active member of one of these, appointed for the promotion of the trade of Ireland. Its principal recommendations were, a Navigation Act, similar to that which had passed in England in 1654, and the free exportation of wool, a point in which Temple, who had lived much in the country, appears to have taken much interest. He also took much part in the Act of Settlement*, and was one of a committee for preparing a clause for the security of the protestant interest; but this circumstance indicated, in the seventeenth century, no peculiar bias, nor are we acquainted with any particular view which Temple took of this difficult arrangement.

In July, 1661, he was one of the commissioners sent to England to wait upon the King, and to solicit and agitate many important measures affecting Ireland.

He now for the first time saw Charles II., but nothing is known of the reception which he met with; by the Duke of Ormond †, the Lord Lieu

As we are in the habit of applying this term to the acts regulating the succession to the crown, it may be right to mention that the Irish Act of Settlement was a law for settling landed property, which had been greatly disturbed by confiscations and grants during the troublous times. See Hume, vii. 444.; and Lingard, xii. 63.

↑ James Butler, the " great Duke of Ormond," grandson and heir of Walter, tenth Earl. Born in 1610. He was first noted for insisting upon wearing his sword in the House of Lords in Ireland, contrary to a proclamation of the Lord Deputy Strafford: his writ, he said, required him to come "cinctus cum gladio." He was nevertheless the defender of Lord Strafford. He was Lieutenant-General of the forces in 1641, the Earl of Leicester being then the non-resident Lord Lieutenant; and succeeded to that office himself in 1644. He was a zealous royalist; and was rewarded, in 1660, with a dukedom, and the appointment of Lord Steward of the Household; and again became Lord Lieutenant in 1661, but did not go over till 1662. In 1667 he was removed, in con

tenant, he was coldly received, in consequence, as he concluded, of his opposition to the measures of the Duke, in the time of Charles I.*

But, returning soon afterwards to Ireland, and resuming his station in the House of Commons, he overcame the prejudices of Ormond, now resident in Dublin. "He was the only man in Ireland,” as that nobleman observed, "who never asked him any thing."+

The parliament was prorogued in May, 1663, and Temple removed with his family to England, leaving, however, in Ireland his two brothers, "whose conversation he always regretted in the midst of his greatest employments." His sister, Martha Temple, had been married in April, 1662, to Sir Thomas Giffard, who left her a widow in the following month. She afterwards resided almost entirely with Temple and his wife, and was evidently a great favourite, and a confidential friend. Temple's income was at this time about five hundred a year; he was now an idle man, living much about the town and the court, where he was well received by every body. This life he led for two

years.

sequence of the intrigues of the Duke of Buckingham; but he retained the office of Lord Steward. He died in 1688, just before the Revolution.- Mountmorres, i. 203-313. See an account of him in Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel, under the name of Barzillai. Scott's Dryden, ix. 241, 242. and 295.

* This passage is erased in Lady Giffard's manuscript, probably because Ormond became afterwards a warm friend of her brother.

Lady Giffard's MS. Lord Mountmorres, who is very partial to Sir William Temple, says that " Parliament voted him an extra reward, for his services as commissioner, besides what he had in common with

But he had brought with him letters of recommendation from the Duke of Ormond to Clarendon and Arlington †, then the principal ministers of Charles II.

With Clarendon, whose influence had begun to decline ‡, Temple had occasional communication, but was no admirer of his policy or character. Of Arlington, whose weight increased with the diminution of Clarendon's, Temple soon became the zealous and avowed adherent. "There was a something, as Arlington thought, in their genius, that

* Clarendon was still Chancellor, First Lord of the Treasury, and principal minister. Wriothesly Lord Southampton was High Treasurer; Lord Arlington and Sir William Morice, Secretaries of State; the Duke of Ormond, Lord Steward of the Household. All these appear to have been confidential ministers; but whether they, and they only, composed what we now call the Cabinet, cannot easily be ascertained. The correspondence mentions a committee of foreign affairs, but its members are not named. In addition to those above named, Prince Rupert was probably a member. William Coventry was admitted in 1663. He was, according to Burnet, the best speaker in the house, and a man of great talents and virtues. (i. 290.) Clarendon styles him proud and ill-natured. (Life, ii. 200.) He was a son of Lord Keeper Coventry. Born 1626; died 1686.-Collins, iii. 751.

