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ornatissimus. In 1671, he received the honour of Knight- 

 hood from Charles II., a prince, (says Dr. Johnson) " who, 

 with many frailties and vices, had yet skill to discover excel- 

 lence, and virtue to reward it with such honorary distinc- 

 tions, at least, as cost him nothing, yet, conferred by a king 

 so judicious and so much beloved, had the power of giving 

 merit new lustre and greater popularity." Thus he lived in 

 high reputation, till, in his seventy-sixth year, an illness, 

 which tortured him a week, put an end to his life, at Nor- 

 wich, on his birth-day, October 19, 1682. " Some of his 

 last words (we are told by Whitefoof] were expressions of 

 submission to the will of God, and fearlessness of death." 

 Dr. Johnson observes, " It is not on the praises of others, 

 but on his own writings, that he is to depend for the esteem 

 of posterity; of which he will not be easily deprived, while 

 learning shall have any reverence among men: for there is no 

 science in which he does not discover some skill ; and scarce 

 any kind of knowledge, profane or sacred, abstruse or ele- 

 gant, which he does not appear to have cultivated with sue- 

 in with the fruit, to enliven the festival that begins to languish. And they 

 are so peculiarly adapted to scenes of pleasure, that they are always consi- 

 dered as inconsistent with mourning. Decency, informed by nature, never 

 admits them into those places where tears and affliction are predominant. 



Countess. " The festivals in the country are never celebrated without gar- 

 lands, and the entertainments of the polite are ushered in by a flower. If 

 the winter denies them that gratification, they have recourse to art. A young 

 bride, in all the magnificence of her nuptial array, would imagine she wanted 

 a necessary part of her ornaments, if she did not improve them with a sprig 

 of flowers. A queen, amidst the greatest solemnities, though she is covered 

 with the jewels of the crown, has an inclination to this rural ornament; she 

 is not satisfied with mere grandeur and majesty, but is desirous of assuming 

 an air of softness and gaiety, by the mediation of flowers. 



Prior. " Religion itself, with all its simplicity and abstraction, and amidst 

 the abhorrence it professes to theatrical pomp, which rather tends to dissipate 

 the heart, than to inspire it with a due reverence for sacred mysteries, and a 

 sensibility of human wants, permits some of its festivals to be celebrated 

 with boughs, and chaplets of flowers." 



