embarrassed the foreigner, who was now in a situation forlorn enough.
As providence would have it, lord Cromwell, then Earl of Essex, riding
to court, saw this merchant walking with a dejected countenance, which
put him in mind of his former situation. He immediately ordered one
of his attendants to desire the merchant to come to his house. His
lordship asked the merchant whether he knew him? he answered no:
Cromwell then related the circumstance of the merchant's relieving
a certain Englishman; and asked if he remembered it? The merchant
answered, that he had always made it his business to do good, but did
not remember that circumstance.--His lordship then enquired the reason
of his coming to England, and upon the merchant's telling him his
story, he so interested himself, as soon to procure the payment of all
his debts.--Cromwell then informed the merchant, that he was himself
the person he had thus relieved; and for every Ducat which the
merchant had given him, he returned to the value of a hundred, telling
him, that this was the payment of his debt. He then made him a
munificent present, and asked him whether he chose to settle in
England, or return to his own country. The foreigner chose the latter,
and returned to spend the remainder of his days in competence and
quiet, after having experienced in lord Essex as high an instance of
generosity and gratitude as perhaps ever was known. This noble act of
his lordship, employed, says Burnet, the pens of the belt writers at
that time in panegyrics on so great a behaviour; the finest poets
praised him; his most violent enemies could not help admiring him, and
latest posterity shall hold the name of him in veneration, who was
capable of so generous an act of honour. But to return to Ferrars.

In our author's history of the reign of Queen Mary, tho' he shews
himself a great admirer of the personal virtues of that Princess, and
a very discerning and able historian, yet it is every where evident