The poet Quarles--whose quaint emblems symbolize not only the quaintness of his piety, but the quaintness of much besides belonging to his age--suffered as a Royalist and an Episcopalian; and indeed his death appears to have been hastened by the persecution which he suffered. The hues of his religious experience are best conveyed by preserving the phraseology of his devoted widow.[449] "He expressed great sorrow for his sins, and when it was told him that his friends conceived he did thereby much harm to himself, he answered: '_They were not his friends that would not give him leave to be penitent_.' His exhortations to his friends that came to visit him were most divine; wishing them _to have a care of the expense of their time, and every day to call themselves to an account, that so when they came to their bed of sickness, they might lie upon it with a rejoicing heart_. And, doubtless, such an one was his, insomuch that he thanked God that whereas he might justly have expected that his _conscience should look him in the face like a lion_, it rather looked upon him _like a lamb_; and that God had forgiven him his sins, and that night sealed him his pardon; and many other heavenly expressions to the like effect. I might here add what blessed advice he gave to me in particular, still to trust in God, whose promise is to provide for the widow and the fatherless, &c. But this is already imprinted on my heart, and therefore I shall not need here again to insert it." Lord Montague may be cited as a specimen of old English piety, apart from strong ecclesiastical opinions on either side. "Many 'characters' have been drawn of this stout cavalier. The sum of them all amounts to this, namely that he was an honest, truthful, and pious man, an example to his fellow-parishioners by constant attendance at sermons on Sundays, and at lectures on week days. So long as the truth was preached old Montague cared not who preached it; and his own chaplain had no sinecure of it in his house, where that reverend official, on Sunday afternoons, assembled the servants, and put them through their catechism. The household was a godly one, though a certain depictor of it says, rather equivocally, that 'the rudest of his servants feared to be known to him to be a drunkard, a swearer, or any such lewd liver, for he cast such out of his service.' This would imply that there was an assumption of virtue, by which the good lord may have been deceived; but his serving men and maids are emphatically chronicled as being a credit and a comfort to him."[450] [Sidenote: _Sir B. Grenville._]