LEAVES THET HAVE TOUCHED. 321 



Bistop Juxon whicli I now produce. This prelate had been the 

 friend and chaplain of Archbishop Laud ; he is described by Hume 

 as " a person of great integrity, mildness, and humanity, and endued 

 with a good understanding." Charles gave great offence by prefer- 

 ring Juxon, an ecclesiastic, to the office of Lord High Treasurer of 

 England, on the death of the Earl of Portland. The paper of Juxon's 

 which I present was written in his capacity as Lord High Treasurer, 

 and so has no relation to spiritual matters. It reads as follows ; 

 " Sir Robert Page : Pray draw an order for payment of the Captain 

 and Garrison of Plymouth the half year due on our Lady-day last ; 

 and for so doing this shall be your warrant. Your loving friend, 

 CrUiL. London. London House, the 23rd of April, 1640." The 

 paper is endorsed, " 23rd April, 1640. Sir Jacob Astley, for a half 

 year's pay for the Garrison at Plymouth." It was in this very year,^ 

 1640, that Juxon solicited and obtained leave to resign the Treasurer- 

 ship, which he had himself never desired to hold ; and probably this 

 order for the payment of the troops at Plymouth was among his last 

 ■official acts. In the following year Strafford was put to death ; and 

 in the year after that Charles raised his Royal Standard at "Worcester, 

 and the great civil war began in earnest. The Sir Jacob Astley 

 above-named, fought, I observe, on the side of the King. The signa- 

 ture GuiL. London, attached to the document just given, has still 

 adhering to it many bright scales of pulverized gold leaf, remains of 

 the sanding which the writing received while yet wet, according to a 

 practice prevalent before the invention of blotting paper. The hand 

 which scattered these glistening particles which we here see, assisted, 

 as we have learned, in summing up the revenues of all England. 

 That hand also had often returned the pressure of Laud's hand, of 

 Strafford's hand ; and doubtless, too, of Charles' hand, repeatedly, 

 before the tragical parting on the scaffold in front of the palace of 

 Whitehall. 



I produce now a manuscript document bearing the signature of a 

 Prince of Orange. It is dated at Breda, but unhappily in the year 

 1737, so that it is not the autograph of our William III., who died 

 in 1702, but of an immediate successor in Holland. It is written in 

 German, and is a decree authorizing the appointment of a Professor 

 Ran to an academic position. The name is subscribed in French, 

 Peince d'Orange. For thus failing to produce the autograph of 

 William IIL, I make what amends I can by showing a rare folio 