+ Henry Bennet. He was born in 1618, of an ancient family, and served Charles I. in the civil wars. He adhered to the fortunes of Charles II.; and on October 2. 1662, succeeded Sir Edward Nicolas as Secretary of State. He was created Lord Arlington in 1663, and Earl in 1672. He had at one time embraced the Roman Catholic religion, but did not openly profess it in England until the moment of his death. His character has been variously drawn: it is pretty clear that his principles had all the flexibility which the court of Charles II. required. (See Biog. Dict. iv. 454.) Burnet calls him "a proud and insolent man." (i. 170.) Hume says, "of the whole cabal, Arlington was the least dangerous by his vices or his talents. His judgment was sound, though his capacity was but moderate; and his intentions were good, though he wanted judgment and integrity to persevere in them. (vii. 460.) Clarendon, who did not like him, speaks of his pleasant and agreeable humour. (Life, ii. 197.) By the author of the Memoirs of Grammont, he was thought a dull man, and is the object of much ridicule. James II. evidently deemed him weak. (i. 435.) He died in 1685.

Clarendon's Life, ii. 229.

agreed." Temple availed himself of this acquaintance to represent his desire of employment abroad, but he objected to a northern climate, and thus, apparently, missed an appointment to the court of Sweden, which, on his refusal, was assigned to Mr. Henry Coventry.*

Temple therefore continued in private life for some time longer. During the summer of 1665, the year of the plague, he resided at Sheen, and planned the purchase of a small house at that place, which the neighbourhood of Lord Leicestert-for the old friendship of the Temples and Sidneys was not extinct — made particularly agreeable to him.

But an opportunity now occurred of introducing him into the diplomatic service.

* Another son of the Lord Keeper. Clarendon says he was a much wiser man than his brother. Secretary of State, 1671 to 1679. Born 1618; died 1686.

+ Robert, second Earl, son of the Earl mentioned in p. 2., father of Lord Lisle; born about 1596; died in 1677.

CHAPTER III.

TEMPLE'S MISSION

ΤΟ THE BISHOP OF MUNSTER. CORRE

SPONDENCE WITH ARLINGTON, AND DEVOTION TO HIM.

HIS SENSITIVENESS.

DENCY AT BRUSSELS.

HIS

APPOINTMENT TO THE RESISEQUEL OF THE MUNSTER AFFAIR.

Not long after the King of England had declared war against the Dutch, the Chancellor Clarendon was one day surprised by a request for a private audience, by a person who looked like a carter, and spoke ill English.* He nevertheless turned out to be an English gentleman, who had become a Benedictine monk, and had been known in that character to Clarendon, when he was at Cologne with the King. He now brought letters from the Bishop of Munster.

This little potentate was, by Temple's account, "made considerable only by his situation, which lay the fittest of all others to invade Holland; and by the dispositions of the man, which were unquiet, and ambitious to raise a name in the world." +

* Clarendon's Life, ii. 218.

+ Temple, ii. 214. The name of this ecclesiastical prince was Christopher Bernard Von Ghalen. Temple ascribes his "old implacable hatred to the Dutch to their intelligence with his chief town of Munster, their usurpation (as he pretends) of Borkloe and some other smalĺ places in his country, their protection of the Countess of Bentheim, and his hopes of sharing Overyssel or Friesland, if ever their spoils came to be divided." Munster lies about three degrees eastward of Rotterdam, being situated on the river Aa, not far from its influx into the Ems.