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CHARACTERS

FROM THE

HISTORIES & MEMOIRS

OF THE

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

With an Essay on THE CHARACTER

and Historical Notes

By DAVID NICHOL SMITH

OXFORD

1918

CONTENTS

ESSAY ON THE CHARACTER

I. The Beginnings
II. The Literary Models
III. Clarendon
IV. Other Character Writers

CHARACTERS

1. JAMES I. By Arthur Wilson 2. " By Sir Anthony Weldon 3. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM (George Villiers, first Duke). By Clarendon 4. SIR THOMAS COVENTRY. By Clarendon 5. SIR RICHARD WESTON. By Clarendon 6. THE EARL OF ARUNDEL (Thomas Howard, fourteenth Earl). By Clarendon 7. THE EARL OF PEMBROKE (William Herbert, third Earl). By Clarendon 8. SIR FRANCIS BACON. By Ben Jonson 9. " " " By Arthur Wilson 10. " " " By Thomas Fuller 11. " " " By William Rawley 12. BEN JONSON. By Clarendon 13. " " By James Howell 14. HENRY HASTINGS. By Shaftesbury 15. CHARLES I. By Clarendon 16. " By Sir Philip Warwick 17. THE EARL OF STRAFFORD (Thomas Wentworth, first Earl). By Clarendon 18. THE EARL OF STRAFFORD (Thomas Wentworth, first Earl). By Sir Philip Warwick 19. THE EARL OF NORTHAMPTON (Spencer Compton, second Earl). By Clarendon 20. THE EARL OF CARNARVON (Robert Dormer, first Earl). By Clarendon 21. LORD FALKLAND (Lucius Cary, second Viscount). By Clarendon 22. LORD FALKLAND (Lucius Cary, second Viscount). By Clarendon 23. SIDNEY GODOLPHIN. By Clarendon 24. WILLIAM LAUD. By Clarendon 25. " " By Thomas Fuller 26. " " By Sir Philip Warwick 27. WILLIAM JUXON. By Sir Philip Warwick 28. THE MARQUIS OF HERTFORD (William Seymour, first Marquis). By Clarendon 29. THE MARQUIS OF NEWCASTLE (William Cavendish, first Marquis, and Duke). By Clarendon 30. THE LORD DIGBY (George Digby, second Earl of Bristol). By Clarendon 31. THE LORD CAPEL (Arthur Capel, first Baron). By Clarendon 32. ROYALIST GENERALS: PATRICK RETHVEN, EARL OF BRENTFORD; PRINCE RUPERT; GEORGE, LORD GORING; HENRY WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER. By Clarendon 33. JOHN HAMPDEN. By Clarendon 34. JOHN PYM. By Clarendon 35. OLIVER CROMWELL. By Clarendon 36. OLIVER CROMWELL. By Clarendon 37. " " By Sir Philip Warwick 38. " " By John Maidston 39. " " By Richard Baxter 40. SIR THOMAS FAIRFAX. By Richard Baxter 41. SIR HENRY VANE, the younger. By Clarendon 42. " " " " " By Clarendon 43. COLONEL JOHN HUTCHINSON. By Lucy Hutchinson 44. THE EARL OF ESSEX (Robert Devereux, third Earl). By Clarendon 45. THE EARL OF SALISBURY (William Cecil, second Earl). By Clarendon 46. THE EARL OF WARWICK (Robert Rich, second Earl). By Clarendon 47. THE EARL OF MANCHESTER (Edward Montagu, second Earl). By Clarendon 48. THE LORD SAY (William Fiennes, first Viscount Say and Sele). By Clarendon 49. JOHN SELDEN. By Clarendon 50. JOHN EARLE. By Clarendon 51. JOHN HALES. By Clarendon 52. WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH. By Clarendon 53. EDMUND WALLER. By Clarendon 54. THOMAS HOBBES. By Clarendon 55. " " Notes by John Aubrey 56. THOMAS FULLER. Anonymous 57. JOHN MILTON. Notes by John Aubrey 58. " " Note by Edward Phillips 59. " " Notes by Jonathan Richardson 60. ABRAHAM COWLEY. By himself 61. " " By Thomas Sprat 62. CHARLES II. By Halifax 63. CHARLES II. By Burnet 64. CHARLES II. By Burnet 65. THE EARL OF CLARENDON (Edward Hyde, first Earl), By Burnet 66. THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE (John Maitland, second Earl, created Duke 1672). By Clarendon. 67. THE EARL OF LAUDERDALE (John Maitland, second Earl, created Duke 1672). By Burnet 68. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY (Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl). By Burnet 69. THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY (Anthony Ashley Cooper, first Earl). By Dryden 70. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM (George Villiers, second Duke). By Burnet 71. THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM (George Villiers, second Duke). By Dryden 72. THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX (George Savile, first Marquis). By Burnet 73. SIR EDMUND SAUNDERS. By Roger North 74. TWO GROUPS OF DIVINES: (1. Benjamin Whitchcot, Ralph Cudworth, John Wilkins, Henry More, John Worthington; 2. John Tillotson, Edward Stillingfleet, Simon Patrick, William Lloyd, Thomas Tenison). By Burnet 75. JAMES II. By Burnet 76. JAMES II. By Burnet

THE CHARACTER

The seventeenth century is rich in short studies or characters of its great men. Its rulers and statesmen, its soldiers and politicians, its lawyers and divines, all who played a prominent part in the public life, have with few notable exceptions been described for us by their contemporaries. There are earlier characters in English literature; but as a definite and established form of literary composition the character dates from the seventeenth century. Even Sir Robert Naunton's Fragmenta Regalia, or Observations on the late Queen Elizabeth her Times and Favourites, a series of studies of the great men of Elizabeth's court, and the first book of its kind, is an old man's recollection of his early life, and belongs to the Stuart period in everything but its theme. Nor at any later period is there the same wealth of material for such a collection as is given in this volume. The eighteenth century devoted itself rather to biography. When the facts of a man's life, his works, and his opinions claimed detailed treatment, the fashion of the short character had passed.

Yet the seventeenth century did not know its richness. None of its best characters were then printed. The writers themselves could not have suspected how many others were similarly engaged, so far were they from belonging to a school. The characters in Clarendon's History of the Rebellion were too intimate and searching to be published at once, and they remained in manuscript till about thirty years after his death. In the interval Burnet was drawing the characters in his History of His Own Time. He, like Clarendon, was not aware of being indebted to any English model. Throughout the period which they cover there are the characters by Fuller, Sir Philip Warwick, Baxter, Halifax, Shaftesbury, and many others, the Latin characters by Milton, and the verse characters by Dryden. There is no sign that any of these writers copied another or tried to emulate him. Together, but with no sense of their community, they made the seventeenth century the great age of the character in England.

I. The Beginnings.

The art of literary portraiture in the seventeenth century developed with the effort to improve the writing of history. Its first and at all times its chief purpose in England was to show to later ages what kind of men had directed the affairs and shaped the fortunes of the nation. In France it was to be practised as a mere pastime; to sketch well-known figures in society, or to sketch oneself, was for some years the fashionable occupation of the salons. In England the character never wholly lost the qualities of its origin. It might be used on occasion as a record of affection, or as a weapon of political satire; but our chief character writers are our historians. At the beginning of the seventeenth century England was recognized to be deficient in historical writings. Poetry looked back to Chaucer as its father, was proud of its long tradition, and had proved its right to sing the glories of Elizabeth's reign. The drama, in the full vigour of its youth, challenged comparison with the drama of Greece and Rome. Prose was conscious of its power in exposition and controversy. But in every review of our literature's great achievement and greater promise there was one cause of serious misgivings. England could not yet rank with other countries in its histories. Many large volumes had been printed, some of them containing matter that is invaluable to the modern student, but there was no single work that was thought to be worthy of England's greatness. The prevailing type was still the chronicle. Even Camden, 'the glory and light of the kingdom', as Ben Jonson called him, was an antiquary, a collector, and an annalist. History had yet to be practised as one of the great literary arts.

Bacon pointed out the 'unworthiness' and 'deficiences' of English history in his Advancement of Learning.[1] 'Some few very worthy, but the greater part beneath mediocrity' was his verdict on modern histories in general. He was not the first to express these views. Sir Henry Savile had been more emphatic in his dedication to Queen Elizabeth of his collection of early chronicles, Rerum Anglicarum Scriptores post Bedam, published in 1596.[2] And after Bacon, somewhere about 1618, these views were again expressed by Edmund Bolton in his Hypercritica, or a Rule of Judgement for writing or reading our Histories.[3] 'The vast vulgar Tomes', he said, 'procured for the most part by the husbandry of Printers, and not by appointment of the Prince or Authority of the Common-weal, in their tumultuary and centonical Writings do seem to resemble some huge disproportionable Temple, whose Architect was not his Arts Master'. He repeated what he calls the common wish 'that the majesty of handling our history might once equal the majesty of the argument'. England had had all other honours, but only wanted a history.

But the most valuable statement on the conditions of English history at this time and the obstacles that hindered its progress was made by Sir John Hayward at the beginning of his Lives of the III Normans, Kings of England, published in 1613. Leaving aside the methods of the chroniclers, he had taken the classical historians as his model in his First Part of the Life and raigne of King Henrie the IIII. The interest of this work to the modern reader lies in its structure, its attempt at artistic unity, its recognition that English history must be written on a different plan, rather than in its historical matter. But it was no sooner published than Hayward was committed to the Tower because the account of the deposition of Richard II was held to be treasonable, the offence being aggravated by the dedication, in perfectly innocent terms, to the Earl of Essex. His work was thus checked till he met with encouragement from Henry, Prince of Wales, a patron of literature, of whom, though a mere youth, such men as Jonson, Chapman, and Raleigh, spoke with an enthusiasm that cannot be mistaken for flattery. Prince Henry saw the need of a worthy history of England. He therefore sent for Hayward to discuss the reasons with him:

Prince Henry … sent for mee, a few monethes before his death. And at my second comming to his presence, among some other speeches, hee complained much of our Histories of England; and that the English Nation, which is inferiour to none in Honourable actions, should be surpassed by all, in leauing the memorie of them to posteritie….

I answered, that I conceiued these causes hereof; One, that men of sufficiencie were otherwise employed; either in publicke affaires, or in wrestling with the world, for maintenance or encrease of their private estates. Another is, for that men might safely write of others in maner of a tale, but in maner of a History, safely they could not: because, albeit they should write of men long since dead, and whose posteritie is cleane worne out; yet some aliue, finding themselues foule in those vices, which they see obserued, reproued, condemned in others; their guiltinesse maketh them apt to conceiue, that whatsoeuer the words are, the finger pointeth onely at them. The last is, for that the Argument of our English historie hath been so foiled heretofore by some unworthie writers, that men of qualitie may esteeme themselues discredited by dealing in it….

Then he questioned, whether I had wrote any part of our English Historie, other then that which had been published; which at that time he had in his hands. I answered, that I had wrote of certaine of our English Kings, by way of a briefe description of their liues: but for historie, I did principally bend, and binde my selfe to the times wherein I should liue; in which my owne obseruations might somewhat direct me: but as well in the one as in the other I had at that time perfected nothing.

The result of the interview was that Hayward proceeded to 'perfect somewhat of both sorts'. The brief description of the lives of the three Norman kings was in due course ordered to be published, and would have been dedicated to its real patron but for his untimely death; in dedicating it instead to Prince Charles, Hayward fortunately took the opportunity to relate his conversation with Prince Henry. How far he carried the other work is not certain; it survives in the fragment called The Beginning of the Raigne of Queene Elizabeth,[4] published after his death with The Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixt. He might have brought it down to the reign of James. Had he been at liberty to follow his own wishes, he would have been the first Englishman to write a 'History of his own time'. But when an author incurred imprisonment for writing about the deposition of a sovereign, and when modern applications were read into accounts of what had happened long ago, the complexity of his own time was a dangerous if not a forbidden subject.

There is a passage to the same effect in the preface to The Historie of the World by Sir Walter Raleigh, who, unlike Hayward, willingly chose to be silent on what he knew best:

I know that it will bee said by many, That I might have beene more pleasing to the Reader, if I had written the Story of mine owne times; having been permitted to draw water as neare the Well-head as another. To this I answer, that who-so-ever in writing a moderne Historie, shall follow truth too neare the heeles, it may happily strike out his teeth. There is no Mistresse or Guide, that hath led her followers and servants into greater miseries…. It is enough for me (being in that state I am) to write of the eldest times: wherein also why may it not be said, that in speaking of the past, I point at the present, and taxe the vices of those that are yet lyving, in their persons that are long since dead; and have it laid to my charge? But this I cannot helpe, though innocent.

He wrote of remote ages, and contributed nothing to historical knowledge. But he enriched English literature with a 'just history', as distinct from annals and chronicles.[5] 'I am not altogether ignorant', he said, 'in the Lawes of Historie, and of the Kindes.' When we read his lives and commendations of the great men of antiquity as he pictured them, we cannot but regret that the same talents, the same overmastering interest in the eternal human problems, had not been employed in depicting men whom he had actually known. The other Elizabethan work that ranks with Raleigh's in its conception of the historian's office and in its literary excellence, deals with another country. It is the History of the Turks by Richard Knolles.

The character was definitely introduced into English literature when the historians took as their subjects contemporary or recent events at home, and, abandoning the methods of the chronicle, fashioned their work on classical models. Its introduction had been further prepared to some extent by the growing interest in lives, which, unlike chronicles that recorded events, recognized the part played by men in the control of events. In his Advancement of Learning Bacon regretted that Englishmen gave so little thought to describing the deeds and characters of their great countrymen. 'I do find strange', he said, 'that these times have so little esteemed the virtues of the times, as that the writing of lives should be no more frequent.' He and Hayward both wrote lives with the consciousness that their methods were new in English, though largely borrowed from the classics.[6] Hayward tried to produce a picture of the period he dealt with, and his means for procuring harmoniousness of design was to centre attention on the person of the sovereign. It is a conception of history not as a register of facts but as a representation of the national drama. His Henry IV gives the impression, especially by its speeches, that he looked upon history as resolving itself ultimately into a study of men; and it thus explains how he wished to be free to describe the times wherein he lived. He is on the whole earlier than Bacon, who wrote his Historie of the Reigne of King Henry the Seventh late in life, during the leisure that was forced on him by his removal from all public offices. Written to display the controlling policy in days that were 'rough, and full of mutations, and rare accidents', it is a study of the statecraft and character of a king who had few personal gifts and small capacity for a brilliant part, yet won by his ready wisdom the best of all praises that 'what he minded he compassed'. How he compassed it, is what interested Bacon. 'I have not flattered him,' he says, 'but took him to the life as well as I could, sitting so far off, and having no better light.' Would that Bacon had felt at liberty to choose those who sat near at hand. Who better than the writer of the Essays could have painted a series of miniatures of the courts of Elizabeth and James?

