his chaplain, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. Besides this
celebrated sermon of the primate's, in which he is very lavish in
his praise, Lord Chancellor Bacon, and Sir Robert Naunton, bestow
particular encomiums upon him; and Sir Richard Paker observes, "That
he had excellent parts, and in his place was exceeding industrious,
and that he had heard many exchequer men say, there never was a better
Treasurer, both for the King's profit, and the good of the subject."

By his dying suddenly at the Council-Table, his death was interpreted
by some people in a mysterious manner;[9] but his head being opened,
there were found in it certain little bags of water, which, whether by
straining in his study the night before, in which he sat up till 11
o'clock, or otherwise by their own maturity, suddenly breaking, and
falling upon his brain, produced his death, to the universal grief
of the nation, for which he had spent his strength, and for whose
interest, in a very immediate manner, he may be justly said to have
fallen a sacrifice. Of all our court poets he seems to have united the
greatest industry and variety of genius: It is seldom found, that the
sons of Parnassus can devote themselves to public business, or execute
it with success. I have already observed, that the world has lost many
excellent works, which no doubt this cultivated genius would have
accomplished, had he been less involved in court-affairs: but as
he acted in so public a sphere, and discharged every office with
inviolable honour, and consummate prudence, it is perhaps somewhat
selfish in the lovers of poetry, to wish he had wrote more, and acted
less. From him is descended the present noble family of the Dorsets;
and it is remarkable, that all the descendants of this great man have
inherited his taste for liberal arts and sciences, as well as his
capacity for public business. An heir of his was the friend and patron
of Dryden, and is stiled by Congreve the monarch of wit in his time,