BY PERMISSION OF W. J. EVELYN, ESQ., M.P., FROM THE ORIGINAL MS. IN THE LIBRARY AT WOTTON. "Be ready always to give an answer to every man, that asketh you a reason of the "I am verily persuaded that errors shall not be imputed to them as sin, who use EDITED, WITH NOTES, BY THE REVEREND R. M. EVANSON, B.A., RECTOR OF LANSOY, MONMOUTHSHIRE. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 1850. F. Shoberi, Jun., Printer to H.R.H. Prince Albert, Rupert Street, Haymarket. BODL LIBR OXFORD ΤΟ HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEAUFORT, THESE VOLUMES, FROM THE PEN OF AN ILLUSTRIOUS WRITER, IN TOKEN OF ESTEEM, ARE, WITH HIS GRACE'S PERMISSION, RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY HIS OBLIGED AND FAITHFUL SERVANT, THE EDITOR. EDITOR'S PREFACE. "He, being dead, yet speaketh." After a peaceful slumber of nearly two centuries in the Wotton Library, the original manuscript from which this work is printed was last year brought into light and notice by the publication of the "Life of Mrs. Godolphin," from the pen of the same Author. This circumstance directed fresh attention to the collection of manuscripts still in the possession of his representative, W. J. Evelyn, Esq., M.P., at the family-seat in Surrey, by whose permission the fruit of his literary labours, in a new and most important department, is now, for the first time, given to the world. It is but due to the Publisher to relate, that it was mainly owing to his suggestions that the manuscript was carefully examined; and though, perhaps from its bulk, the grave theological character of |