When at last the political upheaval of this century compelled men to leave, whether in histories, or memoirs, or biographies, a record of what they had themselves experienced, the character attained to its full importance and excellence. 'That posterity may not be deceaved by the prosperous wickednesse of these tymes, into an opinyon, that lesse then a generall combination and universall apostacy in the whole Nacion from their religion and allegiaunce could in so shorte a tyme have produced such a totall and prodigious alteration and confusion over the whole kingdome, and so the memory of those few who out of duty and conscience have opposed and resisted that Torrent which hath overwhelmed them, may loose the recompence dew to ther virtue, and havinge undergone the injuryes and reproches of this, may not finde a vindication in a better Age'—in these words Clarendon began his History of the Rebellion. But he could not vindicate the memory of his political friends without describing the men who had overcome them. The history of these confused and difficult years would not be properly understood if the characters of all the chief actors in the tragic drama were not known. For to Clarendon history was the record of the struggle of personalities. When we are in the midst of a crisis, or view it from too near a distance, it is natural for us to think of it as a fight between the opposing leaders, and the historians of their own time are always liable to attribute to the personal force of a statesman what is due to general causes of which he is only the instrument. Of these general causes Clarendon took little account. 'Motives which influenced masses of men', it has been said, 'escape his appreciation, and the History of the Rebellion is accordingly an account of the Puritan Revolution which is unintelligible because the part played by Puritanism is misunderstood or omitted altogether'.[7] But the History of the Rebellion is a Stuart portrait gallery, and the greatest portrait gallery in the English language.

[Footnote 1: Book II, ed. Aldis Wright, pp. 92-5.]

[Footnote 2: 'Historæ nostræ particulam quidam non male: sed qui totum corpus ea fide, eaque dignitate scriptis complexus sit, quam suscepti operis magnitudo postularet, hactenus plane neminem extitisse constat…. Nostri ex fæce plebis historici, dum maiestatem tanti operis ornare studuerunt, putidissimis ineptiis contaminarunt. Ita factum est nescio qua huiusce insulæ infoelicitate, ut maiores tui, (serenissima Regina) viri maximi, qui magnam huius orbis nostri partem imperio complexi, omnes sui temporis reges rerum gestarum gloria facile superarunt, magnorum ingeniorum quasi lumine destituti, iaceant ignoti, & delitescant.']

[Footnote 3: Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century, ed.
Spingarn, vol. i, pp. 82-115.]

[Footnote 4: See also Camden Society Publications, No. 7, 1840.]

[Footnote 5: Roger Ascham in his Scholemaster divides History into
'Diaria', 'Annales', 'Commentaries', and 'Iustam Historiam'.]

[Footnote 6: Bacon told Queen Elizabeth that there was no treason in Hayward's Henry IV, but 'very much felony', because Hayward 'had stolen many of his sentences and conceits out of Cornelius Tacitus' (Apophthegms, 58). Hayward and Bacon had a precursor in the author of The History of King Richard the Thirde, generally attributed to Sir Thomas More, and printed in the collection of his works published in 1557. It was known to the chroniclers, but it did not affect the writing of history. Nor did George Cavendish's Life and Death of Thomas Wolsey, which they likewise used for its facts.]

[Footnote 7: C.H. Firth, 'Burnet as a Historian', in Clarke and
Foxcroft's Life of Gilbert Burnet, 1907, pp. xliv, xlv.]

II. The Literary Models.

The authentic models for historical composition were in Greek and Latin. Much as our literature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries owed to the classics, the debt was nowhere more obvious, and more fully acknowledged, than in our histories. The number of translations is in itself remarkable. Many of them, and notably the greatest of all, North's Plutarch, belong to the early part of Elizabeth's reign, but they became more frequent at the very time when the inferiority of our native works was engaging attention.[1] By the middle of the seventeenth century the great classical historians could all be read in English. It was not through translation, however, that their influence was chiefly exercised.

The classical historians who were best known were Thucydides, Polybius, and Plutarch among the Greeks, and Sallust, Livy, Tacitus, and Suetonius among the Latins; and the former group were not so well known as the latter. It was recognized that in Thucydides, to use Hobbes's words, 'the faculty of writing history is at the highest.'[2] But Thucydides was a difficult author, and neither he nor Polybius exerted the same direct influence as the Latin historians who had imitated them, or learned from them. Most of what can be traced ultimately to the Greeks came to England in the seventeenth century through Latin channels. Every educated man had been trained in Latin, and was as familiar with it for literary purposes as with his native tongue. Further, the main types of history—the history of a long period of years, the history of recent events, and the biographical history—were all so admirably represented in Latin that it was not necessary to go to Greek for a model. In one respect Latin could claim pre-eminence. It might possess no single passage greater than the character study of Pericles or of the Athenians by Thucydides, but it developed the character study into a recognized and clearly defined element in historical narrative. Livy provided a pattern of narrative on a grand scale. For 'exquisite eloquence' he was held not to have his equal.[3] But of all the Latin historians, Tacitus had the greatest influence. 'There is no learning so proper for the direction of the life of man as Historie; there is no historie so well worth the reading as Tacitus. Hee hath written the most matter with best conceit in fewest words of any Historiographer ancient or moderne.'[4] This had been said at the beginning of the first English translation of Tacitus, and it was the view generally held when he came to be better known. He appealed to Englishmen of the seventeenth century like no other historian. They felt the human interest of a narrative based on what the writer had experienced for himself; and they found that its political wisdom could be applied, or even applied itself spontaneously, to their own circumstances. They were widely read in the classics. They knew how Plutarch depicted character in his Lives, and Cicero in his Speeches. They knew all the Latin historians. But when they wrote their own characters their chief master was Tacitus.

* * * * *

Continental historians provided the incentive of rivalry. They too were the pupils of the Ancients, and taught nothing that might not be learned equally well or better from their masters, but they invited the question why England should be behind Italy, France, or the Low Countries in worthy records of its achievements. In their own century, Thuanus, Davila, Bentivoglio, Strada, and Grotius set the standard for modern historical composition. Jacques Auguste de Thou, or Thuanus, wrote in Latin a history of his own time in 138 books. He intended to complete it in 143 books with the assassination of Henri IV in 1610, but his labours were interrupted by his death in 1617. The collected edition of his monumental work was issued in 1620 under the title Iacobi Augusti Thuani Historiarum sui temporis ab anno 1543 usque ad annum 1607 Libri CXXXVIII. Enrico Caterino Davila dealt with the affairs of France from Francis II to Henri IV in his Historia delle guerre civili di Francia, published in 1630. Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio described the troubles in the Low Countries in his Della Guerra di Fiandra, published from 1632 to 1639. Famianus Strada wrote on the same subject in Latin; the first part of his De Bella Belgico, which was meant to cover the period from 1555 to 1590 but was not completed, appeared in 1632, and the second in 1647. Hugo Grotius, the great Dutch scholar, had long been engaged on his Annales et Historiæ de Rebus Belgicis when he died in 1640; it was brought out by his sons in 1657, and contained five books of Annals from 1566 to 1588, and eighteen books of Histories to 1609. These five historians were well known in England, and were studied for their method as well as their matter. Burnet took Thuanus as his model. 'I have made him ', he says, 'my pattern in writing.'[5] The others are discussed by Clarendon in a long passage of his essay 'On an Active and on a Contemplative Life'.[6] He there develops the view, not without reference to his own history, that 'there was never yet a good History written but by men conversant in business, and of the best and most liberal education'; and he illustrates it by comparing the histories of his four contemporaries:

Two of these are by so much preferable before the other Two, that the first may worthily stand by the Sides of the best of the Ancients, whilst both the others must be placed under them; and a Man, without knowing more of them, may by reading their Books find the Difference between their Extractions, their Educations, their Conversations, and their Judgment. The first Two are Henry D'Avila and Cardinal Bentivoglio, both Italians of illustrious Birth; … they often set forth and describe the same Actions with very pleasant and delightful Variety; and commonly the greatest Persons they have occasion to mention were very well known to them both, which makes their Characters always very lively. Both their Histories are excellent, and will instruct the ablest and wisest Men how to write, and terrify them from writing. The other Two were Hugo Grotius and Famianus Strada, who both wrote in Latin upon the same Argument, and of the same Time, of the Wars of Flanders, and of the Low-Countries.

He proceeds to show that Grotius, with all his learning and abilities, and with all his careful revisions, had not been able to give his narrative enough life and spirit; it was deficient in 'a lively Representation of Persons and Actions, which makes the Reader present at all they say or do'. The whole passage, which is too long to be quoted in full, is not more valuable as a criticism than as an indication of his own aims, and of his equipment to realize them. Some years earlier, when he was still thinking 'with much agony' about the method he was to employ in his own history, he had cited the methods of Davila, 'who', he added, 'I think hath written as ours should be written.'[7]

One of Clarendon's tests of a good history, it will be noted, is the 'lively representation of persons'; the better writers are distinguished by making 'their characters always very lively'. In his own hands, and in Burnet's, the character assumes even greater importance than the continental historians had given it. At every opportunity Clarendon leaves off his narrative of events to describe the actors in the great drama, and Burnet introduces his main subject with what is in effect an account of his dramatis personæ. They excel in the range and variety of their characters. But they had studied the continental historians, and the encouragement of example must not be forgotten.

* * * * *

The debt to French literature can easily be overstated. No French influence is discoverable in the origin and rise of the English character, nor in its form or manner; but its later development may have been hastened by French example, especially during the third quarter of the seventeenth century.

France was the home of the mémoire, the personal record in which the individual portrays himself as the centre of his world, and describes events and persons in the light of his own experience. It was established as a characteristic form of French literature in the sixteenth century,[8] and it reached its full vigour and variety in the century of Sully, Rohan, Richelieu, Tallemant des Réaux, Bassompierre, Madame de Motteville, Mlle de Montpensier, La Rochefoucauld, Villars, Cardinal de Retz, Bussy-Rabutin—to name but a few. This was the age of the mémoire, always interesting, often admirably written; and, as might be expected, sometimes exhibiting the art of portraiture at perfection. The English memoir is comparatively late. The word, in the sense of a narrative of personal recollections, was borrowed at the Restoration. The thing itself, under other names, is older. It is a branch of history that flourishes in stirring and difficult times when men believe themselves to have special information about hidden forces that directed the main current of events, and we date it in this country from the period of the Civil Wars. It is significant that when Shaftesbury in his old age composed his short and fragmentary autobiography he began by saying, 'I in this follow the French fashion, and write my own memoirs.' Even Swift, when publishing Temple's Memoirs, said that ''tis to the French (if I mistake not) we chiefly owe that manner of writing; and Sir William Temple is not only the first, but I think the only Englishman (at least of any consequence) who ever attempted it.' Few English memoirs were then in print, whereas French memoirs were to be numbered by dozens. But the French fashion is not to be regarded as an importation into English literature, supplying what had hitherto been lacking. At most it stimulated what already existed.

The mémoire was not the only setting for French portraits at this time. There were the French romances, and notably the Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus and the Clélie of Madeleine de Scudéry. The full significance of the Grand Cyrus has been recovered for modern readers by Victor Cousin, with great skill and charm, in his Société française au XVIIe siècle, where he has shown it to be, 'properly speaking, a history in portraits'. The characters were drawn from familiar figures in French society. 'Ainsi s'explique', says Cousin, 'l'immense succès du Cyrus dans le temps où il parut. C'était une galerie des portraits vrais et frappants, mais un peu embellis, où tout ce qu'il y avait de plus illustre en tout genre—princes, courtisans, militaires, beaux-esprits, et surtout jolies femmes—allaient se chercher et se reconnaissaient avec un plaisir inexprimable.'[9] It was easy to attack these romances. Boileau made fun of them because the classical names borne by the characters were so absurdly at variance with the matter of the stories.[10] But instead of giving, as he said, a French air and spirit to Greece and Rome, Madeleine de Scudéry only gave Greek and Roman names to France as she knew it. The names were a transparent disguise that was not meant to conceal the picture of fashionable society.

The next stage was the portrait by itself, without any setting. At the height of the popularity of the romances, Mlle de Montpensier hit upon a new kind of entertainment for the talented circle of which she was the brilliant centre. It was nothing more nor less than a paper game. They drew each other, or persons whom they knew, or themselves, and under their real names. And they played the game so well that what was written for amusement was worth printing. Divers Portraits, Imprimés en l'année M DC LIX was the simple title of the first collection, which was intended only for the contributors.[11] When it reached its final form in 1663, it contained over a hundred and fifty portraits, and was offered to the public as La Galerie des Peintures, ou Recueil des portraits et éloges en vers et en prose, contenant les portraits du Roy, de la Reyne, des princes, princesses, duchesses, marquises, comtesses, et autres seigneurs et dames les plus illustres de France; la plupart composés par eux-mêmes.[12] The introductory defence of the portrait cites Suetonius and Plutarch, and Horace and Montaigne, but also states frankly the true original of the new fashion—'il faut avouer que nous sommes très redevables au Cyrus et à la Clélie qui nous en ont fourni les modèles.' About the same time Antoine Baudeau, sieur de Somaize, brought out his Grand Dictionnaire des Précieuses,[13] in which there are many portraits in the accepted manner. The portrait was more than a fashion at this time in France; it was the rage. It therefore invited the satirists. Molière has a passing jest at them in his Précieuses Ridicules;[14] Charles Sorel published his Description de I'isle de la Portraiture et de la ville des Portraits; and Boileau wrote his Héros de Roman.

