“He would doubtless find it impossible to understand that written prayers could solace your Grace,” said Dr. Harford. “Folk are too apt to think all men are framed on one pattern, and must be fed with the same food; whereas we physicians know well enough that one man’s meat is another man’s poison.” The Archbishop mused for a minute in silence. Had the system, which had seemed to him flawless, failed just in this particular? With a sigh he reverted to his lost manual of devotion. “Mr. Prynne knew well enough how greatly I prized the book, for I pleaded hard to keep it. I even”--and he smiled pathetically--“made him a present of a pair of my gloves hoping to propitiate him. He took the gloves, but he took the manual as well.” “That was hard measure,” said the physician. “Yet, who knows, some word in the book may perchance shame him for his lack of charity. He will not be the only Puritan who hath found comfort in the prayers of a devout High Churchman. There is my friend, Mr. John Milton, the scholar, whose works on ‘Reformation in England’ and ‘Prelatical Episcopacy’ do not keep him from being one of the most sincere admirers of Bishop Andrews--his Latin poem on that dead saint being, as all admit, most noteworthy.” The Archbishop looked interested, and said he would like to see the poem could a copy be procured, an errand which the physician gladly undertook. “But, your Grace,” he said, “something was hinted to me by Bishop Coke, as to the suggestion he had made in his letter, and in obtaining the order to come here I learnt from a Member of Parliament that the plan might very easily be carried out.” “I know it,” said the Archbishop, with a long, weary sigh. “My friend, Hugo Grotius, who himself escaped from prison in Holland, would fain have me make a like attempt. I have long observed that my enemies would willingly permit me to fly, for every day a passage is left free in all likelihood for this purpose, that I should take advantage of it. But, sir, I am almost seventy years old, and shall I now go about to prolong a miserable life by the trouble and shame of flying?” “In truth, your Grace, I see no reason why you should not pleasure your friends by making the attempt,” said Dr. Harford. “Whither should I fly?” * said the Archbishop, sadly. “Should I go to France, or any other Popish country, it would be to give some seeming ground to that charge of Popery they have endeavoured with so much industry, and so little reason, to fasten upon me. If I should get into Holland I should expose myself to the insults of those sectaries there to whom I am odious. No! I am resolved not to think of flight, but continuing where I am, patiently expect and bear what a good and wise Providence has appointed for me, of what kind so ever it be.” * These are Dr. Laud’s own words.