The author's style may be inferred from the opening of his preface:--"If my pen (gentle reader) had erst bin dipped in the silver streames flowing from Parnassus Hill, or that Apollo with his sweet-sounding harp would vouchsafe to direct the passage thereof unto the top of the high Olympus; after so general a view of great varietie far and neere, I might bouldly begin with that most excellent Poet Cicelides Mus[e[ogonek]] paulo maiora canamus." I leave my readers to judge how many modern publishers would read any further, if such a book were offered to them in these days! Still, it is interesting as showing the style of the times. Father Gerard, an intimate friend of the Sir Everard Digby whose life I am writing, mentions[4] "the piety of his parents," and that "they were ever the most noted and known Catholics in that country" (Rutlandshire); and Mr Gillow, in his _Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics_[5], states that they "had ever been the most staunch and noted Catholics in the county of Rutland." But here I am met with a difficulty. Would a Catholic have written such a passage as the following, which I take from the _Dissuasive_? It refers to that great champion of Protestantism and Anglicanism, Queen Elizabeth. [4] _Narrative of the G. P._, p. 88. [5] P. 62. "I cannot but write truely," he says, "that which the Clergie with the whole realme confesse plainely: That we render immortell thankes unto Almightie God, for preserving her most Roiall Majestie so miraculouslie unto this daie, giving her a most religious heart (the mirror of all Christian princes) once and ever wholly consecrated to the maintaining of his divine worship in his holy Temple. From this cleare Christall fountaine of heavenlie vertue, manie silver streames derive their sundrie passages so happelie into the vineyarde of the Lorde, that neither the flaming fury of outward enimies, nor the scorching sacrilegious zeale of domesticall dissimulation, can drie up anie one roote planted in the same, since the peaceable reigne of her most Roial Majestie."