The effects of all this in England are certainly not obvious. It is quite a tenable view that the English characters would have been no less numerous, nor in any way different in quality, had every Englishman been ignorant of French. But the mémoires and romances were well known, and it was after 1660 that the art of the character attained its fullest excellence. The literary career of Clarendon poses the question in a simple form. Most of his characters, and the best as a whole, were written at Montpelier towards the close of his life. Did he find in French literature an incentive to indulge and perfect his natural bent? Yet there can be no conclusive answer to those who find a sufficient explanation in the leisure of these unhappy years, and in the solace that comes to chiefs out of war and statesmen out of place in ruminating on their experiences and impressions.

* * * * *

Something may have been learned also from the other kind of character that is found at its best in modern literature in the seventeenth century, the character derived from Theophrastus, and depicting not the individual but the type. In France, the one kind led on to the other. The romances of Scudéry prepared the way for the Caractères ou les Moeurs de ce Siècle of La Bruyère. When the fashionable portrait of particular persons fell out of favour, there arose in its place the description of dispositions and temperaments; and in the hands of La Bruyère 'the manners of the century' were the habits and varieties of human nature. In England the two kinds existed side by side. They correspond to the two methods of the drama. Begin with the individual, but draw him in such a way that we recognize in him our own or others' qualities; or begin with the qualities shared by classes of people, embody these in a person who stands for the greatest common measure of the class, and finally—and only then—let him take on his distinctive traits: these are methods which are not confined to the drama, and at all stages of our literature have lived in helpful rivalry. Long before France had her La Bruyère, England had her Hall, Overbury, and Earle.[15] The Theophrastan character was at its best in this country at the beginning of the seventeenth century when the historical character was still in its early stages; and it was declining when the historical character had attained its full excellence. They cannot always be clearly distinguished, and they are sometimes purposely blended, as in Butler's character of 'A Duke of Bucks,' where the satire on a man of pronounced individuality is heightened by describing his eccentricities as if they belonged to a recognized class.

The great lesson that the Theophrastan type of character could teach was the value of balance and unity. A haphazard statement of features and habits and peculiarities might suffice for a sketch, but perspective and harmony were necessary to a finished portrait. It taught that the surest method in depicting character was first to conceive the character as a whole, and then to introduce detail incidentally and in proper subordination. But the same lesson could have been learned elsewhere. It might have been learned from the English drama.

[Footnote 1: North's Plutarch went into five editions between 1579 and 1631; Thucydides was translated by Hobbes in 1629, and Polybius by Edward Grimeston in 1633; Xenophon's Anabasis was translated by John Bingham in 1623, and the Cyropædia by Philemon Holland in 1632; Arthur Golding's version of Cæsar's Gallic War was several times reprinted between 1565 and 1609; Philemon Holland, the translator-general of the age, as Fuller called him, brought out his Livy in 1600, and his Suetonius in 1606; Sallust was translated by Thomas Heywood in 1608, and by William Crosse in 1629; Velleius Paterculus was 'rendred English by Sir Robert Le Grys' in 1632; and by 1640 there had been six editions of Sir Henry Savile's Histories and Agricola of Tacitus, first published in 1591, and five editions of Richard Grenewey's Annals and Germany, first published in 1598. See H.R. Palmer's English Editions and Translations of Greek and Latin Classics printed before 1641, Bibliographical Society, 1911.]

[Footnote 2: 'Thucydides … in whom (I beleeve with many others) the Faculty of writing History is at the Highest.' Thucydides, 1629, 'To the Readers.']

[Footnote 3: Philemon Holland's Livy, 1600, 'Dedication to
Elizabeth.']

[Footnote 4: Sir Henry Savile's Tacitus, 1591, 'A.B. To the Reader.']

[Footnote 5: Supplement to Burnet's History, ed. H.C. Foxcroft, p. 451.]

[Footnote 6: In 'Reflections upon Several Christian Duties, Divine and Moral, by Way of Essays', printed in A Collection of several Tracts of Edward Earl of Clarendon, 1727, pp. 80-1.]

[Footnote 7: Letter to the Earl of Bristol, February 1, 1646 (State Papers, vol. ii, p. 334). Davila was very well known in England—better, it would appear, than the other three—and was credited with being more than a mere literary model. Clarendon says that from his account of the civil wars of France 'no question our Gamesters learned much of their play'. Sir Philip Warwick, after remarking that Hampden was well read in history, tells us that the first time he ever saw Davila's book it was lent to him 'under the title of Mr. Hambden's Vade Mecum' (Mémoires, 1701, p. 240). A translation was published by the authority of the Parliament in 1647-8. Translations of Strada, Bentivoglio, and Grotius followed in 1650, 1654, and 1665. Only parts of Thuanus were translated. The size of his history was against a complete version.]

[Footnote 8: See the Mémoires of Monluc, Brantôme, La Noue, &c. The fifty-two volumes in Petitot's incomplete series entitled Collection des Mémoires relatifs à l'histoire de France jusqu'au commencement du dix-septième siècle show at a glance the remarkable richness of French literature in the mémoire at an early date.]

[Footnote 9: La Socíété française au XVIIe siècle, 1858 vol. i, p. 7. The 'key' drawn up in 1657 is printed as an appendix.]

[Footnote 10: Art poétique, iii. 115-18.]

[Footnote 11: Cousin, Madame de Sablé, 1854, pp. 42-8.]

[Footnote 12: Edited by Edouard de Barthélemy in 1860 under the title La Galerie des Portraits de Mademoiselle de Montpensier.]

[Footnote 13: Edited by Ch. Livet, 1856 (Bibliothèque Elzevirienne. 2 vols.).]

[Footnote 14: Sc. x, where Madelon says 'Je vous avoue que je suis furieusement pour les portraits: je ne vois rien de si galant que cela', and Mascarille replies, 'Les portraits sont difficiles, et demandent un esprit profond: vous en verrez de ma manière qui ne vous déplairont pas.']

[Footnote 15: Joseph Hall's Characters of Vertues and Vices appeared in 1608 Overbury's Characters 1614-22. For Earle, see pp. 168-70.]

III. Clarendon.

Clarendon's History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England is made up of two works composed with different purposes and at a distance of twenty years. The first, which may be called the 'Manuscript History', belongs to 1646-8; the second, the 'Manuscript Life', to 1668-70. They were combined to form the History as we now read it in 1671, when new sections were added to give continuity and to complete the narrative. On Clarendon's death in 1674 the manuscripts passed to his two sons, Henry Hyde, second Earl of Clarendon, and Laurence Hyde, Earl of Rochester; and under the supervision of the latter a transcript of the History was made for the printers. The work was published at Oxford in three handsome folio volumes in 1702, 1703, and 1704, and became the property of the University. The portions of the 'Manuscript Life' which Clarendon had not incorporated in the History as being too personal, were published by the University in 1759, under the title The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon, and were likewise printed from a transcript.[1]

The original manuscripts, now also in the possession of the University of which Clarendon's family were such generous benefactors, enable us to fix the dates of composition. We know whether a part belongs originally to the 'Manuscript History' or the 'Manuscript Life', or whether it was pieced in later. More than this, Clarendon every now and again inserts the month and the day on which he began or ended a section. We can thus trace the stages by which his great work was built up, and learn how his art developed. We can also judge how closely the printed texts represent what Clarendon had written. The old controversy on the authenticity of the first edition has long been settled.[2] The original editors did their work faithfully according to the editorial standards of their day; and they were well within the latitude allowed them by the terms of Clarendon's instructions when they occasionally omitted a passage, or when they exercised their somewhat prim and cautious taste in altering and polishing phrases that Clarendon had dashed down as quickly as his pen could move.[3] Later editors have restored the omitted passages and scrupulously reproduced Clarendon's own words. But no edition has yet reproduced his spelling. In the characters printed in this volume the attempt is made, for the first time it is believed, to represent the original manuscripts accurately to the letter.[4]

On the defeat of the last Royalist army in Cornwall in February 1646 it was necessary to provide for the safety of Prince Charles, and Clarendon, in these days Sir Edward Hyde, accompanied him when on the night of March 2 he set sail for Scilly. They arrived in Scilly on March 4, and there they remained till April 16, when the danger of capture by the Parliamentary fleet compelled them to make good their escape to Jersey. It is a remarkable testimony to the vigour of Clarendon's mind that even in the midst of this crisis he should have been able to begin his History. He began it in Scilly on March 18, 1646—the date is at the head of his manuscript; and once he was settled in Jersey he immediately resumed it. But in writing his History he did not, in these days, think of himself only as an historian. He was a trusted adviser of the defeated party, and he planned his faithful narrative of what he knew so well not solely to vindicate the character and conduct of the King, but also with the immediate purpose of showing how the disasters had been brought out, and, by implication, how further disaster might be avoided. The proof of this is to be found not in the History itself, where he seems to have his eye only on 'posterity' and 'a better age', but in his correspondence. In a letter written to Sir Edward Nicholas, the King's secretary, on November 15, 1646, Clarendon spoke of his History at some length:

As soon as I found myself alone, I thought the best way to provide myself for new business against the time I should be called to it (for, Mr. Secretary, you and I must once again to business) was to look over the faults of the old; and so I resolved (which you know I threatned you with long ago) to write the history of these evil times, and of this most lovely Rebellion. Well; without any other help than a few diurnals I have wrote of longer paper than this, and in the same fine small hand, above threescore sheets of paper…. I write with all fidelity and freedom of all I know, of persons and things, and the oversights and omissions on both sides, in order to what they desired; so that you will believe it will make mad work among friends and foes, if it were published; but out of it enough may be chosen to make a perfect story, and the original kept for their perusal, who may be the wiser for knowing the most secret truths; and you know it will be an easier matter to blot out two sheets, than to write half an one. If I live to finish it (as on my conscience I shall, for I write apace), I intend to seal it up, and have it always with me. If I die, I appoint it to be delivered to you, to whose care (with a couple of good fellows more) I shall leave it; that either of you dying, you may so preserve it, that in due time somewhat by your care may be published, and the original be delivered to the King, who will not find himself flattered in it, nor irreverently handled: though, the truth will better suit a dead than a living man. Three hours a day I assign to this writing task; the rest to other study and books; so I doubt not after seven years time in this retirement, you will find me a pretty fellow.[5]

From this, as from other passages in his letters, Clarendon's first intentions are clear. The History was to be a repository of authentic information on 'this most lovely Rebellion', constructed with the specifically didactic purpose of showing the King and his advisers what lessons were to be learned from their errors; they would be 'the wiser for knowing the most secret truths'. At first he looked on his work as containing the materials of a 'perfect story', but as he proceeded his ambitions grew. He had begun to introduce characters; and when in the spring of 1647 he was about to write his first character of Lord Falkland, he had come to the view that 'the preservation of the fame and merit of persons, and deriving the same to posterity, is no less the business of history than the truth of things'.[6] He gave much thought to the character of Falkland, 'whom the next age shall be taught', he was determined, 'to value more than the present did.'[7] Concurrently with the introduction of characters he paid more attention to the literary, as distinct from the didactic, merits of his work. We find him comparing himself with other historians, and considering what Livy and Tacitus would have done in like circumstances. By the spring of 1648 he had brought down his narrative to the opening of the campaign of 1644. Earlier in the year he had been commanded by the King to be ready to rejoin Prince Charles, and shortly afterwards he received definite instructions from the Queen to attend on her and the Prince at Paris. He left Jersey in June, and with his re-entry into active politics his History was abruptly ended. The seven years of retirement which he had anticipated were cut down by the outbreak of the Second Civil War to two; and within a year the King for whose benefit he had begun this History was led to the scaffold. Not for twenty years was Clarendon again to have the leisure to be an historian. When in 1668 he once more took up his pen, it was not a continuation of the first work, but an entirely new work, that came in steady flow from the abundance of his knowledge.

Clarendon returned to England as Lord Chancellor in 1660, and for seven years enjoyed the power which he had earned by ceaseless devotion to his two royal masters. The ill success of the war with the Dutch, jealousy of his place and influence, the spiteful opposition of the King's chief mistress, and the King's own resentment at an attitude that showed too little deference and imprudently suggested the old relations of tutor and pupil, all combined to bring about his fall. He fled from England on November 30, 1667, and was never to set foot in England again. Broken in health and spirit, he sought in vain for many months a resting-place in France, and not till July 1668 did he find a new home at Montpelier. Here his health improved, and here he remained till June 1671. These were busy years of writing, and by far the greater portion of his published work, if his letters and state papers be excluded, belongs to this time. First of all he answered the charge of high treason brought against him by the House of Commons in A Discourse, by Way of Vindication of my self, begun on July 24, 1668; he wrote most of his Reflections upon Several Christian Duties, Divine and Moral, a collection of twenty-five essays, some of considerable length, on subjects largely suggested by his own circumstances; and he completed between December 1668 and February 1671 his Contemplations and Reflections upon the Psalms of David, an elaborate exposition extending to well over four hundred folio pages of print, which he had begun at Jersey in 1647. But his great work at this time was his Life, begun on July 23, 1668, and brought down to 1660 by August 1, 1670. It is by far the most elaborate autobiography that had yet been attempted in English. The manuscript consists of over six hundred pages, and each page contains on an average about a thousand words. He wrote with perfect freedom, for this work, unlike the earlier History, was not intended for the eyes of the King, and the didactic days were over. He wrote too with remarkable ease. The very appearance of the manuscript, where page follows page with hardly an erasure, and the 'fine hand' becomes finer and finer, conveys even a sense of relief and pleasure. His pen seems to move of itself and the long and elaborate sentences to evolve of their own free will. The story of his life became a loose framework into which he could fit all that he wished to tell of his own times; and the more he told, his vindication would be the more complete. 'Even unawares', he admitted, 'many things are inserted not so immediately applicable to his own person, which possibly may hereafter, in some other method, be communicated to the world.'[8] He welcomed the opportunity to tell all that he knew. There was no reason for reticence. He wrote of men as of things frankly as he knew them. More than a history of the Rebellion, his Life is also a picture of the society in which he had moved. It is the work which contains most of his characters.[9]

His early History had been left behind in England on his sudden flight. For about four years he was debarred from all intercourse with his family, but in 1671 the royal displeasure so far relaxed that his second son, Laurence, was granted a pass to visit him, and he brought the manuscript that had been left untouched for twenty years. They met in June at Moulins, which was to be Clarendon's home till April 1674. Once the old and the new work were both in his hands, he cast his great History of the Rebellion in its final form, and thus 'finished the work which his heart was most set upon'. In June 1672 he turned to the 'Continuation of his Life', which deals with his Chancellorship and his fall, and was not intended 'ever for a public view, or for more than the information of his children'. As its conclusion shows, it was his last work to be completed, but while engaged on it he found time to write much else, including his reply to Hobbes's Leviathan. 'In all this retirement', he could well say, in a passage which reads like his obituary, 'he was very seldom vacant, and then only when he was under some sharp visitation of the gout, from reading excellent books, or writing some animadversions and exercitations of his own, as appears by the papers and notes which he left.' The activity of these years of banishment is remarkable in a man who had turned sixty and had passed through about thirty years of continuous storm. His intellectual vitality was unimpaired. The old English jollity that Evelyn had remarked in him in happier if more difficult days had gone, but the even temper from which it had sprung still remained. He was at his best as a writer then; writing was never an effort to him, but in his exile it was an exercise and recreation. He could have said with Dryden that 'what judgment I had increases rather than diminishes; and thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast upon me, that my only difficulty is to choose or to reject'.

