The vacations of the “White Ladies” were not idly, though they might sometimes be unprofitably, spent. The celebrated Richard Baxter acted as the spiritual guide of several members of the Somers family, and at that time resided at Worcester. By the arguments of this pious divine, aided by the conversation of Mr. Somers, who was nine years older than his friend, Lord Shrewsbury was prepared for that conversion to the Protestant faith, which Tillotson afterwards confirmed and commemorated. It might have been well for public morals, if the pursuits of the two friends had not taken another direction. The famous “Tale of a Tub” is supposed to have had its origin in the leisure of the White Ladies. Shrewsbury and Somers are said to have sketched the characters, and composed the plan of the poem; Lord Shaftesbury, and Sir William Temple treasured up the imperfect outlines, and entrusted them to Swift; Swift manufactured the materials into their well-known form, and gave them to the world.[381] Like all really popular works of fiction, life itself supplied the characters. Blurton, the uncle of Lord Somers, was portrayed in Martin, the good church-of-England man. The grandfather of Lord Somers was exhibited in Jack the Calvinist, the devoted disciple of the Presbyterian Baxter. Father Peter was drawn from the famous Father Petre. For the publication of this noted satire, Swift, as it is well known, lost the chance of a bishoprick, in consequence of Queen Anne’s scruples. The introduction to Russell and Sidney, which Lord Shrewsbury afforded to his friend, confirmed those political principles which Somers in a degree inherited. During the reign of Charles the Second, he was employed in writing state papers, ascribed to Sidney, but certainly the productions of Somers’s pen. He wrote the celebrated answer to King Charles’s declaration on dissolving the last Parliament. The study of the classics varied the severer toils of law and politics. It was not, however, until he had entered his thirty-seventh year, that Somers drew upon his merits as a lawyer, and a statesman, the distinguished approbation which had hitherto been accorded to him by the learned few. In 1688 he became counsel for the bishops imprisoned by James the Second; and by the great display of ability on that memorable occasion, his future station in his profession, and in the state, was determined.