and in favor of Liberty of Conscience. At his hospitable residence, the
leading spirits of the sect were warmly welcomed. George Fox and William
Penn seem to have been frequent guests. We find that, in 1683, he was
arrested for seditious publications, when on the eve of hastening to his
early friend, Gulielma, who, in the absence of her husband, Governor
Penn, had fallen dangerously ill. On coming before the judge, "I told
him," says Ellwood, "that I had that morning received an express out of
Sussex, that William Penn's wife (with whom I had an intimate
acquaintance and strict friendship, _ab ipsis fere incunabilis_, at
least, _a teneris unguiculis_) lay now ill, not without great danger, and
that she had expressed her desire that I would come to her as soon as I
could." The judge said "he was very sorry for Madam Penn's illness," of
whose virtues he spoke very highly, but not more than was her due. Then
he told me, "that, for her sake, he would do what he could to further my
visit to her." Escaping from the hands of the law, he visited his
friend, who was by this time in a way of recovery, and, on his return,
learned that the prosecution had been abandoned.

At about this date his narrative ceases. We learn, from other sources,
that he continued to write and print in defence of his religious views up
to the year of his death, which took place in 1713. One of his
productions, a poetical version of the Life of David, may be still met
with, in the old Quaker libraries. On the score of poetical merit, it is
about on a level with Michael Drayton's verses on the same subject. As
the history of one of the firm confessors of the old struggle for
religious freedom, of a genial-hearted and pleasant scholar, the friend
of Penn and Milton, and the suggester of Paradise Regained, we trust our
hurried sketch has not been altogether without interest; and that,
whatever may be the religious views of our readers, they have not failed
to recognize a good and true man in Thomas Ellwood.