The Life of Gilbert Latey
Gilbert Latey came up to London from a Cornish parish as an apprenticed tailor and made his living dressing persons of considerable rank, whose apparel was set off at much cost with superfluities of lace and ribbon. In 1654, under the ministry of Edward Burrough and Francis Howgill, he was convinced of the Truth, and a conscientious concern came upon him not to meddle with such work. He gave up the trade that had made him, and was haled out of a place of worship, carried before justices and imprisoned. He was present at the settling of the first Friends' meetings in London in 1655, stayed through the Great Plague and the Fire that followed it, and travelled into Cornwall. The service that occupied the rest of his life was at court. Through the Lord D'Aubigny he had access to Charles the Second, and afterwards to James the Second and to William, and he spent that access on petitions, warrants and the relief of imprisoned Friends. A Friend who knew the court said he had never known a man among Friends with a sweeter character there. His own rule was to keep to the anointing and the love of God, and not to go into such service in his own will, wit and parts. He preached at Hammersmith in the fifth month of 1705 and died that year. This edition gathers the life with the testimonies of Friends concerning him and an appendix concerning Thomas Thompson, in clear modern English.
- Fully modernized English — every long sentence broken, every inversion untangled
- 1,421-word editorial introduction placing his court service in context
- 11 chapters plus a full linked table of contents
- The testimonies of Friends concerning him, and an appendix on Thomas Thompson
- 102 linked Scripture and reference notes throughout
- EPUB format
This edition
Read itE-book · EPUB
- Time to read1.8 hours
- Length25,258 words
- Files1 EPUB, DRM-free
How we get 1.8 hours
This figure is here so you can compare one book against another. Every title on the site is timed from its own word count at the same reading speed — nothing is adjusted book by book — so if this edition says 1.8 hours and another says half that, the second one really is about half the reading. It is a measure of size, in the way a page count is. Your own pace is your own: at the speeds typical adult readers actually manage, this edition runs anywhere from 1.4 hours to 2.4 hours.
What is in this edition
| Modernized text | 23,873 words |
|---|---|
| Introduction, chapter summaries and notes written for this edition | 1,385 words |
| Total | 25,258 words |
The introduction, the chapter summaries and the notes on people, places and unfamiliar terms were written for this edition. They are 1,385 of the 25,258 words above, and they are part of what you are buying.
Counted from the text of the EPUB you receive. Navigation, the title page, the table of contents and the licence page are excluded — they are packaging, not reading.
The reading rate
238 words per minute, for adult silent reading of non-fiction, applied unchanged to every title on the site. We did not pick the number; it is the pooled result of a published meta-analysis. Nothing is adjusted book by book — that consistency is what makes two of these figures worth comparing.
Brysbaert, M. (2019). How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate. Journal of Memory and Language, 109, 104047. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2019.104047
190 studies, 18,573 participants.
The same paper puts most adult readers between 175 and
300 words per minute, and those two speeds give the
1.4 hours and 2.4 hours above.
Because time is words divided by speed, an even range of speeds produces an
uneven range of times, so 1.8 hours sits nearer the fast end of that
range than the middle of it.
If it were a paperback
Roughly 72–101 pages.
Words per printed page is a typesetting convention, not a measurement — it moves with trim size, type size and leading. The range above assumes 250–350 words a page. Friends Illuminated publishes no print edition of this book; the figure is here only because pages are a more familiar size than words.
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About This Edition
He was born at St. Issey in Cornwall in the month called February, 1626. He was a promising lad, a tailor wanted him for an apprentice, and in time he came up to London to work at his trade. His customers were persons of considerable rank who would have their apparel set off at much cost with superfluities of lace and ribbon, and he did well by them.
The work he gave up
In 1654 he was convinced of the Truth under the ministry of Edward Burrough and Francis Howgill. A conscientious concern came upon him not to meddle with the costly work any longer, nor to let it be done for him. This was not a private scruple; it was his living, and he laid it down. What followed was the ordinary cost of that decision in those years — haled out of a place of worship, carried before a justice, imprisoned.
He was in London in 1655 when Friends found a concern upon them to have some settled meetings there, and this book is one of the few accounts of how those first meetings came to be settled.
The plague, the fire, and the court
He stayed in London through the Great Plague of 1665 and through the Fire of the following year, and afterwards travelled down into Cornwall. But the service that took up the rest of his life was at court. Through the Lord D’Aubigny he had access to Charles the Second, and after him to James the Second and to William, and he used it for petitions, for the recall of warrants, and for the release of imprisoned Friends.
A Friend who attended at court told him he had never known a man among Friends who had a sweeter character there. Latey’s own account of the method is plainer: keep to the anointing and to the love of God, and speak as that gives utterance. Those who go into such services in their own will, wit and parts may miss the desired end, as some have done.
The close
He was long weak and feeble in the outward man and fresh and strong in the inward. At the latter end of the fifth month, 1705, he was at the meeting at Hammersmith, and the Lord moved him to stand up. The night before he died he told those in the room to fear the Lord, and not to render evil for evil but good for evil. He died in 1705.
About this edition
Every sentence has been rebuilt for a modern reader. His vocabulary of conviction — Truth, the Seed, First-day, the numbered months — is bracketed on first use and then left alone, because translating it would translate him out of the book. One hundred and two Scripture and reference links are set into the text; every Scripture reference was checked against the King James text rather than recalled, and every person and place link was checked by hand and verified to resolve.
