When my dear friend could write no more,
  He gave this Seal and so gave o’er.

  When winds and waves rise highest I am sure,
  This Anchor keeps my faith, that, me secure.

[Sidenote:  His attainments]

At this time of being Orator, he had learned to understand the Italian, Spanish, and French tongues very perfectly:  hoping, that as his predecessors, so he might in time attain the place of a Secretary of State, he being at that time very high in the King’s favour, and not meanly valued and loved by the most eminent and most powerful of the Court Nobility.  This, and the love of a Court-conversation, mixed with a laudable ambition to be something more than he then was, drew him often from Cambridge, to attend the King wheresoever the Court was, who then gave him a sinecure, which fell into his Majesty’s disposal, I think, by the death of the Bishop of St. Asaph.[15] It was the same that Queen Elizabeth had formerly given to her favourite Sir Philip Sidney, and valued to be worth an hundred and twenty pounds per annum.  With this, and his annuity, and the advantage of his College, and of his Oratorship, he enjoyed his genteel humour for clothes, and Court-like company, and seldom looked towards Cambridge, unless the King were there, but then he never failed; and, at other times, left the manage of his Orator’s place to his learned friend, Mr. Herbert Thorndike, who is now Prebend of Westminster.[16]

[Sidenote:  His health]

I may not omit to tell, that he had often designed to leave the University, and decline all study, which he thought did impair his health; for he had a body apt to a consumption, and to fevers, and other infirmities, which he judged were increased by his studies; for he would often say, “He had too thoughtful a wit; a wit like a penknife in too narrow a sheath, too sharp for his body.”  But his Mother would by no means allow him to leave the University, or to travel; and though he inclined very much to both, yet he would by no means satisfy his own desires at so dear a rate, as to prove an undutiful son to so affectionate a Mother; but did always submit to her wisdom.  And what I have now said may partly appear in a copy of verses in his printed poems; ’tis one of those that bear the title of Affliction; and it appears to be a pious reflection on God’s providence, and some passages of his life, in which he says,

[Sidenote:  “Affliction”]

  Whereas my birth and spirit rather took
    The way that takes the town: 
  Thou didst betray me to a lingering book,
    And wrapt me in a gown: 
  I was entangled in a world of strife,
  Before I had the power to change my life.

  Yet, for I threaten’d oft the siege to raise,
    Not simpering all mine age;
  Thou often didst with academic praise
    Melt and dissolve my rage: 
  I took the sweeten’d pill, till I came where
  I could not go away, nor persevere.