TO THE
RIGHT HONOURABLE
JOHN Lord ROBERTS [1],
Baron of Truro, Lord Privy Seal,
and one of His Majesties most Honourable
Privy Council.
My Lord,
AS the favours I have received from your Lordship oblige me to present you with some token of my gratitude: so the especial Honour I have || for your Lordship hath made me solicitous in the choice of the Present. For, if I could have given your Lordship any choice Excerptions out of the Greek or Latin Learning, I should (according to our English Proverb) thereby but carry Coals to Newcastle, and but give your Lordship Puddle-water, who, by your own eminent Knowledge in those learned Languages, can drink out of the very Fountains yourself.
- ↑ John Lord Roberts (or Robartes) was born in 1606. He was two years a student of Exeter College, Oxford, where, Wood intimates, he acquired from Prideaux those prepossessions which led him into the Army of the Commonwealth. At the Restoration, however, he received a number of honours and was made Lord Privy Seal in 1661. He became a member of the Royal Society in 1666 and in 1669 he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to succeed Ormond, but was recalled in 1670. He was four times Speaker of the House of Lords and in 1679 he became Earl Radnor and Lord President of the Council, an office which he held almost until his death 17 July, 1685. He was uniformly considered an able but morose man. Wood, Athenae Oxon. 11. 787; Doyle, Official Baronage, 111. 91; Carte, Ormond, II . 378.