He was still in hopes that he would be allowed to return to England, to die in his own country and among his children. 'Seven years', he said, 'was a time prescribed and limited by God himself for the expiration of some of his greatest judgements.'[10] In the seventh year of his banishment he left Moulins for Rouen, so as to be nearer home. His hopes were vain. He died at Rouen on December 9, 1674.[11] His body was brought to England for burial in Westminster.

* * * * *

Clarendon had been interested in the study of character all his life. His earliest work was 'The Difference and Disparity between the Estates and Conditions of George Duke of Buckingham and Robert Earl of Essex'. Sir Henry Wotton had written observations on these statesmen 'by way of parallel', and Clarendon pointed out as a sequel wherein they differed. It is a somewhat laboured composition in comparison with his later work, a young man's careful essay that lacks the confidence that comes with experience, but it shows at an early stage the talents which knowledge and practice were to develop into mastery. The school in which he learned most was the circle of his friends. Few men can have owed more to their friends than he did, or have been more generous in acknowledging the debt. He tells us he was often heard to say that 'next the immediate blessing and providence of God Almighty, which had preserved him throughout the whole course of his life (less strict than it ought to have been) from many dangers and disadvantages, in which many other young men were lost, he owed all the little he knew, and the little good that was in him, to the friendships and conversation he had still been used to, of the most excellent men in their several kinds that lived in that age; by whose learning, and information, and instruction, he formed his studies, and mended his understanding, and by whose gentleness and sweetness of behaviour, and justice, and virtue, and example, he formed his manners, subdued that pride and suppressed that heat and passion he was naturally inclined to be transported with.' He used often to say, he continues, that 'he never was so proud, or thought himself so good a man, as when he was the worst man in the company'. He cultivated his friendships, it is true, with an eye to his advancement; but it is equally true that he had a nature which invited friendships. He enjoyed to the full the pleasure of living and seeing others live, and a great part of his pleasure consisted in observing how men differed in their habits and foibles. He tells how Ben Jonson did not understand why young Mr. Hyde should neglect the delights of his company at the call of business; how Selden, with all his stupendous learning, was never more studious of anything than his ease; how Earle gave a wrong impression by the negligence of his dress and mien, whereas no man was more wary and cultivated in his behaviour and discourse; how Chillingworth argued for the pleasure of arguing and thereby irritated his friends and at last grew confident of nothing; how Hales, great in scholarship but diminutive in stature, liked to be by himself but had a very open and pleasant conversation in congenial company; how Waller nursed his reputation for ready wit by seeming to speak on the sudden what he had thoroughly considered. In all his accounts of the friends of his youth Clarendon is in the background, but we picture him moving among them at ease, conscious of his inferiority in learning and brilliance and the gentler virtues, yet trusting to his own judgement, and convinced that every man worth knowing has a pronounced individuality. In these happy and irresponsible days, when he numbered poets among his friends, he himself wrote poetry. Little of it is preserved. He contributed introductory verses to Davenant's Albovine, and composed verses on the death of Donne. His poetry was well enough known for Dryden to allude to it during his Lord Chancellorship, in the address presented to him at the height of his power in 1662:

The Muses, who your early Courtship boast,
Though now your Flames are with their Beauty lost,
Yet watch their Time, that if you have forgot
They were your Mistresses, the world may not.

But first the law claimed him, and then politics, and then came the Civil War. As Privy Councillor and Chancellor of the Exchequer he was in the thick of the conflict. The men whom he had now to study were men of affairs. He had the clear and unimpassioned vision which often goes with a warm temperament, and could scrutinize his friends without endangering his affection for them. However deeply his feelings might be engaged, he had taken a pleasure in trying to see them exactly as they were. When he came to judge his political enemies he continued the same attitude of detachment, and studiously cultivated it. 'I am careful', he said in a private letter,[12] 'to do justice to every man who hath fallen in the quarrel, on which side soever.' 'I know myself', he said in the History,[13] 'to be very free from any of those passions which naturally transport men with prejudice towards the persons whom they are obliged to mention, and whose actions they are at liberty to censure.' It was beyond human nature for a man who had lived through what he did to be completely unprejudiced. He did not always scrupulously weigh what he knew would be to the discredit of the Parliamentary leaders, nor did he ignore mere Royalist rumour, as in the character of Pym. But his characters of them are often more favourable than might have been expected. He may show his personal dislike, or even his sense of their crime, but behind this he permits us to see the qualities which contributed to their success. There can be no reasonable objection to his characters of Hampden and Cromwell. Political partisans find them disappointing, and they are certainly not the final verdict. The worst that can be said of them is that they are drawn from a wrong point of view; but from that point of view their honesty is unquestionable. He does not distinguish men by their party. The folly of his own side is exhibited as relentlessly as the knavery of his opponents. Of no one did he write a more unfavourable character than the Earl of Arundel. He explains the failure of Laud, and he does not conceal the weakness of Charles.

There is a broad distinction between his earlier and later characters. While he was still in the midst of the conflict and hoped to influence it by stating what he knew, he depicted the individual in relation to events. When the conflict was over and he was at leisure to draw on his recollections, he made the individual to a greater degree the representative of the type. But the distinction is not clearly marked, and Clarendon may not have suspected it. His habitual detachment was assisted by his exile. The displeasure of his ungrateful master, from whom he had never been separated during seventeen difficult years, had proved the vanity of the little things of life. He looked at men from a distance that obscures what is insignificant, and shows only the essential.

All his characters are clearly defined. We never confound them; we never have any doubt of how he understood them. He sees men as a whole before he begins to describe them, and then his only difficulty, as his manuscripts show, is to make his pen move fast enough. He does not build up his characters. He does not, as many others do, start with the external features in the hope of arriving at the central facts. He starts from the centre and works outwards. This is the reason of the convincingness of his characters, their dramatic truth. The dramatic sense in him is stronger than the pictorial.

He troubles little about personal appearance, or any of the traits which would enable us to visualize his men. We understand them rather than see them. Hampden, he tells us, was 'of a most civil and affable deportment' and had 'a flowing courtesy to all men', a 'rare temper and modesty'; it is Sir Philip Warwick who speaks of the 'scurf commonly on his face'.[14] He says that the younger Vane 'had an unusual aspect', and leaves us wondering what was unusual. His Falkland is an exception, but he adopted a different scale when describing his greatest friend and only hero. Each of his two accounts of Falkland is in fact a brief biography rather than a character; the earliest of them, written shortly after Falkland's death, he once thought of making into a volume by itself. In his characters proper he confines himself more strictly than any other writer to matters of character. They are characters rather than portraits.

But portraiture was one of his passions, though he left its practice to the painters. He adorned his houses with the likenesses of his friends. It was fitting that our greatest character writer should have formed one of the great collections of pictures of 'wits, poets, philosophers, famous and learned Englishmen'.[15] To describe them on paper, and to contrive that they should look down on him from his walls, were different ways of indulging the same keen and tireless interest in the life amid which he moved.

[Footnote 1: For a detailed examination of the composition and value
of Clarendon's History see the three articles by Professor C.H.
Firth in The English Historical Review for 1904. No student of
Clarendon can ever afford to neglect them.]

[Footnote 2: See No. 33, introductory note.]

[Footnote 3: See No. 6, introductory note, and No. 36, p. 140, II. 17-22 note.]

[Footnote 4: Contractions have been expanded. The punctuation of the original is slight, and it has been found desirable occasionally to insert commas, where seventeenth century printers would have inserted them; but the run of the sentences has not been disturbed. In modernized versions Clarendon's long sentences are sometimes needlessly subdivided.]

[Footnote 5: State Papers, 1773, vol. ii, pp. 288-9.]

[Footnote 6: Letter of March 16, 1647; infra p. 275.]

[Footnote 7: Letter of January 8, 1647; T.H. Lister, Life of
Clarendon, 1837, vol. iii, p. 43.]

[Footnote 8: Ed. 1857, part 1, § 85; omitted in the edition of 1759.]

[Footnote 9: Of the thirty-seven characters by Clarendon in this volume, twenty-seven are from the 'Manuscript Life'.]

[Footnote 10: State Papers, 1786, vol. iii, supp., p. xlv.]

[Footnote 11: Clarendon's lifetime coincided almost exactly with Milton's. He was two months younger than Milton, and died one month later.]

[Footnote 12: December 14, 1647; infra p. 275.]

[Footnote 13: Book ix, ad init.; ed. Macray, vol. iv, p. 3.]

[Footnote 14: See note, p. 129, ll. 22 ff.]

[Footnote 15: Evelyn's Diary, December 20, 1668. See the account of 'The Clarendon Gallery' in Lady Theresa Lewis's Lives of the friends of Clarendon, 1852, vol. i, pp. 15* ff., and vol. iii, pp. 241 ff.]

IV. Other Character Writers.

When Clarendon's History was at last made public, no part of it was more frequently discussed, or more highly praised, than its characters—'so just', said Evelyn, 'and tempered without the least ingredient of passion or tincture of revenge, yet with such natural and lively touches as show his lordship well knew not only the persons' outsides, but their very interiors.'[1] About the same time, and probably as a consequence of the publication of Clarendon's work, Bishop Burnet proceeded to put into its final form the History on which he had been engaged since 1683. He gave special attention to his characters, some of which he entirely rewrote. They at once invited comparison with Clarendon's, and first impressions, then as now, were not in their favour. 'His characters are miserably wrought,' said Swift.[2]

Burnet was in close touch with the political movements of his time. 'For above thirty years,' he wrote, 'I have lived in such intimacy with all who have had the chief conduct of affairs, and have been so much trusted, and on so many important occasions employed by them, that I have been able to penetrate far into the true secrets of counsels and designs.'[3] He had a retentive memory, and a full share of worldly wisdom. But he was not an artist like Clarendon. His style has none of the sustained dignity, the leisurely evolution, which in Clarendon is so strangely at variance with the speed of composition. All is stated, nothing suggested. There is a succession of short sentences, each perfectly clear in itself, often unlinked to what precedes or follows, and always without any of the finer shades of meaning. It is rough work, and on the face of it hasty, and so it would have remained, no matter how often it had been revised. Again, Burnet does not always have perfect control of the impression he wishes to convey. It is as if he did not have the whole character in his mind before he began to write, but collected his thoughts from the stores of his memory in the process of composition. We are often uncertain how to understand a character before we have read it all. In some cases he seems to be content to present us with the material from which, once we have pieced it together ourselves, we can form our own judgement. But what he tells us has been vividly felt by him, and is vividly presented. The great merit of his characters lies in their realism. Of the Earl of Lauderdale he says that 'He made a very ill appearance: He was very big: His hair red, hanging oddly about him: His tongue was too big for his mouth, which made him bedew all that he talked to.' There is no hint of this in Clarendon's character of Lauderdale, nor could Clarendon have spoken with the same directness. Burnet has no circumlocutions, just as in private life he was not known to indulge in them. When he reports what was said in conversation he gives the very words. Lauderdale 'was a man, as the Duke of Buckingham called him to me, of a blundering understanding'. Halifax 'hoped that God would not lay it to his charge, if he could not digest iron, as an ostrich did, nor take into his belief things that must burst him'. It is the directness and actuality of such things as these, and above all his habit of describing men in relation to himself, that make his best characters so vivid. Burnet is seldom in the background. He allows us to suspect that it is not the man himself whom he presents to us but the man as he knew him, though he would not have admitted the distinction. He could not imitate the detachment of Clarendon, who is always deliberately impersonal, and writes as if he were pronouncing the impartial judgement of history from which there can be no appeal. Burnet views his men from a much nearer distance. His perspective may sometimes be at fault, but he gets the detail.

With all his shrewd observation, it must be admitted that his range of comprehension was limited. There were no types of character too subtle for Clarendon to understand. There were some which eluded Burnet's grasp. He is at his best in describing such a man as Lauderdale, where the roughness of the style is in perfect keeping with the subject. His character of Shaftesbury, whom he says he knew for many years in a very particular manner, is a valuable study and a remarkable companion piece to Dryden's Achitophel. But he did not understand Halifax. The surface levity misled him. He tells us unsuspectingly as much about himself as about Halifax. He tells us that the Trimmer could never be quite serious in the good bishop's company.

We learn more about Halifax from his own elaborate study of Charles II. It is a prolonged analysis by a man of clear vision, and perfect balance of judgement, and no prepossessions; who was, moreover, master of the easy pellucid style that tends to maxim and epigram. A more impartial and convincing estimate of any king need never be expected. In method and purpose, it stands by itself. It is indeed not so much a character in the accepted sense of the word as a scientific investigation of a personality. Others try to make us see and understand their men; Halifax anatomizes. Yet he occasionally permits us to discover his own feelings. Nothing disappointed him more in the merry monarch than the company he kept, and his comprehensive taste in wit. 'Of all men that ever liked those who had wit, he could the best endure those who had none': there is more here than is on the surface; we see at once Charles, and his court, and Halifax himself.

As a class, the statesmen and politicians more than hold their own with the other character writers of the seventeenth century. Shaftesbury's picture of Henry Hastings, a country gentleman of the old school, who carried well into the Stuart period the habits and life of Tudor times, shows a side of his varied accomplishments which has not won the general recognition that it deserves. It is a sketch exactly in the style of the eighteenth century essayists. It makes us regret that the fragmentary autobiography in which it is found did not come down to a time when it could have included sketches of his famous contemporaries. The literary skill of his grandson, the author of the Characteristicks, was evidently inherited.

