" By stirring up jealousy and
sedition, too, amongst the rebels, he gave his majesty time, by
pretended treaties, to draw off the most eminent of the faction, and to
overcome and dissipate the rest. Yet, with all this outward show of
prosperity, and the bruit of noble deeds so various and multiplied, that
Fame herself seemed weary of rehearsing them, there were not wanting
evil reports and dark insinuations against his honour. Foul surmises
prevailed, especially in the latter part of his life, as to the means by
which he possessed himself of the estates he then held in right of his
lady, and those too that he enjoyed through the attainder of her uncle,
Sir James Harrington. He acknowledged himself a freethinker and a
materialist, a character of rare occurrence in those ages, showing him
to be as daring in his opinions as in his pursuits. That the soul of man
was like the winding up of a watch, and that when the spring was run
down the man died, and the soul was extinct, are still recorded as his
expressions. In those days of demoralising ignorance, this open and
unhesitating opinion might be the means of creating him many dangerous
and deadly enemies, especially amongst the priesthood, whose office,
though tending to higher and nobler ends than the mere thralling of
man's spirit to creeds and systems of secular ambition, was yet but too
often devoted to this purpose.
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