like much of Cooper's work, left unfinished, and has somewhat faded, the miniature of his son is a beautiful and highly finished specimen of the artist's work, 1664 and is signed, and dated 1664. He is represented in his academical gown and lace bands, and with his own brown hair, long and curled according to the fashion of the time, the disfiguring periwig of some years later not having yet been adopted. Keen dark eyes, a long nose, and full lips, were the characteristic features of an interesting face, but with some traces, in the expression, of restlessness and discontent.`

Jacob's life henceforth was passed in the quiet country village in which his lot was cast, where he devoted himself assiduously to his duties as its pastor. Meanwhile the young ones of his own family grew up around him, claiming the care and attention formerly lavished upon books and study, and though (as is shown by notes and MSS.) he continued to bestow time upon both, and collected a considerable library, he was content henceforward to live with and for his people.

Throughout his career Jacob Houblon appears as an orthodox 'high churchman,' according to the teaching of Laud, and the writings of Andrewes, Hooker, and Jeremy Taylor; but by the latitudinarian doctrines held by a section of English thinking men, the successors of Lord Falkland and his friends at Great Tew,'-he seems to have been but little influenced, though it is apparent by his notes and references, that his reading and study extended into the sphere of their thought and speculations. The Church revival of the days of Queen Anne he did not see, for he died four years before her accession to the throne; but his beginnings of work as a parish priest must have demanded of him much energy, unselfishness, and tact, for he came to his parish bringing again the old forbidden

1 Green, Short History, p. 591; ed. 1875.

ritual and sacraments, and with the discarded book of Common Prayer in his hand. Fifteen years had passed since, in the struggle with Charles I. and Archbishop Laud, the presbyterian party had imposed their authority upon the English Church and laid the hand of destruction upon all that was deemed superstitious in the churches. The new rector doubtless found at Moreton a neglected, ruinous edifice; in place of the old altar a bare table placed lengthwise in the nave, the ancient font broken or turned out of the church -a rude basin being used in its place;-unhung or injured bells, broken windows rudely patched, carved work mutilated, and probably the structure itself in a dangerous condition through want of repair!1

In Thorne's Environs of London, he describes the 'pretty old church of Moreton embowered in trees.' Its walls, he tells us, were formerly decorated with paintings, some traces of which could still be discerned through the white plaster with which it was the custom of the Puritans to blot out remnants of Popery.' If the church itself wanted all the care and expenditure its rector could bestow on it in its ruin and decay, the people presented no less perplexing a problem. With broken habits of worship, together with the unfamiliarity bred of long disuse, the difficulties presented by the book of Common Prayer (formerly familiar, but now strange and intricate to the illiterate, unaccustomed peasant of the little Essex village) must during the first years of Jacob's rectorate have taxed to the utmost hist energy, his temper, and his strength. But our young parson would have been indeed unlike the race from which he had sprung, if he had been content to meet

In April 1643 the Commons at Westminster had appointed a Committee to destroy painted glass and carved stone-work in London churches and streets as monuments of superstition. (Wakeman, History of the Church, P. 374). Thorne, Environs of London, i. 438-9. Murray, 1876.

1689

these difficulties with apathy or discouragement. As the energy and savoir faire of his ancestors had overcome obstacles in the past, so now would tact and patience accomplish the work of reconstruction in the little realm of his parish.

Moreton, surrounded by the fat green pastures of the 'garden of England,' is scarcely changed since the lean, cassocked parish priest went in and out of its humble dwellings, and patiently taught the little children round his knee. The keen sensitive face of his earlier years betrayed a character which might have degenerated under the circumstances of monotony in which he passed the greater part of his life; but the sweet amenities of his good old father's influence and love doubtless kept tender the temper and character of the son. There is evidence to show that the young rector's chief energies were devoted to the teaching of the little ones of his flock; a duty in which old Mr. Houblon shared his enthusiasm, and to which he contributed liberally with his purse. For now began the first stirrings of the great movement in this direction, a movement born of an immense want, which was ultimately to find its culmination in the establishment of schools for the poor all over the country.

The reconstruction going on in the national Church throughout the country was not interrupted by the changes consequent upon the Revolution, though it affected the Church through the loss she sustained by the refusal of the Non-jurors to take the oath of allegiance demanded of them by the new sovereigns. To Jacob Houblon the test of the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, in 1689, hardly presented the conscientious difficulties that it did to some of the clergy. He had been trained in his youth in what would in later times have been called Whig principles; and although as a churchman he was now a Tory, in common with

practically the whole body of the parochial clergy of the Restoration, we cannot conceive of a son of the 'Pater Bursae,' that in common with them he held the doctrines of 'indefeasible right,' nor yet that of the 'sinfulness of resistance.'1 In his quiet rectory, far away from the busy scenes where his brothers and their Whig friends were now for the first time stepping to the forefront of the councils of their fellow-citizens, and assuming a political importance commensurate to the part the City had taken in bringing about the Revolution,-the rector of Moreton was doubtless deeply stirred in his mind. We can imagine his visit to London, and his conferences with the brothers who had hailed the Revolution with so much joy and hope. The long years apart would have made no difference in the mutual affection which was characteristic of James Houblon's sons; and we may conclude that their representations, together with the influence of his own early training and surroundings, resulted in the quieting of his conscience, and his acceptance of the oath of allegiance which proved so sore a stumbling-block to those of his brother-clergy who were henceforth known as the famous Non-jurors.

And so Jacob Houblon returned to his work and his home, and for another nine years laboured amongst his people; when, having given them the thirty-six best years of his life and of his health and strength as their friend and pastor, he died at Moreton on the 12th of December 1698, at the age of sixty-four, and was buried 1698 there, below the chancel of his church.

1 Mr. Lecky says that the immense majority (of the clergy) held the doctrine of the indefeasible title of hereditary royalty and of the sinfulness of all resistance to oppression, and they only took the oaths of the Revolu tionary Government with much equivocation, and after long and painful misgiving' (History of England, i. 62).

The parish registers of Moreton have been printed.

CHAPTER XIV

THE FRIEND OF PEPYS

A man that I love mightily.'-SAMUEL PEPYS: Diary.

OF the sons of Mr. Houblon, senior, James was the one possessed of the most qualifications for social success; while we find that with regard to their profession, he was generally spokesman and actor in times of stress. Generous and hospitable, he welcomed his friends and acquaintance at his house in Winchester Street, where he lived in a comfort and luxury to which we find various references. When describing Broad Street Ward, Strype speaks of James's house in Winchester Street, as a 'great messuage, formerly called the Spanish Ambassador's, and of late inhabited by Sir James Houblon, Knight and Alderman of London.'

The

ground floor served as his place of business, his two younger brothers' business address being likewise given in the Little Directory of 1677 as at their brother's house. Of the 'great messuage' in Winchester Street there is a water-colour drawing in the Soane collection,1 and from this it would seem to have been a fine and dignified mansion.

'A pretty serious man,' Pepys called James; meaning that to his other qualities he added those of piety and good manners. This was in the early days of the Royal Society, and James, though he was not himself a member, counted many of its most distinguished 1 By J. H. Shepherd. 2 It was incorporated in 1660.