Sir Philip Warwick has the misfortune to be overshadowed by Clarendon. As secretary to Charles I in the year before his execution, and as a minor government official under Charles II, he was well acquainted with men and affairs. Burnet describes him as 'an honest but a weak man', and adds that 'though he pretended to wit and politics, he was not cut out for that, and least of all for writing of history'. He could at least write characters. They do not bear the impress of a strong personality, but they have the fairmindedness and the calm outlook that spring from a gentle and unassertive nature. His Cromwell and his Laud are alike greatly to his credit; and the private view that he gives us of Charles has unmistakable value. His Mémoires remained in manuscript till 1701, the year before the publication of Clarendon's History. It was the first book to appear with notable characters of the men of the Civil Wars and the Protectorate.

The Histories and Memoirs of the seventeenth century contain by far the greatest number of its characters; but they are to be found also in scattered Lives, and in the collections of material that mark the rise of modern English biography. There are disappointingly few by Fuller. In his Worthies of England he is mainly concerned with the facts of a man's life, and though, in his own word, he fleshes the bare skeleton of time, place, and person with pleasant passages, and interlaces many delightful stories by way of illustrations, and everywhere holds us by the quaint turns of his fertile fancy, yet the scheme of the book did not involve the depicting of character, nor did it allow him to deal with many contemporaries whom he had known. In the present volume it has therefore been found best to represent him by the studies of Bacon and Laud in his Church-History. Bacon he must have described largely from hearsay, but what he says of Laud is an admirable specimen of his manner, and leaves us wishing that he had devoted himself in larger measure to the worthies of his own time.

There are no characters in Aubrey's Brief Lives, which are only a series of rough jottings by a prince of gossips, who collected what he could and put it all on paper 'tumultuarily'. But the extracts from what he says of Hobbes and Milton may be considered as notes for a character, details that awaited a greater artist than Aubrey was to work them into a picture; and if Hobbes and Milton are to be given a place, as somehow or other they must be, in a collection of the kind that this volume offers, there is no option but to be content with such notes, for there is no set character of either of them. The value of the facts which Aubrey has preserved is shown by the use made of them by all subsequent biographers, and notably by Anthony à Wood, whose Athenæ Oxonienses is our first great biographical dictionary.

Lives of English men of letters begin in the seventeenth century, and from Rawley's Life of Bacon, Sprat's Life of Cowley, and the anonymous Life of Fuller it is possible to extract passages which are in effect characters. But Walton's Lives, the best of all seventeenth century Lives, refuse to yield any section, for each of them is all of a piece; they are from beginning to end continuous character studies, revealing qualities of head and heart in their affectionate record of fact and circumstance. There is therefore nothing in this volume from his Life of Donne or his Life of Herbert. As a rule the characters that can be extracted from Lives are much inferior to the clearly defined characters that are inserted in Histories. The focus is not the same. When an author after dealing with a man's career sums up his mental and moral qualities in a section by itself, he does not trust to it alone to convey the total impression. He is too liable also to panegyric, like Rawley, who could see no fault in his master Bacon, or Sprat who, in Johnson's words, produced a funeral oration on Cowley. There are no characters of scholars or poets so good as Clarendon's Hales, or Earle, or Chillingworth, or Waller; and for this reason, that Clarendon envisages them, not as scholars or poets but as men, and gains a definite and complete effect within small compass.

Roger North made his life of his brother Lord Keeper Guilford an account of the bench and bar under Charles II and James II. Of its many sketches of lawyers whom he or his brother had known, none is so perfect in every way as the character of Chief Justice Saunders, a remarkable man in real life who still lives in North's pages with all his eccentricities. North writes at length about his brother, yet nowhere do we see and understand him so clearly as we see and understand Saunders. The truth is that a life and a character have different objects and methods and do not readily combine. It is only a small admixture of biography that a character will endure. And with the steady development of biography the character declined.

A character must be short; and it must be entire, the complete expression of a clear judgement. The perfect model is provided by Clarendon. He has more than formal excellence. 'Motives', said Johnson, 'are generally unknown. We cannot trust to the characters we find in history, unless when they are drawn by those who knew the persons; as those, for instance, by Sallust and by Lord Clarendon.'[4]

[Footnote 1: Letter to Pepys, January 20, 1703; Pepys's Diary, ed.
Braybrooke, 1825, vol. ii, p. 290.]

[Footnote 2: 'Short Remarks on Bishop Burnet's History,' ad init.]

[Footnote 3: History, preface]

[Footnote 4: Boswell, 1769, ed. G.B. Hill, vol. ii, p. 79.]

* * * * *

Sooner or later every one who deals with the history or literature of the seventeenth century has to own his obligations to Professor C.H. Firth. My debt is not confined to his writings, references to which will be found continually in the notes. At every stage of the preparation of this volume I have had the advantage of his most generous interest. And with his name it is a pleasure to associate in one compendious acknowledgement the names of Dr. Henry Bradley and Mr. Percy Simpson.

Oxford,
September 16, 1918.
D.N.S.

1.

JAMES I.

James VI of Scotland 1567. James I 1603.

Born 1566. Died 1625.

By ARTHUR WILSON.

He was born a King, and from that height, the less fitted to look into inferiour things; yet few escaped his knowledge, being, as it were, a Magazine to retain them. His Stature was of the Middle Size; rather tall than low, well set and somewhat plump, of a ruddy Complexion, his hair of a light brown, in his full perfection, had at last a Tincture of white. If he had any predominant Humor to Ballance his Choler, it was Sanguine, which made his Mirth Witty. His Beard was scattering on the Chin, and very thin; and though his Clothes were seldome fashioned to the Vulgar garb, yet in the whole man he was not uncomely. He was a King in understanding, and was content to have his Subjects ignorant in many things; As in curing the Kings Evil, which he knew a Device, to ingrandize the Vertue of Kings, when Miracles were in fashion; but he let the World believe it, though he smiled at it, in his own Reason, finding the strength of the Imagination a more powerfull Agent in the Cure, than the Plaisters his Chirurgions prescribed for the Sore. It was a hard Question, whether his Wisedome, and knowledge, exceeded his Choler, and Fear; certainly the last couple drew him with most violence, because they were not acquisititious, but Naturall; If he had not had that Allay, his high touring, and mastering Reason, had been of a Rare, and sublimed Excellency; but these earthy Dregs kept it down, making his Passions extend him as farre as Prophaness, that I may not say Blasphemy, and Policy superintendent of all his Actions; which will not last long (like the Violence of that Humor) for it often makes those that know well, to do ill, and not be able to prevent it.

He had pure Notions in Conception, but could bring few of them into Action, though they tended to his own Preservation: For this was one of his Apothegms, which he made no timely use of. Let that Prince, that would beware of Conspiracies, be rather jealous of such, whom his extraordinary favours have advanced, than of those whom his displeasure hath discontented. These want means to execute their Pleasures, but they have means at pleasure to execute their desires. Ambition to rule is more vehement than Malice to revenge. Though the last part of this Aphorism, he was thought to practice too soon, where there was no cause for prevention, and neglect too late, when time was full ripe to produce the effect.

Some Parallel'd him to Tiberius for Dissimulation, yet Peace was maintained by him as in the Time of Augustus; And Peace begot Plenty, and Plenty begot Ease and Wantonness, and Ease and Wantonnesse begot Poetry, and Poetry swelled to that bulk in his time, that it begot strange Monstrous Satyrs, against the King own person, that haunted both Court, and Country, which exprest would be too bitter to leave a sweet perfume behind him. And though bitter ingredients are good to imbalm and preserve dead bodies, yet these were such as might indanger to kill a living name, if Malice be not brought in with an Antidote. And the tongues of those times, more fluent than my Pen, made every little miscarriage (being not able to discover their true operations, like smal seeds hid in earthy Darknesse) grow up, and spread into such exuberant branches, that evil Report did often pearch upon them. So dangerous it is for Princes, by a Remisse Comportment, to give growth to the least Error; for it often proves as fruitful as Malice can make it.

2.

By SIR ANTHONY WELDON.

This Kings Character is much easier to take then his Picture, for he could never be brought to sit for the taking of that, which is the reason of so few good peeces of him; but his Character was obvious to every eye.

He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through his cloathes then in his body, yet fat enough, his cloathes ever being made large and easie, the Doublets quilted for steletto proofe, his Breeches in great pleites and full stuffed: Hee was naturally of a timorous disposition, which was the reason of his quilted Doublets: His eyes large, ever rowling after any stranger came in his presence, insomuch, as many for shame have left the roome, as being out of countenance: His Beard was very thin: His Tongue too large for his mouth, which ever made him speak full in the mouth, and made him drink very uncomely, as if eating his drink, which came out into the cup of each side of his mouth: His skin was as soft as Taffeta Sarsnet, which felt so, because hee never washt his hands, onely rubb'd his fingers ends slightly with the wet end of a Naptkin: His Legs were very weake, having had (as was thought) some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age, that weaknesse made him ever leaning on other mens shoulders, his walke was ever circular … He was very temperate in his exercises, and in his dyet, and not intemperate in his drinking; however in his old age, and Buckinghams joviall Suppers, when he had any turne to doe with him, made him sometimes overtaken, which he would the very next day remember, and repent with teares; it is true, he dranke very often, which was rather out of a custom then any delight, and his drinks were of that kind for strength, as Frontiniack, Canary, High Country wine, Tent Wine, and Scottish Ale, that had he not had a very strong brain, might have daily been overtaken, although he seldom drank at any one time above four spoonfulls, many times not above one or two; He was very constant in all things, his Favourites excepted, in which he loved change, yet never cast down any (he once raised) from the height of greatnesse, though from their wonted nearnesse, and privacy; unlesse by their own default, by opposing his change, as in Somersets case: yet had he not been in that foul poysoning busines, and so cast down himself, I do verily beleeve not him neither; for al his other Favorites he left great in Honour, great in Fortune; and did much love Mountgomery, and trusted him more at the very last gaspe, then at the first minute of his Favoriteship: In his Dyet, Apparrell, and Journeys, he was very constant; in his Apparrell so constant, as by his good wil he would never change his cloathes untill worn out to very ragges: His Fashion never: Insomuch as one bringing to him a Hat of a Spanish Block, he cast it from him, swearing he neither loved them nor their fashions. Another time, bringing him Roses on his Shooes, he asked, if they would make him a ruffe-footed-Dove? one yard of six penny Ribbond served that turne: His Dyet and Journies were so constant, that the best observing Courtier of our time was wont to say, were he asleep seven yeares, and then awakened, he would tell where the King every day had been, and every dish he had had at his Table.

Hee was not very uxorious, (though he had a very brave Queen that never crossed his designes, nor intermedled with State affaires, but ever complyed with him (even against the nature of any, but of a milde spirit) in the change of Favourites;) for he was ever best, when furthest from the Queene, and that was thought to be the first grounds of his often removes, which afterwards proved habituall. He was unfortunate in the marriage of his Daughter, and so was all Christendome besides; but sure the Daughter was more unfortunate in a Father, then he in a Daughter: He naturally loved not the sight of a Souldier, nor of any Valiant man; and it was an observation that Sir Robert Mansell was the only valiant man he ever loved, and him he loved so intirely, that for all Buckinghams greatnesse with the King, and his hatred of Sir Robert Mansell, yet could not that alienate the Kings affections from him; insomuch as when by the instigation of Cottington (then Embassadour in Spaine) by Buckinghams procurement, the Spanish Embassadour came with a great complaint against Sir Robert Mansell, then at Argiers, to suppresse the Pirats, That he did support them; having never a friend there, (though many) that durst speake in his defence, the King himselfe defended him in these words: My Lord Embassadour, I cannot beleeve this, for I made choyce my selfe of him, out of these reasons; I know him to be valiant, honest, and Nobly descended as most in my Kingdome, and will never beleeve a man thus qualified will doe so base an act. He naturally loved honest men, that were not over active, yet never loved any man heartily untill he had bound him unto him by giving him some suite, which he thought bound the others love to him againe; but that argued a poore disposition in him, to beleeve that any thing but a Noble minde, seasoned with vertue, could make any firme love or union, for mercinary mindes are carried away with a greater prize, but Noble mindes, alienated with nothing but publick disgraces.

He was very witty, and had as many ready witty jests as any man living, at which he would not smile himselfe, but deliver them in a grave and serious manner: He was very liberall, of what he had not in his owne gripe, and would rather part with 100.li. hee never had in his keeping, then one twenty shillings peece within his owne custody: He spent much, and had much use of his Subjects purses, which bred some clashings with them in Parliament, yet would alwayes come off, and end with a sweet and plausible close; and truly his bounty was not discommendable, for his raising Favourites was the worst: Rewarding old servants, and releiving his Native Country-men, was infinitely more to be commended in him, then condemned. His sending Embassadours, were no lesse chargeable then dishonourable and unprofitable to him and his whole Kingdome; for he was ever abused in all Negotiations, yet hee had rather spend 100000.li. on Embassies, to keep or procure peace with dishonour, then 10000.li. on an Army that would have forced peace with honour: He loved good Lawes, and had many made in his time, and in his last Parliament, for the good of his Subjects, and suppressing Promoters, and progging fellowes, gave way to that Nullum tempus, &c. to be confined to 60. yeares, which was more beneficiall to the Subjects in respect of their quiets, then all the Parliaments had given him during his whole Reign. By his frequenting Sermons he appeared Religious; yet his Tuesday Sermons (if you will beleeve his owne Country men, that lived in those times when they were erected, and well understood the cause of erecting them) were dedicated for a strange peece of devotion.

He would make a great deale too bold with God in his passion, both in cursing and swearing, and one straine higher vergeing on blasphemie; But would in his better temper say, he hoped God would not impute them as sins, and lay them to his charge, seeing they proceeded from passion: He had need of great assurance, rather then hopes, that would make daily so bold with God.

He was so crafty and cunning in petty things, as the circumventing any great man, the change of a Favourite, &c. insomuch as a very wise man was wont to say, he beleeved him the wisest foole in Christendome, meaning him wise in small things, but a foole in weighty affaires.

