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part of human learning; and, befides theacademic tongues, he made himself perfect mafter of the two moft ufeful modern languages, the French and the Spanish. So that, when he removed from thence, he had, by his parts and his induftry, rendered himself capable of any public employment.

At nineteen, he began his travels into France; and, paffing through the Isle of Wight, where king Charles I. was then pri foner in Carifbrook-caftle, he met there with. Mrs. Dorothy Ofborn, daughter of Sir Peter Ofborn, then governor of Guernsey for the king, who was going with her brother to their father at St. Malo's.

He made that journey with them; and there began an amour with that young lady, which lafted feven years, and then ended in a happy. marriage. He paffed two years in France, learned a perfect acquaintance with their manners, and foon after made a tour into Holland, Flanders, and Germany; in which he further polished and improved his natural abilities.

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After his return in 1654, he married Mrs. › Ofborn; and, during the ufurpation, paffed his time privately with his father, his two brothers, and a fifter, in Ireland. The five years he lived there, were spent chiefly in his clofet in improving himself in hiftory and philofophy; and he refufed all follicitations of entering into any public employment till the restoration, when he was chofen member of the convention in Ireland, as he was likewife

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of the fubfequent parliament for the county of Carlow; and, in 1662, was appointed one of the commiffioners to be fent from the parliament to the king, into whofe favour he was introduced by the lord-chancellor Clarendon and the earl of Arlington.

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From this time, during the twenty fucceeding years, (that is to fay, from the thirty-fecond to the fifty-fecond year of his age) he continued to act as a counsellor of ftate, with particular honour and fuccefs; which period he took to be the part of a man's life moft fit to be dedicated to the fervices of his prince, and country; the reft being, as he obferved, too much taken up with his plea fures or his eafe.

To give a particular account of his negoci ations at home and abroad, would be, to lay open a great part of the history of that reign; yet fome account ought to be given of his management in feveral treaties, which have helped to immortalize his name; fome, as a temporary advantage; others, as a lasting bleffing to thefe kingdoms.

In 1665, he was fent by his majesty to the bishop of Munfter, in order to conclude a.. treaty, by which that bifhop obliged himself, upon receiving a certain fum of money, to enter immediately with the king into the war with Holland; and, foon after, he received a ve commiffion to be refident at Bruffels, with a patent for the dignity of a baronet. But, as this affair is fet in the cleareft light by his own, inimitable

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inimitable pen, we fhall here prefent the reader with a letter written by Sir William Temple to his father, Sir John, then in Ireland, dated at Bruffels, on the fixth of September, 1665.

SIR,

THOUGH I was forced, by the king's command, not only to leave you and my family at very short warning, and in a very melancholy season, but without fo much as telling, you whither I was fent, yet I would not fail making you this amends, by giving you an account of my journey and negotiations thus far, fo foon as I thought it might be fit for me to do it.

When my lord Arlington fent for me to Sheen, it was to let me know, that the king had received an overture from the bishop of Munfter, to enter into an alliance with his majefty against the Dutch, from whom he pretended many injuries; to bring an army into the field, and fall upon them by land, while his majefty continued the war by fea: but,, at the fame time, to demand certain fums of money, that would be neceffary to bring him into the field, and to continue the war: and, that, if his majesty would either treat with the baron of Wreden, (who was the minister he fent over in the greatest privacy that could be) or fend a minifter of his own to treat with him; he doubted not an eafy agreement upon

this matter, but defired it might be with all the fecrecy imaginable.

My lord Arlington told me, the main articles were already agreed on here, and the money adjusted; but, that it was neceffary for the king to fend over fome perfon privately to finish the treaty at Munfter, and to fee the payments made at Antwerp, where the bishop feemed to defire them. That I must go, if I undertook it, without train or character, and pass for a Frenchman or a Spaniard in my journey; and made me the compliment to fay, he had been perplexed, three or four days together, to think of a person that was not only capable of the affair and of the fecret, but that was to be trufted with fuch a fum of money; but, that when he had thought of me, and proposed me to the king and to my lord chan cellor, they had both approved it, and I must fuddenly refolve upon my answer to the propofal he made me : but, whether I accepted it or no, I must keep it secret from my nearest friends.

I told him upon the place, I would serve his majefty the best I could in it; though, being a new man, I could not promife much for myfelf; that there was only one point I could by no means digeft, which was the bufinefs of the money; having ever been averse from charging myself with any body's but my own. This made, at firft, fome difficulty between us; but, at last, his lordship was content to endeavour

endeavour the engaging alderman Backwèl, who furnished it, to go over himself with it into Flanders; and there, by my order, to make the payment to the bishop's agent; and faid, he believed, at fuch a time of infection in London, the alderman might easily take an occafion of fuch a journey.

After my inftructions were dispatched, I came away in hafte, and with the fecrecy you faw; and, without more than one day's ftop at Bruffels, went ftrait with the baron of Wreden to Coefvelt, where the bishop then was. I ftay'd there but three days, was brought to him only by night, agreed all points with him, perfected and figned the treaty, and returned to Antwerp, where the alderman performed his part, in making the first and great payment to the bishop's refident there. All this has been performed on all fides with fo great fecrecy, that the bifhop has not only received his money, but raised his troops to about eighteen thousand men, without the leaft umbrage given, that I can hear of, to the Dutch; and, by all the affurances I receive from him, I conclude, that, before this letter comes to your hands, he will be in the field; tho' fome unexpected disappointments about a general officer he reckoned upon has a little difcompofed the measures he had taken; and may, I doubt, not a little maim the progress of them but that will be governed by time and accidents; my business was to bring him

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