TEMPLE (Sir William), grandson of Sir William Temple secretary to the famous earl of Essex in queen Elisabeth's time, who was a younger son of the ancient Temples of Temple-Hall in Leicestershire, was born about 1629. From his youth he discovered a solid penetrating genius, and a wonderful desire of knowledge, which his father Sir John took care to cultivate by all the advantages of a liberal education. His political principles would not suffer him to enter upon any public affairs till the way was made open for the king's restoration in 1660. He then made a distinguished figure at court; and was sent on several embassies, particularly in 1668 to the States-General, when he brought about the triple league between England, Holland, and Sweden. He had a great share in the marriage of the prince of Orange with the lady Mary the duke of York's daughter; and was also one of the plenipotentiaries at the peace of Nimeguen in 1678. But the French interest gaining the ascendancy at court, he resigned his public employments, and retired into the country, where he lived in retirement, solely employed in study and the cultivation of his gardens. Mr Swift, afterwards dean of St Patrick's, Dublin, lived with Sir William as his amanuensis, and assisted in preparing his works for the press. Sir William
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liam died toward the end of the year 1700, at Moor-Park near Farnham in Surrey, where, according to his express directions in his will, his heart was buried in a silver box under the sun-dial in his garden, opposite to the window from whence he used to contemplate the works of nature. He wrote, 1. Observations upon the United Provinces. 2. Miscellanea. 3. Memoirs. 4. An introduction to the History of England. 5. Letters on the most important transactions, 3 vols. Mr Boyer tells us, that he was "an accomplished gentleman, a sound politician, a patriot, and a great scholar. And if this great idea should perchance be shaded by some touches of vanity any spleen, the reader will be so candid as to consider, that the greatest, wisest, and the best of men, have still some failings and imperfections which are inseparable from human nature." Sir William Temple had one son, John Temple, Esq; a man of great abilities and accomplishments, who on the revolution was appointed secretary at war by king William: but he had scarcely been a week in office when, on some secret discontent, he took a boat and drowned himself at London Bridge. This gentleman had married mademoiselle Du Plessis Rombouillet, a French lady, who had by him two daughters, to whom Sir William bequeathed the bulk of his estate; but with this express condition, that they should not marry Frenchmen: "A nation," says Boyer, "to whom Sir William ever bore a general hatred, upon account of their imperiousness and arrogance to foreigners."