He ever desired to prefer meane men in great places, that when he turned them out again, they should have no friend to bandy with them: And besides, they were so hated by being raised from a meane estate, to over-top all men, that every one held it a pretty recreation to have them often turned out: There were living in this Kings time, at one instant, two Treasurers, three Secretaries, two Lord Keepers, two Admiralls, three Lord chief Justices, yet but one in play, therefore this King had a pretty faculty in putting out and in: By this you may perceive in what his wisdome consisted, but in great and weighty affaires even at his wits end.

He had a trick to cousen himselfe with bargains under hand, by taking 1000.li. or 10000.li. as a bribe, when his Counsell was treating with his Customers to raise them to so much more yearly, this went into his Privy purse, wherein hee thought hee had over-reached the Lords, but cousened himselfe; but would as easily breake the bargaine upon the next offer, saying, he was mistaken and deceived, and therefore no reason he should keep the bargaine; this was often the case with the Farmers of the Customes; He was infinitely inclined to peace, but more out of feare then conscience, and this was the greatest blemish this King had through all his Reign, otherwise might have been ranked with the very best of our Kings, yet sometimes would hee shew pretty flashes of valour which might easily be discerned to be forced, not naturall; and being forced, could have wished, rather, it would have recoiled backe into himselfe, then carryed to that King it had concerned, least he might have been put to the tryall, to maintaine his seeming valour.

In a word, he was (take him altogether and not in peeces) such a King,
I wish this Kingdom have never any worse, on the condition, not
any better; for he lived in peace, dyed in peace, and left all his
Kingdomes in a peaceable condition, with his owne Motto:

Beati Pacifici.

3.

THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM.

George Villiers, created Viscount Villiers 1616, Earl of Buckingham 1617, Marquis 1618, and Duke 1623. Born 1592. Assassinated 1628.

By CLARENDON.

The Duke was indeede a very extraordinary person, and never any man in any age, nor I believe in any country or nation, rose in so shorte a tyme to so much greatenesse of honour fame and fortune upon no other advantage or recommendation, then of the beauty and gracefulnesse and becommingnesse of his person; and I have not the least purpose of undervale[w]inge his good partes and qualityes (of which ther will be occasion shortly to give some testimony) when I say, that his first introduction into favour was purely from the handsomnesse of his person: He was the younger Sunn of S'r George Villyers of Brookesby in the County of Leicester, a family of an auncient extraction, even from the tyme of the conquest, and transported then with the conqueror out of Normandy, wher the family hath still remayned and still continues with lustre: After S'r Georges first marriage, in which he had 2 or 3 Sunnes and some daughters, who shared an ample inheritance from him, by a secounde marriage with a younge lady of the family of the Beaumonts, he had this gentleman, and two other Sunns, and a daughter, who all came afterwards to be raysed to greate titles and dignityes. George, the eldest Sunn of this secounde bedd, was after the death of his father, by the singular affection and care of his Mother, who injoyed a good joynture in the accounte of that age, well brought up, and for the improvment of his education, and givinge an ornament to his hopefull person, he was by her sent into France, wher he spent 2. or 3. yeeres in attayninge the language, and in learninge the exercises of rydinge and dauncinge, in the last of which he excelled most men; and returned into Englande by the tyme he was 21. yeeres old.

Kinge James raingned at that tyme, and though he was a Prince of more learninge and knowledge then any other of that age, and really delighted more in bookes, and in the conversation of learned men, yett of all wise men livinge, he was the most delighted and taken with handsome persons, and with fyne clothes; He begann to be weary of his Favorite the Earle of Somersett, who was the only Favorite who kept that post so longe without any publique reproch from the people, and by the instigation and wickednesse of his wife, he became at least privy to a horrible murther, that exposed him to the utmost severity of the law (the poysoninge of S'r Thomas Overbury) upon which both he and his wife were condemned to dy, after a tryall by ther Peeres, and many persons of quality were executed for the same: Whilst this was in agitation, and before the utmost discovery was made, Mr. Villiers appeared in Courte, and drew the Kings eyes upon him: Ther were enough in the Courte enough angry and incensed against Somersett, for beinge what themselves desyred to be, and especially for beinge a Scotchman, and ascendinge in so shorte a tyme from beinge a page, to the height he was then at, to contribute all they coulde, to promote the one, that they might throw out the other; which beinge easily brought to passe, by the proceedinge of the law upon his cryme aforesayd, the other founde very little difficulty in rendringe himselfe gracious to the Kinge, whose nature and disposition was very flowinge in affection towards persons so adorned, insomuch that in few dayes after his first appearance in Courte he was made Cup-bearer to the Kinge, by which he was naturally to be much in his presence, and so admitted to that conversation and discource, with which that Prince alwayes abounded at his meales; and his inclination to his new Cuppbearer disposed him to administer frequent occasions of discourcinge of the Courte of France, and the transactions ther, with which he had bene so lately acquainted, that he could pertinently inlarge upon that subjecte, to the Kings greate delight, and to the reconcilinge the esteeme and valew of all the Standers by likewise to him, which was a thinge the Kinge was well pleased with: He acted very few weekes upon this Stage, when he mounted higher, and beinge knighted, without any other qualification he was at the same tyme made Gentleman of the Bedd chamber, and Knight of the Order of the Gartar; and in a shorte tyme (very shorte for such a prodigious ascent,) he was made a Barron, a Viscount, an Earle, a Marquisse, and became L'd High Admirall of Englande, L'd Warden of the Cinque Ports, Master of the Horse, and intirely disposed of all the graces of the Kinge, in conferringe all the Honours and all the Offices of the three kingdomes without a ryvall; in dispencinge wherof, he was guyded more by the rules of appetite then of judgement, and so exalted almost all of his owne numerous family and dependants, who had no other virtue or meritt then ther allyance to him, which æqually offended the auncient nobility and the people of all conditions, who saw the Flowres of the Crowne every day fadinge and withered, whilst the Demeasnes and revennue therof was sacrificed to the inrichinge a private family (how well soever originally extracted) not heard of before ever to the nation, and the exspences of the Courte so vast, unlimited by the old good rules of Oeconomy, that they had a sadd prospecte of that poverty and necessity, which afterwards befell the Crowne, almost to the ruine of it.

Many were of opinion, that Kinge James before his death, grew weary of his Favorite, and that if he had lyved, he would have deprived him at least of his large and unlimited power; and this imagination prævayled with some men, as the L'd Keeper Lincolne, the Earle of Middlesex, L'd High Treasurer of England, and other gentlemen of name, though not in so high stations, that they had the courage, to withdraw from ther absolute dependance upon the Duke, and to make some other assayes, which prooved to the ruine of every on of them, ther appearinge no markes or evidence, that the Kinge did really lessen his affection to him, to the houre of his death; on the contrary, as he created him Duke of Buckingham, in his absence, whilst he was with the Prince in Spayne, so after his returne, he exequted the same authority in conferringe all favours and graces, and revenginge himselfe upon those who had manifested any unkindnesse towards him: And yett notwithstandinge all this, if that Kings nature had æqually disposed him, to pull downe, as to builde and erecte, and if his courage and severity in punishinge and reforminge had bene as greate, as his generosity and inclination was to obliege, it is not to be doubted, but that he would have withdrawne his affection from the Duke intirely before his death, which those persons who were admitted to any privacy with [him], and were not in the confidence of the other (for before those he knew well how to dissemble) had reason enough to exspecte….

* * * * *

This greate man was a person of a noble nature and generous disposition, and of such other indowments, as made him very capable of beinge a greate favorite to a greate Kinge; he understoode the Arts and artifices of a Courte, and all the learninge that is professed ther, exactly well; by longe practice in businesse, under a Master that discourced excellently, and surely knew all things wounderfully, and tooke much delight in indoctrinatinge his younge unexsperienced Favorite, who he knew would be alwayes looked upon as the workemanshipp of his owne handes, he had obtayned a quicke conception and apprehension of businesse, and had the habitt of speakinge very gracefully, and pertinently. He was of a most flowinge courtesy and affability to all men, who made any addresse to him, and so desyrous to obliege them, that he did not enough consider the valew of the obligation, or the meritt of the person he chose to obliege, from which much of his misfortune resulted. He was of a courage not to be daunted, which was manifested in all his actions, and his contests with particular persons of the greatest reputation, and especially in his whole demeanour at the Isle of Rees, both at the landinge and upon the retriete, in both which no man was more fearelesse, or more ready to expose himselfe to the brightest daungers. His kindnesse and affection to his frends was so vehement, that it was so many marriages, for better and worse, and so many leagues offensive and defensive, as if he thought himselfe oblieged to love all his frends, and to make warr upon all they were angry with, let the cause be what it would. And it cannot be denyed, that he was an enimy in the same excesse, and prosequted those he looked upon as his enimyes, with the utmost rigour and animosity, and was not easily induced to a reconciliation; and yett ther were some examples of his receadinge in that particular; and in highest passyon, he was so farr from stoopinge to any dissimulation, wherby his displeasure might be concealed and covered, till he had attayned his revenge, the low methode of Courts, that he never indeavoured to do any man an ill office, before he first told him what he was to exspecte from him, and reproched him with the injures he had done, with so much generosity, that the person found it in his pouer, to receave farther satisfaction in the way he would chuse for himselfe….

His single misfortune was (which indeede was productive of many greater) that he never made a noble and a worthy frendshipp with a man so neere his æquall, that he would frankely advize him, for his honour and true interest, against the current, or rather the torrent of his impetuous passyons: which was partly the vice of the tyme, when the Courte was not replenished with greate choyce of excellent men, and partly the vice of the persons, who were most worthy to be applyed to, and looked upon his youth, and his obscurity, as obligations upon him, to gayne ther frendshipps by extraordinary application; then his ascent was so quicke, that it seemed rather a flight, then a growth, and he was such a darlinge of fortune, that he was at the topp, before he was seene at the bottome, for the gradation of his titles, was the effecte, not cause of his first promotion, and as if he had bene borne a favorite, he was supreme the first moneth he came to courte, and it was wante of confidence, not of creditt, that he had not all at first, which he obtayned afterwards, never meetinge with the least obstruction, from his settinge out, till he was as greate as he could be, so that he wanted dependants, before he thought he could wante coadjutors; nor was he very fortunate in the election of those dependants, very few of his servants havinge bene ever qualifyed enough to assiste or advize him, and were intente only upon growinge rich under [him], not upon ther masters growinge good as well as greate, insomuch as he was throughout his fortune, a much wiser man, then any servant or frende he had: Lett the faulte or misfortune be what and whence it will, it may very reasonably be believed that if he had bene blessed with one faythfull frende, who had bene qualifyed with wisdome and integrity, that greate person would have committed as few faults, and done as transcendant worthy actions, as any man who shyned in such a sphere in that age, in Europe, for he was of an excellent nature, and of a capacity very capable of advice and councell; he was in his nature just and candid, liberall, generous, and bountifull, nor was it ever knowne that the temptation of money swayed him to do an unjust, or unkinde thinge, and though he left a very greate inheritance to his heyres, consideringe the vast fortune he inherited by his wife (the sole daughter and Heyre of Francis Earle of Rutlande,) he owed no parte of it to his owne industry or sollicitation, but to the impatient humour of two kings his masters, who would make his fortune æquall to his titles, and the one above other men, as the other was, and he considered it no otherwise then as thers, and left it at his death ingaged for the crowne, almost to the valew of it, as is touched upon before. If he had an immoderate ambition, with which he was charged, and is a weede (if it be a weede) apt to grow in the best soyles, it does not appeare that it was in his nature, or that he brought it with him to the Courte, but rather founde it ther, and was a garment necessary for that ayre; nor was it more in his power to be without promotion, and titles, and wealth, then for a healthy man to sitt in the sunn, in the brightest dogge dayes, and remayne without any warmth: he needed no ambition who was so seated in the hartes of two such masters.

4.

SIR THOMAS COVENTRY.

Solicitor-General 1617. Attorney-General 1621. Lord Keeper 1625. Created Baron Coventry 1628. Born 1578. Died 1640.

By CLARENDON.

S'r Thomas Coventry was then L'd Keeper of the Greate Seale of England, and newly made a Barron. He was a Sunn of the Robe, his father havinge bene a Judge in the courte of the Common pleas, who tooke greate care to breede his Sunn, though his first borne, in the Study of the common law, by which himselfe had bene promoted to that degree, and in which, in the society of the Inner Temple, his Sunn made a notable progresse, by an early eminence in practice and learninge, insomuch as he was Recorder of London, Sollicitor generall, and Kings Atturny before he was forty yeeres of age, a rare ascent, all which offices he discharged, with greate abilityes, and singular reputation of integrity: In the first yeere after the death of Kinge James, he was advanced to be Keeper of the Greate Scale of Englande, the naturall advancement from, the office of Atturny Generall, upon the remoovall of the Bishopp of Lincolne, who though a man of greate witt, and good scholastique learninge, was generally thought so very unæquall to the place that his remoove was the only recompence and satisfaction that could be made for his promotion, and yett it was enough knowne, that the disgrace proceeded only from the pri[v]ate displeasure of the Duke of Buckingham[1]: The L'd Coventry injoyed this place with a universall reputation (and sure justice was never better administred) for the space of aboute sixteen yeeres, even to his death, some months before he was sixty yeeres of age, which was another importante circumstance of his felicity: that greate office beinge so slippery, that no man had dyed in it before, for neere the space of forty yeeres, nor had his successors for some tyme after him much better fortune: and he himselfe had use of all his strenght and skill (as he was an excellent wrastler) to præserve himselfe from fallinge, in two shockes, the one given him by the Earle of Portlande, L'd High Treasurer of Englande, the other by the Marq's of Hambleton, who had the greatest power over the affections of the Kinge, of any man of that tyme.

