THE

LIFE OF SHEFFIELD.

BY DR. JOHNSIN

JOHN SHEFFIELD, descended from a long ens
in 1649, the son of Edmund eat of Nugar
lord was put into the hands of a tutor, wenda wasn

got rid of him in a short time, ant, a as earne
to educate himself Such a purse as an a
ested, delights as it is strange, aut merata & I A POL
His literary acquisitions are more woENTAL. A
may made were spent by im u te tumeur e
cort When war was declaret agens Le p
the shap in which prince Kuper: aut te se o
mand of the fleet; but, by contranety o wad
His zeal for the king's serve was recompetes or be
pendent troops of hurt, tien at a proter the cam
Next year he received a summons & patiament, wir
years old, the earl of Northumberland ees
jection was allowed. He had a quarre with the
perhaps, too ostentatiously related a turne
is said to have told him with very stary roman
When another Dutch war 2 HE THE
which the celebrated lord Ossory conten
curious remarks:

"I have observed two things, wig i dare alives. One was, that the wind of a camer bet mong it of doing the least harus; and, dest, were

escape. The other was, that a great set, måst

by changing one's ground a little; for, wives for t

smoke, it was so clear a sun-simy day, were half-spent) fro

the water, and in a po 5:

which gives sufficient time for making a step or two on any side; though, in so swift a motion, it is hard to judge well in what line the bullet comes, which, if mistaken, may, by removing, cost a man his life, instead of saving it."

His behaviour was so favourably represented by lord Ossory, that he was advanced to the command of the Catharine, the best second-rate ship in the navy.

He afterwards raised a regiment of foot, and commanded it as colonel. The land forces were sent ashore by prince Rupert: and he lived in the camp very familiarly with Schomberg. He was then appointed colonel of the old Holland regiment, together with his own, and had the promise of a garter, which he obtained in his twenty-fifth year. He was likewise made gentleman of the bed-chamber. He afterwards went into the French service, to learn the art of war under Turenne, but staid only a short time. Being by the duke of Monmouth opposed in his pretensions to the first troop of horse-guards, he, in return, made Monmouth suspected by the duke of York. He was, not long after, when the unlucky Monmouth fell into disgrace, recompensed with the lieutenancy of Yorkshire, and the government of Hull.

Thus rapidly did he make his way both to military and civil honours and employments; yet, busy as he was, he did not neglect his studies, but at least cultivated poetry; in which he must have been early considered as uncommonly skilful, if it be true, which is reported, that, when he was not twenty years old, his recommendation advanced Dryden to the laurel.

The Moors having besieged Tangier, he was sent (1680) with two thousand men to its relief. A strange story is told of the danger to which he was intentionally exposed in a leaky ship, to gratify some resentful jealousy of the king, whose health he therefore would never permit at his table, till he saw himself in a safer place. His voyage was prosperously performed in three weeks; and the Moors, without a contest, retired before him.

In this voyage he composed the Vision; a licentious poem, such as was fashionable in those times, with little power of invention or propriety of sentiment.

At his return, he found the king kind, who, perhaps, had never been angry; and he continued a wit and a courtier as before.

At the succession of king James, to whom he was intimately known, and by whom he thought himself beloved, he naturally expected still brighter sun-shine; but all know how soon that reign began to gather clouds. His expectations were not disappointed; he was immediately admitted into the privy-council, and made lord chamberlain. He accepted a place in the high commission, without knowledge, as he declared after the Revolution, of its illegality. Having few religious scruples, he attended the king to mass, and kneeled with the rest; but had no disposition to receive the Romish faith, or to force it upon others; for when the priests, encouraged by his appearances of compliance, attempted to convert him, he told them, as Burnet has recorded, that he was willing to receive instruction, and that he had taken much pains to believe in God, who had made the world and all men in it; but that he should not be easily persuaded that man was quits, and made God again,

A pointed sentence is bestowed by successive transmission to the last whom it will fit; this censure of transubstantiation, whatever be its value, was uttered long ago by Anne Askew, one of the first sufferers for the protestant religion, who, in the time