rity a lasting monument of the great abilities and virtues which naturally accompany and are the proper fruits of an active life, but could never be applied to the advancement of a contemplative one. And how little the first part of his breeding in the monastery contributed to his rare abilities, did the more manifestly appear, by the person whom the same emperor near the same time caused to be made a cardinal, and assigned him to the same part of the government in Spain, his tutor Adrian; who had been born of as obscure parents, and in a worse climate, and bred in a better university, and by him after promoted to be pope; who remained still the same pedant, and understood the world no more that he was to govern, than the rest of his kindred that remained at Utrecht pretended to do.

The last of the three, and he was last in time, was Sixtus Quintus; of whose original no more is known, than that he kept pigs near a village where he was born; and might properly enough be said to be promoted by chance, (though there was providence in it) when he was accidentally called to shew the way to another friar; who, upon conference, liking the spirit of the boy, commended him to the charity of a neighbour monastery of Franciscans; where, by the quickness of his parts and an indefatigable industry, in a short time he

made himself eminent in those studies which are taken notice of amongst that people, but even from that time was least notorious for his delight in contemplation; for he was always of a proud and an imperious nature, solicitous for preferment, and offices which might entitle him to command others, without paying any obedience to those superiors who were to command him; and by this impetuous disposition he rendered himself very ungracious, and uneasy to most of the convents in his own order; yet, by his confessed learning and eloquence in disputation as well as preaching, he found friends to advance him, not only to the highest offices of his order, as provincial and general; offices as incapable of contemplation, or as much strangers to it, as the greatest conductors of armies, or the most active admirals upon the ocean pretend to be; but to the degree of a cardinal, after he had been in the most active offices with three nuncios in Spain, who all came afterwards to be popes, and one of which promoted him to the cardinalate. From this time, it is true, and never before, he betook himself to a contemplative life, that is, to the contemplation how he might come to be pope; he changed entirely the whole course, fashion, and manner of his life; he retired to a little house and good garden that he had bought, and seldom went out either to the court or to the

consistory. From being rough and insolent in conversation, he became the meekest and the humblest to all men; and from affecting business, which he understood very well, he withdrew himself from having any part in it, and took great pains to be thought utterly decayed in his intellectuals, and in truth to be thought incapable of it; so that, for many years before he came to be pope, he was notorious for nothing, but for what all other men avoided to be taken notice of, that he lived not in the state of a cardinal, that he understood nothing of their affairs, nor loved to speak of them; nor was he ever mentioned for any thing that was commendable, but for his excess of courtesy to all men, and his customary charity, which made him beloved only among that sort of people that could do him no good. Upon the death of Gregory XIII. when the cardinals entered into the conclave, there were many who had never seen Montalto, (Sixtus Quintus ;) he had been much spoken of ten or a dozen years before, but was now forgotten under that negligent retreat: in the conclave he seldom came out of his cell, except to the chapel; and then with so much weakness, that, except supported by some other help than his staff, every man suspected he would fall down. He could never be induced to enter into discourse of the business of the conclave, which he protested he understood

not; but was full of humility to all, and offered his vote to every man who he thought probable to go out pope. After a very long and a factious conclave, the two cardinals who were the heads of the contrary factions, and had struggled on the behalf of their creatures to no purpose, met one day accidentally near the cell of Cardinal Montalto, and agreed for divertisement to make him a visit, that is, to make themselves merry with him. When they came in, they told him that they came to make him pope; he, smiling, told them in a feeble voice, that if they did, they two must do all the business, for he was sure he would do nothing but say his office, and think of the way to Heaven: and from this hour both these cardinals, who agreed in nothing else, upon the presumption that he would die in a short time, and that they should govern him whilst he lived, wholly intended the making him pope, and brought it to pass within two or three days, though no man had fewer friends, or more enemies; and in this manner he came to be Sixtus Quintus. And from that time he made it appear, that he had thought very much, too much for contemplation, and quickly undeceived those who hoped to govern him; all his faculties were renewed to their old vigour; he talked of kings and princes as of his vassals, who for their miscarriages might be questioned and punished by him; and made it ma

nifest, that he understood the greatest secrets of their own several courts, and the greatest intrigues in their councils; by which he exacted a greater reverence from them all than any of them had a mind to pay him. In a word, never an: man more absolutely commanded in any province, or suffered any man to command less who was under him; and if he had ever spent any of his time in contemplation, he made such haste to get out of it, that it was manifest that his whole delight was in action, and that he was never out of it but against his will; which naturally produces a very unequal and untoward temper for contemplation.

We have not hitherto found such a definition of a contemplative life, a life addicted only to contemplation, that doth promise, or is like to produce such fruit, as gives the most solid delight and joy to the mind or soul of man, or enables him to serve God better, or his country as well, as the more busy and active man can do ; nor such an example of a mere contemplating man, who by his actions hath raised the reputation of it to such a lustre, as may invite a man of virtue, and of publick thoughts, to devote himself unto it. But there is, I confess, a classis of men, who, I believe, are depended upon by the others to come in to their aid, though without any reason, being more properly called quiet than contemplative men; men, who