to, any privacy with him, or that I ever ſpake to him after this time, I abſolutely diſown. Concerning the ſtory of the fiddle, this I ſuppoſe might be the riſe of it: being in St. James’s Park, I heard an organ touched in a little low room of one Mr. Henckſon’s; I went in, and found a private company of ſome five or ſix perſons. They deſired me to take up a Viol, and bear a part. I did ſo, and that part too, not much advance to the reputation of my cunning. By and by, without the leaſt colour of deſign, or expectation, in comes Cromwel. He found us playing, and, as I remember, ſo he left us.—As to bribing of his attendants, I diſclaim it. I never ſpake to Thurloe, but once in my life, and that was about my diſcharge. Nor did I ever give bribe, little or great, in the family.’

The above declaration Sir Roger was obliged to make, as ſome of his enemies wanted to turn thoſe circumſtances of favour he received from the Oliverian government to his diſadvantage, and prevent his riſing in court diſtinction.

Sir Roger having little paternal fortune, and being a man rather profuſe than oeconomical, he had recourſe to writing for bread. After the reſtoration he ſet up a news-paper, which was continued ’till the Gazette was firſt ſet on foot by Sir Joſeph Williamſon, under ſecretary of ſtate, for