ths,
and then stole down to the coast of Sussex and made his escape to
France. After about three years of wandering and lurking he, by the
mediation of some eminent men, who overlooked his faults for the sake
of his good qualities, made his peace with the government, and again
ventured to resume his ministrations. The return which he made for the
lenity with which he had been treated does not much raise his character.
Scarcely had he again begun to harangue in public about the unlawfulness
of war, when he sent a message earnestly exhorting James to make an
immediate descent on England with thirty thousand men. [39]

Some months passed before the fate of Preston was decided. After several
respites, the government, convinced that, though he had told much, he
could tell more, fixed a day for his execution, and ordered the sheriffs
to have the machinery of death in readiness. [40] But he was again
respited, and, after a delay of some weeks, obtained a pardon, which,
however, extended only to his life, and left his property subject to all
the consequences of his attainder. As soon as he was set at liberty
he gave new cause of offence and suspicion, and was again arrested,
examined and sent to prison. [41] At length he was permitted to retire,
pursued by the hisses and curses of both parties, to a lonely manor
house in the North Riding of Yorkshire. There, at least, he had not to
endure the scornful looks of old associates who had once thought him
a man of dauntless courage and spotless honour, but who now pronounced
that he was at best a meanspirited coward, and hinted their suspicions
that he had been from the beginning a spy and a trepan. [42] He employed
the short and sad remains of his life in turning the Consolation
of Boethius into English. The translation was published after the
translator's death. It is remarkable chiefly on account of some very
unsuccessful attempts to enrich our versification with new metres, and
on account of the allusions with which the preface is filled. Under
a thin veil of figurative language, Preston exhibited to the public
compassion or contempt his own blighted fame and broken heart. He
complained that the tribunal which had sentenced him to death had dealt
with him more leniently than his former friends, and that many, who
had never been tried by temptations like his, had very cheaply earned
a reputation for courage by sneering at his poltroonery, and by bidding
defiance at a distance to h