He was a man of wounderfull gravity and wisdome, and understood not only the whole science and mistery of the Law, at least æqually with any man who had ever sate in that place, but had a cleere conception of the whole policy of the government both of Church and State, which by the unskilfulnesse of some well meaninge men, justled each the other to much. He knew the temper, and disposition and genius of the kingdome most exactly, saw ther spiritts grow every day more sturdy, and inquisitive, and impatient, and therfore naturally abhorred all innovations, which he foresaw would produce ruinous effects: yett many who stoode at a distance thought that he was not active and stoute enough in the opposinge those innovations, for though by his place he præsided in all publique councells, and was most sharpe sighted in the consequence of things, yett he was seldome knowne to speake in matters of state, which he well knew were for the most parte concluded, before they were brought to that publique agitation, never in forrainge affayres, which the vigour of his judgement could well comprehende, nor indeede freely in any thinge, but what immediately and playnely concerned the justice of the kingdome, and in that as much as he could, he procured references to the Judges. Though in his nature he had not only a firme gravity, but a severity, and even some morosity (which his children and domestiques had evidence enough of) [yet][2] it was so happily tempred, that his courtesy and affability towards all men was so transcended, so much without affectation, that it marvellously reconciled [him] to all men of all degrees, and he was looked upon as an excellent courtyer, without receadinge from the native simplicity of his owne manner. He had in the playne way of speakinge and delivery (without much ornament of eloqution) a strange power of makinge himselfe believed (the only justifiable designe of eloquence) so that though he used very frankely to deny, and would never suffer any man to departe from him, with an opinion that he was inclined to gratify when in truth he was not, (holdinge that dissimulation to be the worst of lyinge) yett the manner of it was so gentle and oblieginge, and his condescension such, to informe the persons, who[m] he could not satisfy, that few departed from him, with ill will and ill wishes; but then this happy temper, and these good facultyes, rather præserved him from havinge many enimyes, and supplyed him with some well-wishers, then furnished him with any fast and unshaken frends, who are alwayes procured in courtes by more ardour, and more vehement professions and applications, then he would suffer himselfe to be entangled with; so that he was a man rather exceedingly liked, then passionately loved, insomuch that it never appeared, that he had any one frende in the Courte, of quality enough to prævent or diverte any disadvantage he mighte be exposed to, and therfore it is no wonder, nor to be imputed to him, that he retyred within himselfe as much as he could, and stood upon his defence, without makinge desperate sallyes against growinge mischieves, which he knew well he had no power to hinder, and which might probably begin in his owne ruine: to conclude, his security consisted very much, in the little creditt he had with the Kinge, and he dyed in a season most opportune, and in which a wise man would have prayed to have finished his cource, and which in truth crowned his other signall prosperity in this worlde.

[Footnote 1: 'Buckinghman', MS.]

[Footnote 2: 'but', MS.]

5.

SIR RICHARD WESTON.

Chancellor of the Exchequer 1621. Lord Treasurer 1628. Baron Weston 1628, and Earl of Portland 1633.

Born 1577. Died 1635.

By CLARENDON.

S'r Richard Weston had bene advanced to the white staffe, to the office of L'd High Treasurer of England, some moneths before the death of the Duke of Buckingham, and had in that shorte tyme so much disoblieged him, at least disappointed his exspectation, that many who were privy to the Dukes most secrett purposes, did believe that if he had outlived that voyage, in which he was ingaged, he would have remooved him, and made another Treasurer: and it is very true that greate office to had bene very slippery, and not fast to those who had trusted themselves in it, insomuch as there were at that tyme five noble persons alive, who had all succeded on another immediately in that unsteady charge, without any other person interveninge, the Earle of Suffolke, the L'd Viscount Mandevill, afterwards Earle of Manchester, the Earle of Middlesex, and the Earle of Marleborough, who was remooved under prætence of his age, and disability for the work (which had bene a better reason against his promotion, so few yeeres before, that his infirmityes were very little increased) to make roome for the present Officer, who though advanced by the Duke, may properly be sayd to be establish'd by his death.

He was a gentleman of a very good and auncient extraction, by father and mother; his education had bene very good, amongst bookes and men. After some yeeres study of the law in the Middle temple, and at an age fitt to make observations and reflexions, out of which that which is commonly called exsperience is constituted, he travelled into forrainge partes, and was acquainted in forrainge partes;[1] he betooke himselfe to the courte, and lyved ther some yeeres at that distance, and with that awe, as[2] was agreable to the modesty of that age, when men were seene some tyme, before they were knowne, and well knowne before they were præferred, or durst prætende to be præferred. He spent the best parte of his fortune, a fayre on, that he inherited from his father, in his attendance at courte, and involved his frends in securityes with him, who were willinge to runn his hopefull fortune, before he receaved the least fruite from it, but the countenance of greate men, and those in authority, the most naturall, and most certayne stayres to ascende by: He was then sent Ambassadour to the Arch-Dukes Alberte and Isabella into Flanders, and to the Diett in Germany, to treate aboute the restitution of the Palatinat, in which negotiation he behaved himselfe with greate prudence, and with the concurrent testimony of a wise man, from all those with whome he treated, Princes and Ambassadours: and upon his returne was made a Privy Councellour, and Chauncelour of the Exchequer, in the place of the L'd Brooke, who was ether perswaded, or putt out of the place, which beinge an office of honour and trust, is likewise an excellent stage for men of parts to tread, and expose themselfes upon, and wher they have occasion of all natures to lay out and spredd all ther facultyes and qualifications most for ther advantage; He behaved himselfe very well in this function, and appeared æquall to it, and carryed himselfe so luckily in Parliament, that he did his master much service, and præserved himselfe in the good opinion and acceptation of the house, which is a blessinge not indulged to many by those high powers: He did swimme in those troubled and boysterous waters, in which the Duke of Buckingham rode as Admirall, with a good grace, when very many who were aboute him, were drowned or forced on shore, with shrewde hurtes and bruises, which shewed he knew well how and when to use his limbes and strenght to the best advantage, sometimes only to avoyde sinkinge, and sometymes to advance and gett grounde; and by this dexterity he kept his creditt with those who could do him good, and lost it not with others, who desyred the destruction of those upon whome he most depended.

He was made L'd Treasurer in the manner, and at the tyme mentioned before, upon the remoovall of the Earle of Marleborough, and few moneths before the death of the Duke; the former circumstance, which is often attended by compassion towards the degraded, and præjudice toward the promoted, brought him no disadvantage, for besydes the delight that season had in changes, there was little reverence towards the person remooved, and the extreme, visible poverty of the Exchequer sheltered that Provence from the envy it had frequently created, and opened a doore for much applause to be the portion of a wise and provident Minister: For the other of the Dukes death, though some who knew the Dukes passyons and præjudice (which often produced rather suddayne indisposition, then obstinate resolution) believed he would have bene shortly cashiered, as so many had lately bene, and so that the death of his founder, was a greater confirmation of him in the office, then the delivery of the white staffe had bene, many other wise men, who knew the Treasurers talent, in remoovinge præjudice and reconcilinge himselfe to waveringe and doubtfull affections, believed that the losse of the Duke was very unseasonable, and that the awe or apprehension of his power and displeasure, was a very necessary allay for the impetuosity of the new officers nature, which needed some restrainte and checque for some tyme to his immoderate prætences and appetite of power. He did indeede appeare on the suddayne wounderfully elated, and so farr threw off his olde affectation to please some very much, and to displease none, in which arte he had excelled, that in few moneths after the Dukes death, he founde himselfe to succeede him in the publique displeasure, and in the malice of his enimyes, without succeedinge him in his creditt at courte, or in the affection of any considerable dependants; and yett, though he was not superiour to all other men, in the affection, or rather resignation of the Kinge, so that he might dispence favours and disfavours accordinge to his owne election, he had a full share in his masters esteeme, who looked upon him as a wise and able servant and worthy of the trust he reposed in him, and receaved no other advice in the large businesse of his revennue, nor was any man so much his superiour, as to be able to lessen him in the Kings affection, by his power; so that he was in a post in which he might have founde much ease and delight, if he could have contayned himselfe within the verge of his owne Provence, which was large enough, and of such an extente, that he might at the same tyme have drawne a greate dependance upon him of very considerable men, and appeared a very usefull and profitable Minister to the Kinge, whose revennue had bene very loosely managed duringe the late yeeres, and might by industry and order have bene easily improoved, and no man better understoode what methode was necessary towards that good husbandry then he. But I know not by what frowardnesse in his starres, he tooke more paynes in examininge and enquiringe into other mens offices, then in the discharge of his owne, and not so much joy in what he had, as trouble and agony for what he had not. The truth is, he had so vehement a desyre to be the sole favorite, that he had no relish of the power he had, and in that contention he had many ryvalls, who had creditt enough to do him ill offices, though not enough to satisfy ther owne ambition, the Kinge himselfe beinge resolved to hold the raynes in his owne handes, and to putt no further trust in others, then was necessary for the capacity they served in: which resolution in his Majesty was no sooner believed, and the Treasurers prsetence taken notice,[3] then he founde the number of his enimyes exceedingly increased, and others to be lesse eager in the pursuite of his frendshipp; and every day discovered some infirmityes in him, which beinge before knowne to few, and not taken notice,[3] did now expose him both to publique reproch, and to private animosityes, and even his vices admitted those contradictions in them, that he could hardly injoy the pleasante fruite of any of them. That which first exposed him to the publique jealosy, which is alwayes attended with publique reproch, was the concurrent suspicion of his religion. His wife and all his daughters were declared of the Roman religion, and though himselfe and his Sunns sometimes went to church, he was never thought to have zeale for it, and his domestique conversation and dependants, with whome only he used intire freedome, were all knowne Catholiques, and were believed to be agents for the rest; and yett with all this disadvantage to himselfe, he never had reputation and creditt with that party, who were the only people of the kingdome, who did not believe him to be of ther profession, for the penall lawes (those only excepted, which were sanguinary, and even those sometimes lett loose) were never more rigidly executed, nor had the Crovme ever so greate a revennue from them, as in his tyme, nor did they ever pay so deere for the favours and indulgencyes of his office towards them.

No man had greater ambition to make his family greate, or stronger designes to leave a greate fortune to it, yett his exspences were so prodigiously greate, especially in his house, that all the wayes he used for supply, which were all that occurred, could not serve his turne, insomuch that he contracted so greate debts, (the anxiety wherof he prætended broke his minde, and restrayned that intentnesse and industry which was necessary for the dew execution of his office) that the Kinge was pleased twice to pay his debts, at least towards it, to disburse forty thousande pounde in ready mony out of his Exchequer; besydes his Majesty gave him a whole forrest, Chute forrest in Hampshyre, and much other lande belonginge to the Crowne, which was the more taken notice of, and murmured against, because beinge the chiefe Minister of the revennue, he was particularly oblieged as much as in him lay to prævent and even oppose such disinherison; and because under that obligation, he had avowedly and sowrely crossed the prætences of other men, and restrayned the Kings bounty from beinge exercised almost to any; and he had that advantage (if he had made the right use of it) that his creditt was ample enough (secounded by the Kings owne exsperience, and observation, and inclination) to retrench very much of the late unlimited exspences, and especially those of bountyes, which from the death of the Duke, rann in narrow channells, which never so much overflowed as towards himselfe; who stopped the current to other men.

He was of an imperious nature, and nothinge wary in disoblieginge and provokinge other men, and had to much courage in offendinge and incensinge them, but after havinge offended and incensed them, he was of so unhappy a feminine temper that he was always in a terrible fright and apprehension of them. He had not that application, and submissyon and reverence for the Queene as might have bene exspected from his wisdome and breedinge, and often crossed her prætences and desyres, with more rudenesse then was naturall to him; yett he was impertinently sollicitous to know what her Majesty sayd of him in private, and what resentments shee had towards him; and when by some confidents (who had ther ends upon him from those offices) he was informed of some bitter exspressions fallen from her Majesty, he was so exceedingly afflicted and tormented with the sense of it, that sometimes by passionate complaints and representations to the Kinge, sometimes by more dutifull addresses and expostulations with the Queene in bewaylinge his misfortunes, he frequently exposed himselfe, and left his condition worse then it was before: and the eclarcicement commonly ended in the discovery of the persons from whome he had received his most secrett intelligence. He quickly lost the character of a bold, stoute, and magnanimous man, which he had bene longe reputed to be, in worse tymes, and in his most prosperous season, fell under the reproch of beinge a man of bigg lookes, and of a meane and abjecte spiritt….

To conclude, all the honours the Kinge conferred upon him, as he made him a Barren, then an Earle, and Knight of the Gartar, and above this, gave a younge, beautifull Lady, neerely allyed to him and to the Crowne of Scotlande, in marriage to his eldest Sunn, could not make him thinke himselfe greate enough; nor could all the Kings bountyes nor his owne large accessions, rayse a fortune to his Heyre, but after six or eight yeeres spent in outward opulency, and inward murmur and trouble, that it was no greater, after vast summes of mony and greate wealth gotten and rather consumed then injoyed, without any sense or delight in so greate prosperity, with the agony that it was no greater, He dyed unlamented by any, bitterly mentioned by most, who never pretended to love him, and sevearely censured and complayned of, by those who exspected most from him, and deserved best of him, and left a numerous family, which was in a shorte tyme worne out, and yett outlyved the fortune he left behinde him.

[Footnote 1: In the MS. the words 'he travelled into forrainge parts' occur after 'Middle temple', as well as after 'constituted'. The whole sentence is faulty. 'After this' is inserted in the edition of 1702 before 'he betooke'.]

[Footnote 2: 'as' inserted in late hand in MS. in place of 'and'.]

[Footnote 3: 'off' added in later hand in MS.; 'notice of', ll. 2, 6, ed. 1704.]

6.

THE EARL OF ARUNDEL.

Thomas Howard, fourteenth Earl of Arundel.

Born 1586. Died 1646.

By CLARENDON.

