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Ballantyne Press

BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO., EDINBURGH CHANDOS STREET, LONDON

OF

THOMAS ELLWOOD

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HENRY MORLEY

LL.D., PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

LONDON

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS

BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL

NEW YORK: 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE

1885

VOLUMES ALREADY PUBLISHED.

SHERIDAN'S PLAYS.

PLAYS FROM MOLIÈRE.

By English Dramatists.

MARLOWE'S FAUSTUS & GOETHE'S FAUST.

CHRONICLE OF THE cid.

RABELAIS' GARGANTUA and the HEROIC

DEEDS OF PANTAGRUEL.

THE PRINCE.

By MACHIAVELLI,

BACON'S ESSAYS.

DEFOE'S JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR. LOCKE ON CIVIL GOVERNMENT & FILMER'S "PATRIARCHA."

SCOTT'S DEMONOLOGY and WITCHCRAFT. DRYDEN'S VIRGIL.

BUTLER'S ANALOGY OF RELIGION.

HERRICK'S HESPERIDES.

COLERIDGE'S TABLE-TALK.

BOCCACCIO'S DECAMERON.

STERNE'S TRISTRAM SHANDY.

CHAPMAN'S HOMER'S ILIAD.

MEDIEVAL TALES.

VOLTAIRE'S CANDIDE & JOHNSON'S
RASSELAS

PLAYS and POEMS by BEN JONSON.
LEVIATHAN. By THOMAS HOBBES.
HUDIBRAS. By SAMUEL BUTLER.
IDEAL COMMONWEALTHS.
CAVENDISH'S LIFE OF WOLSEY.
DON QUIXOTE. IN TWO VOLUMES.
BURLESQUE PLAYS and POEMS.
DANTE'S DIVINE COMEDY.

TRANSLATION.

LONGFELLOW's

GOLDSMITH'S VICAR of WAKEFIELD, PLAYS

and POEMS.

FABLES and PROVERBS from the SANSKRIT.

CHARLES LAMB'S ESSAYS OF ELIA.

THE HISTORY OF THOMAS ELLWOOD.

"Marvels of clear type and general neatness."

Daily Telegraph.

INTRODUCTION.

THE life of the simple Quaker, Thomas Ellwood, to whom the pomps and shows of earth were nowhere so vain as in association with the spiritual life of man, may serve as companion to another volume in this Library, the "Life of Wolsey" by George Cavendish, who, as a gentleman of the great prelate's household, made part of his pomp, but had a heart to love him in his pride and in his fall. "The History of Thomas Ellwood, written by Himself," is interesting for the frankness with which it makes Thomas Ellwood himself known to us; and again, for the same frank simplicity that brings us nearer than books usually bring us to a living knowledge of some features of a bygone time; and yet again, because it helps us a little to come near to Milton in his daily life. He would be a good novelist who could invent as pleasant a book as this unaffected record of a quiet life touched by great influences in eventful times.

Thomas Ellwood, who was born in 1639, in the reign of Charles the First, carried the story of his life in this book to the year 1683, when he was forty-four years old. He outlived the days of trouble here recorded, enjoyed many years of peace, and died, near the end of Queen Anne's reign, aged 74, on the first of March 1713, in his house at Hunger Hill, by Amersham. He was eleven years younger than John Bunyan, and fifteen years younger than George Fox, the founder of that faithful band of worshippers known as the Society of Friends. They turned from all forms and ceremonies that involved untruth or insincerity, saw the temple of God in man's body, and, as Saint Paul said to the Corinthians, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you," they sought to bring Christ into their hearts, and speak and act as if Christ was within governing their words and actions. They would have no formal prayers, no formal preaching, but sought to speak with each other as the Spirit prompted, soul to soul. They would not, when our plural pronoun "you" was still only plural, speak to one man as if he were two or more. They swore not at all; but their "Yea" and "Nay" were known to be more binding than the oaths of many of their persecutors. And as they would not go through the required form of swearing allegiance to

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