a person, who had such an abhorrence of lies that he would not use the common forms of civility, and such an abhorrence of oaths that he would not kiss the book in a court of justice, tell something very like a lie, and confirm it by something very like an oath, asked how, if there were really no plot, the letters and minutes which had been found on Ashton were to be explained.  This question Penn evaded.  “If,” he said, “I could only see the King, I would confess every thing to him freely.  I would tell him much that it would be important for him to know.  It is only in that way that I can be of service to him.  A witness for the Crown I cannot be for my conscience will not suffer me to be sworn.”  He assured Sidney that the most formidable enemies of the government were the discontented Whigs.  “The Jacobites are not dangerous.  There is not a man among them who has common understanding.  Some persons who came over from Holland with the King are much more to be dreaded.”  It does not appear that Penn mentioned any names.  He was suffered to depart in safety.  No active search was made for him.  He lay hid in London during some months, and then stole down to the coast of Sussex and made his escape to France.  After about three years of wandering and lurking he, by the mediation of some eminent men, who overlooked his faults for the sake of his good qualities, made his peace with the government, and again ventured to resume his ministrations.  The return which he made for the lenity with which he had been treated does not much raise his character.  Scarcely had he again begun to harangue in public about the unlawfulness of war, when he sent a message earnestly exhorting James to make an immediate descent on England with thirty thousand men.39

Some months passed before the fate of Preston was decided.  After several respites, the government, convinced that, though he had told much, he could tell more, fixed a day for his execution, and ordered the sheriffs to have the machinery of death in readiness.40 But he was again respited, and, after a delay of some weeks, obtained a pardon, which, however, extended only to his life, and left his property subject to all the consequences of his attainder.  As soon as he was set at liberty he gave new cause of offence and suspicion, and was again arrested, examined and sent to prison.41 At length he was permitted to retire, pursued by the hisses and curses of both parties, to a lonely manor house in the North Riding of Yorkshire.  There, at least, he had not to endure the scornful looks of old associates who had once thought him a man of dauntless courage and spotless honour, but who now pronounced that he was at best a meanspirited coward, and hinted their suspicions that he had been from the beginning a spy and a trepan.42 He employed the short and sad remains of his life in turning the Consolation of Boethius into English.  The translation was published after the translator’s death.  It is remarkable chiefly on account of some very unsuccessful