XXX. The late earl of Rochester was inferior to nobody in wit, and hardly anybody ever used it worse, if we believe him against himself in his dying reflections; an account of which I have had from some that visited him in his sickness, besides that larger one, made public by the Bishop of Salisbury. It was then that he came to think there was a God, for he felt his lashes on his conscience, and that there was such a thing as virtue, and a reward for it. Christianity was no longer a worldly or absurd design; but Christ, a Saviour, and a most merciful one; and his doctrines plain, just, and reasonable, and the true way to felicity here and hereafter. Admiring and adoring that mercy to him, which he had treated with so much infidelity and obstinate contempt: wishing only for more life to confute his past one, and in some measure to repair the injuries he had done to religion by it; begging forgiveness for Christ's sake, though he thought himself the most unworthy of it for his own,--thus died the witty Lord Rochester, and this retreat he made from the world he had so great a name in. May the loose wits of the times, as he desired, take warning by him, and not leave their repentance to a dying bed! XXXI. A noble young man of the family of Howard, having yielded too much to the temptations of youth, when upon his sick bed, which proved his dying bed, fell under the power and agony of great convictions, mightily bewailing himself in the remembrance of his former extravagancies; crying strongly to God to forgive him, abhorring his former course, and promising amendment, if God renewed life to him. However, he was willing to die, having tasted of the love and forgiveness of God; warning his acquaintance and kindred that came to see him to fear God, and forsake the pleasures and vanity of this world: and so willingly yielded his soul from the troubles of time, and frailties of mortality.