Smyth, John (1567-1640)

The Berkeley Manuscripts

Gloucester

John Bellows

w. before 1641, 1883

"[H]is face was the frontispice of his mind, hee knew not how to dissemble a thought."

Of body, hee was tall and slender, as were his father and grandfather, as both from himself and more espetially from divers of their attendants I have been informed; said also to bee the naturall posture and composure of the name and family; Of a sound constitution, his hearing good, his eyes not more dimme then in his youth: Reading much, yet never used spectacle or other help: hee knew not what the gout, stone, Ache, or other greifs incident to age did meane: In the course of his wholl life none could bee more temparate, spare of speech, better conceiving then expressing; Nothing beholding to his youths education, as himself would complaine: enclining to pitty: ready to releive: exceeding apt to forgive, and to bee reconciled: And being reconciled, would imbrace them without scruple or remnant of gall; his face was the frontispice of his mind, hee knew not how to dissemble a thought: ffor frank well ordered | and continuall hospitallity, hee equalled, if not outwent, all others in the parts where hee lived: In a word, Noe man (that ever I could hear, hee, living or dead,) could fay That hee ever deserved in him any notorious vice: Only, it may truly bee said, that hee was too great a lover of law, knowing it noe better: And that hee did not alwaies foe lend one eare to the accuser, as that hee kept the other for the accused.
(II, 408-9)

Writing::Book::Frontispiece

Reading in OED, "frontispiece, n."

John Smyth, The Berkeley manuscripts: The lives of the Berkeleys, lords of the honour, castle and manor of Berkeley, in the county of Gloucester, from 1066 to 1618; with a description of the hundred of Berkeley and of its inhabitants, ed. John Maclean, vol. 2 of 3 (Gloucester: John Bellows, 1883). <Link to Google Books>

08/26/2011