to declare before God, that they believed William and Mary to be King and Queen, de jure as well as de facto, and engaged to defend their title as such. The same, (together with the Oath of Allegiance) was required to be signed by all in any public trust or office, civil, military, or ecclesiastical.

CHAPTER III.

1691, 1692.

Of my spending a Year at Oxford; my Conversation and Studies there; my beginning to preach in the Country, and return afterwards to London.

I HAVE before intimated that I came back to England in 1691. I was well received by my friends, and visited several of our most eminent ministers in and about the city, who treated me with respect. I particularly waited on Mr. Baxter, who talked freely with me about my good old grandfather, for whom he declared a particular esteem. He made several inquiries about Holland, the state of things, and behaviour of my fellow students there, and gave me good advice about my own future studies and conduct. I several times heard him preach, which I remembered not to have done before. He talked in the pulpit with great freedom about another world, like one that had been there,

and was come as a sort of an express from thence to make a report concerning it.* He was well advanced in years, but delivered himself in public, as well as in private, with great vivacity and freedom, and his thoughts had a peculiar edge. I told him of my design of going to Oxford, and staying some time there, in which he encouraged me: and towards the end of the year, (Dec. 8,) when I was actually there, he died; so that I should never have had an opportunity of seeing, hearing, or conversing with him, had I not done it now.

I went to Oxford a little after Midsummer, and took a private lodging in the parish of St. Ebbs, where my room looked into Paradise Garden. I had brought letters with me from Utrecht, from Professor Grevius, which I thought might do me no disservice there. That Professor hearing that I designed for Oxford, had offered them to me of his own accord; and so far was I from slighting his kindness, that I thankfully accepted it; hoping that

* Waller concluded his Divine Poems, "written when he was about eighty years of age," with this couplet:

66

Leaving the old, both worlds, at once, they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new."

On which Dryden thus addressed him :

"Still here remain, still on the threshold stand,

Still at this distance view the promised land;

That thou may'st seem, so heavenly is thy sense,
Not going thither, but new come from thence."

This address was now, probably, in Dr. Calamy's recollection.-ED.

his dropping a word in my favour, might give me somewhat of a character among the great men there. I had one letter from him to Dr. Edward Pococke, canon of Christ Church, (upon which dignity he first entered in the year 1648) and Regius Professor of the Hebrew Tongue in that University;* and another to Dr. Edward Bernard, public Professor of Astronomy. When I delivered the former, I found the good doctor worn out with age and infirmity. He received me civilly, and had his life been prolonged, I thought I might promise myself considerable benefit by being admitted to freedom with so great a man. But he was then confined to his lodgings, as he had been for some time, and soon after (September 10,) he died, and I heard his funeral oration delivered in Christ Church, where he was interred.

Dr. Bernard, who was a singularly good tempered gentleman, upon my delivering Professor Grevius's letter to him, frankly embraced me, and promised me all the civilities he was capable of showing me, and I must own that he amply made good his promise, during the whole of my stay at Oxford. I told him of my desire to obtain leave to study in the

* See Dr, Twell's "Life of Pocock." Lives, (1816) i. 106, 107.-ED.

+ See a Character of him in Huetius.-C. He was admitted, 1673, Savilian Professor of Astronomy, on the resignation of Sir Christopher Wren. Athen. Oxon. ii. 895.-ED.

Aged 86. Lives, i. 342.-ED.

Bodleian Library, and he undertook to procure it for me. He applied to the Regent masters in convocation on my behalf, and produced Grevius's letter to him; upon which, I obtained leave without any demur, upon condition only of my taking one of Dr. Hyde's catalogues of the library at his own price, and paying somewhat to the under library keeper. Dr. Bernard introduced me to him, and my name was entered, and I afterwards, most days, spent some hours there in each day, with great pleasure, and much to my satisfaction and benefit.

*

Mr. (afterwards Dr.) Joshua Oldfield, was at that time the minister of the Dissenting congregation at Oxford, and he was then in his prime. He had but a small auditory and very slender encouragement, but took a great deal of pains. He had little conversation with the scholars, nor did he affect it; and yet often had a number of them for his auditors. I have sometimes thought that if he had been less shy, and more free in conversing with them, it might have been better. It confirmed me in that opinion, when I observed that upon my sometimes prevailing with him to go to the coffee-house, and there converse with such scholars as he met with by accident, they afterwards freely said, that they found he had a great deal more in him than they imagined. With him I conversed daily; and though I did not lodge

* He became, in 1700, "pastor of a congregation in Southwark." Cont. p. 233; Toulmin's "Hist. View," pp. 245, 246. ED.

under his roof, yet I was continually, almost, at his house as one of his domestics. I had acquaintance with him before, while he had the small congregation of Dissenters at Tooting in Surrey under his care, of which my grandfather Gearing was a prime member; and now I not only renewed my acquaintance, but fell into the utmost freedom with him, and have reason to be thankful for it.

I had it now particularly under consideration whether I should determine for conformity or nonconformity. I thought Oxford no unfit place to pursue this matter in. I was not likely to be there prejudiced in favour of the Dissenters, who were commonly run down and ill spoken of. I was entertained from day to day with what tended to give any man the best opinion of the church by law established. I was a witness of her learning, wealth, grandeur, and splendour. I was treated by the gentlemen of the University with all imaginable civility. I heard their sermons, and frequently attended their public lectures and academical exercises. I was free in conversation as opportunities offered; and was often argued with about consorting with such a despicable, such an unsociable sort of people as the Nonconformists were represented. But I took all occasions to express my hearty respect and value for real worth, wherever I could meet with it.

I carefully studied my Bible, and particularly the New Testament, and found the plain worship of the Dissenters, as far as I could judge, more agreeable to