The Earle of Arrundell was the next to the officers of State, who in his owne right and quality, præceded the rest of the councell. He was a man supercilious and prowde, who lyved alwayes within himselfe, and to himselfe, conversinge little with any, who were in common conversation, so that he seemed to lyve as it were in another nation, his house beinge a place, to which all men resorted, who resorted to no other place, strangers, or such who affected to looke like strangers, and dressed themselves accordingly. He resorted sometimes to the Courte, because ther only was a greater man then himselfe, and went thither the seldomer, because ther was a greater man then himselfe. He lived toward all Favorites and greate officers without any kinde of condescention, and rather suffred himselfe to be ill treated by ther power and authority (for he was alwayes in disgrace, and once or twice prysoner in the tower) then to descende in makinge any application to them; and upon these occasyons, he spent a greate intervall of his tyme, in severall journyes into forrainge partes, and with his wife and family had lyved some yeeres in Italy, the humour and manners of which nation he seemed most to like and approve, and affected to imitate. He had a good fortune by descent, and a much greater from his wife, who was the sole daughter upon the matter (for nether of the two Sisters left any issue) of the greate house of Shrewsbury, but his exspences were without any measure, and alwayes exceeded very much his revennue. He was willinge to be thought a scholar, and to understande the most misterious partes of Antiquity, because he made a wounderfull and costly purchase of excellent statues whilst he was in Italy and in Rome (some wherof he could never obtayne permission to remoove from Rome, though he had payd for them) and had a rare collection of the most curious Medalls; wheras in truth he was only able to buy them, never to understande ihem, and as to all partes of learninge he was almost illiterate, and thought no other parte of history considerable, but what related to his owne family, in which no doubt ther had bene some very memorable persons.

It cannot be denyed, that he had in his person, in his aspecte and countenance, the appearance of a greate man, which he preserved in his gate and motion. He wore and affected a habitt very different from that of the tyme, such as men had only beheld in the pictures of the most considerable men, all which drew the eyes of most and the reverence of many towards him, as the image and representative of the primitive nobility, and natife gravity of the nobles, when they had bene most venerable. But this was only his outsyde, his nature and true humour beinge so much disposed to levity, and vulgar delights, which indeede were very despicable and childish: He was never suspected to love anybody, nor to have the least propensity to justice, charity, or compassion, so that, though he gott all he could, and by all the wayes he could, and spent much more then he gott or had, he was never knowne to give any thinge, nor in all his imployments (for he had imployments of greate profitt as well as honour, beinge sent Ambassadour extraordinary into Germany, for the treaty of that Generall peace, for which he had greate appointments, and in which he did nothinge of the least importance, and which is more wounderfull, he was afterwards made Generall of the Army raysed for Scotlande, and receaved full pay as such, and in his owne office of Earle Marshall, more money was drawne from the people by his authority and prætence of jurisdiction, then had ever bene extorted by all the officers præcedent) yett I say in all his offices and imployments, never man used, or imployed by him, ever gott any fortune under him, nor did ever any man acknowledge any obligation to him. He was rather thought to be without religion, then to inclyne to this or that party of any. He would have bene a proper instrument for any tyranny, if he could have a man tyrant enough to have bene advized by him, and had no other affection for the nation or the kingdome, then as he had a greate share in it, in which like the greate Leviathan he might sporte himselfe, from which he withdrew himselfe, as soone as he decerned the repose therof was like to be disturbed, and dyed in Italy, under the same doubtfull character of religion, in which he lyved.

7.

THE EARL OF PEMBROKE.

William Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke.

Born 1580. Died 1630.

By CLARENDON.

Willyam Earle of Pembroke was next, a man of another molde and makinge, and of another fame and reputation with all men, beinge the most universally loved and esteemed, of any man of that age, and havinge a greate office in the courte, made the courte itselfe better esteemed and more reverenced in the country; and as he had a greate number of frends of the best men, so no man had ever wickednesse to avow himselfe to be his enimy. He was a man very well bredd, and of excellent partes, and a gracefull speaker upon any subjecte, havinge a good proportion of learninge, and a ready witt to apply it, and inlarge upon it, of a pleasant and facetious humour and a disposition affable, generous, and magnificent; he was master of a greate fortune from his auncestors, and had a greate addition by his wife (another daughter and heyre of the Earle of Shrewsbury) which he injoyed duringe his life, shee outlivinge him, but all served not his exspence, which was only limited by his greate minde, and occasions to use it nobly; he lyved many yeeres aboute the courte, before in it, and never by it, beinge rather regarded and esteemed by Kinge James then loved and favored, and after the fowle fall of the Earle of Somersett, he was made L'd Chamberlyne of the Kings house more for the Courtes sake, then his owne, and the Courte appeared with the more lustre, because he had the goverment of that Province. As he spente and lived upon his owne fortune, so he stoode upon his owne feete, without any other supporte then of his proper virtue and meritt, and lyved towards the favorites with that decency, as would not suffer them to censure or reproch his Masters judgement and election, but as with men of his owne ranke. He was exceedingly beloved in the Courte, because he never desyred to gett that for himselfe, which others labored for, but was still ready to promote the prætences of worthy men, and he was equally celebrated in the country, for havinge receaved no obligations from the courte, which might corrupt or sway his affections and judgement; so that all who were displeased and unsatisfyed in the courte or with the Courte, were alwayes inclined to putt themselves under his banner, if he would have admitted them, and yett he did not so rejecte them, as to make them choose another shelter, but so farr to depende on him, that he could restrayn them from breakinge out beyounde private resentments, and murmurs. He was a greate lover of his country, and of the religion and justice which he believed could only supporte it, and his frendshipps were only with men of those principles; and as his conversation was most with men of the most pregnant parts and understandinge, so towards any who needed supporte or encouragement, though unknowne, if fayrely recommended to him, he was very liberall; and sure never man was planted in a courte, that was fitter for that soyle, or brought better qualityes with him to purify that heyre.

Yett his memory must not be so flattered, that his virtues and good inclinations may be believed without some allay of vice, and without beinge clowded with greate infirmityes, which he had in to exorbitant a proportion: He indulged to himselfe the pleasures of all kindes, almost in all excesses; whether out of his naturall constitution, or for wante of his domestique content and delight (in which he was most unhappy, for he payed much to deere for his wife's fortune, by takinge her person into the bargayne) he was immoderately given up to women,[1] but therin he likewise retayned such a pouer and jurisdiction over his very appetite, that he was not so much transported with beauty and outwarde allurements, as with those advantages of the minde, as manifested an extraordinary witt, and spirit, and knowledge, and administred greate pleasure in the conversation; to these he sacrificed himselfe, his pretious tyme, and much of his fortune, and some who were neerest his trust and frendshipp, were not without apprehension that his naturall vivacity, and vigour of minde, begann to lessen and decline, by those excessive indulgences. Aboute the tyme of the death of Kinge James or presently after, he was made L'd Steward of his Majestys house, that the Staffe of Chamberlyne might be putt into the hands of his brother, the Earle of Mountgomery, upon a new contracte of frendshipp with the Duke of Buckingham, after whose death he had likewise such offices of his, as he most affected, of honour and commaunde, none of profitt, which he cared not for; and within two yeeres after he dyed himselfe, of an Apoplexy, after a full and cheerefull supper.

[Footnote 1: The words 'to women' occur twice in the MS., before 'whether out' and after 'given up'.]

8.

SIR FRANCIS BACON.

Lord Keeper 1617. Lord Chancellor 1618. Baron Verulam 1618, and Viscount St. Albans 1621.

Born 1561. Died 1626.

By BEN JONSON.

[Sidenote: Dominis Verulanus.]

One, though hee be excellent, and the chiefe, is not to bee imitated alone. For never no Imitator, ever grew up to his Author; likenesse is alwayes on this side Truth: Yet there hapn'd, in my time, one noble Speaker, who was full of gravity in his speaking. His language, (where hee could spare, or passe by a jest) was nobly censorious. No man ever spake more neatly, more presly, more weightily, or suffer'd lesse emptinesse, lesse idlenesse, in what hee utter'd. No member of his speech, but consisted of the owne graces: His hearers could not cough, or looke aside from him, without losse. Hee commanded where hee spoke; and had his Judges angry, and pleased at his devotion. No man had their affections more in his power. The feare of every man that heard him, was, lest hee should make an end.

9.

By ARTHUR WILSON.

Not long after comes the great Lord Chancellor Bacon to a Censure, for the most simple, and ridiculous follies, that ever entred into the heart of a Wise man. He was the true Emblem of humane frailty, being more than a man in some things, and less than a woman in others. His crime was Briberie, and Extortion (which the King hinted at in his Speech, when he facetiously sayd, He thought the Lords had bribed the Prince to speak well of them) and these he had often condemned others for as a Judge, which now he comes to suffer for as a Delinquent: And they were proved, & aggravated against him with so many circumstances, that they fell very fouly on him, both in relation to his Reception of them, and his expending of them: For that which he raked in, and scrued for one way, he scattered and threw abroad another; for his Servants, being young, prodigall and expensive Youths, which he kept about him, his Treasure was their common Store, which they took without stint, having free accesse to his most retired Privacies; and his indulgence to them, and familiarity with them, opened a gap to infamous Reports, which left an unsavoury Tincture on him; for where such Leeches are, there must be putrid bloud to fill their craving Appetites. His gettings were like a Prince, with a strong hand; his expences like a Prodigall, with a weak head; and 'tis a wonder a man of his Noble, and Gallant Parts, that could fly so high above Reason, should fall so far below it; unlesse that Spirit that acted the first, were too proud to stoop, to see the deformities of the last. And as he affected his men, so his Wife affected hers: Seldome doth the Husband deviate one way, but the Wife goeth another. These things came into the publique mouth, and the Genius of the Times (where malice is not corrivall) is the great Dictator of all Actions: For innocency it self is a crime, when calumny sets her mark upon it. How prudent therefore ought men to be, that not so much as their garments be defiled with the sour breath of the Times!

This poor Gentleman, mounted above pity, fell down below it: His Tongue, that was the glory of his time for Eloquence, (that tuned so many sweet Harrangues) was like a forsaken Harp, hung upon the Willows, whilst the waters of affliction overflowed the banks. And now his high-flying Orations are humbled to Supplications,…

* * * * *

He was of a middling stature, his countenance had in-dented with Age before he was old; his Presence grave and comely; of a high-flying and lively Wit, striving in some things to be rather admired than understood, yet so quick and easie where he would express himself, and his Memory so strong and active, that he appeared the Master of a large and plenteous store-house of Knowledge, being (as it were) Natures Midwife, stripping her Callou-brood, and clothing them in new Attire. His Wit was quick to the last; for Gondemar meeting him the Lent before his Censure, and hearing of his Miscarriages, thought to pay him with his Spanish Sarcasms and Scoffs, saying, My Lord, I wish you a good Easter; And you my Lord, replyed the Chancellor, a good Passeover: For he could neither close with his English Buffonerie, nor his Spanish Treaty (which Gondemar knew) though he was so wise as publiquely to oppose neither. In fine, he was a fit Jewel to have beautified, and adorned a flourishing Kingdom, if his flaws had not disgraced the lustre that should have set him off.

10.

By THOMAS FULLER.

[Sidenote: An essay at his character.]

None can character him to the life, save himself. He was in parts, more than a Man, who in any Liberal profession, might be, whatsoever he would himself. A great Honourer of antient Authors, yet a great Deviser and Practiser of new waies in Learning. Privy Counsellor, as to King JAMES, so to Nature it self, diving into many of her abstruse Mysteries. New conclusions he would dig out with mattocks of gold & silver, not caring what his experience cost him, expending on the Trials of Nature, all and more than he got by the Trials at the Barre, Posterity being the better for his, though he the worse for his own, dear experiments. He and his Servants had all in common, the Men never wanting what their Master had, and thus what came flowing in unto him, was sent flying away from him, who, in giving of rewards knew no bounds, but the bottome of his own purse. Wherefore when King James heard that he had given Ten pounds to an under-keeper, by whom He had sent him a Buck, the King said merrily, I and He shall both die Beggars, which was condemnable Prodigality in a Subject. He lived many years after, and in his Books will ever survive, in the reading whereof, modest Men commend him, in what they doe, condemn themselves, in what they doe not understand, as believing the fault in their own eyes, and not in the object.

11.

By WILLIAM RAWLEY.

He was no Plodder upon Books; Though he read much; And that, with great Judgement, and Rejection of Impertinences, incident to many Authours: For he would ever interlace a Moderate Relaxation of His Minde, with his Studies; As Walking; Or Taking the Aire abroad in his Coach; or some other befitting Recreation: And yet he would loose no Time, In as much as upon his First and Immediate Return, he would fall to Reading again: And so suffer no Moment of Time to Slip from him, without some present Improvement.

His Meales were Refections, of the Eare, as well as of the Stomack: Like the Noctes Atticæ; or Convivia Deipno-Sophistarum; Wherein a Man might be refreshed, in his Minde, and understanding, no lesse then in his Body. And I have known some, of no mean Parts, that have professed to make use of their Note-Books, when they have risen from his Table. In which Conversations, and otherwise, he was no Dashing Man; As some Men are; But ever, a Countenancer, and Fosterer, of another Mans Parts. Neither was he one, that would appropriate the Speech, wholy to Himself; or delight to out-vie others; But leave a Liberty, to the Co-Assessours, to take their Turns, to Wherein he would draw a Man on, and allure him, to speak upon such a Subject, as wherein he was peculiarly Skilfull, and would delight to speak. And, for Himself, he condemned no Mans Observations; But would light his Torch at every Mans Candle.

His Opinions, and Assertions, were, for the most part, Binding; And not contradicted, by any; Rather like Oracles, then Discourses. Which may be imputed, either to the well weighing of his Sentence, by the Skales of Truth, and Reason; Or else, to the Reverence, and Estimation, wherein he was, commonly, had, that no Man would contest with him. So that, there was no Argumentation, or Pro and Con, (as they term it,) at his Table: Or if there chanced to be any, it was Carried with much Submission, and Moderation.

I have often observed; And so have other Men, of great Account; That if he had occasion to repeat another Mans Words, after him; he had an use, and Faculty, to dresse them in better Vestments, and Apparell, then they had before: So that, the Authour should finde his own Speech much amended; And yet the Substance of it still retained. As if it had been Naturall to him, to use good Forms; As Ovid spake, of his Faculty of Versifying;

Et quod tentabam Scribere, Versus erat.

When his Office called him, as he was of the Kings Counsell Learned, to charge any Offenders, either in Criminals, or Capitals; He was never of an Insulting, or Domineering Nature, over them; But alwayes tender Hearted, and carrying himself decently towards the Parties; (Though it was his Duty, to charge them home:) But yet, as one, that looked upon the Example, with the Eye of Severity; But upon the Person, with the Eye of Pitty, and Compassion. And in Civill Businesse, as he was Counseller of Estate, he had the best way of Advising; Not engaging his Master, in any Precipitate, or grievous, Courses; But in Moderate, and Fair, Proceedings: The King, whom he served, giving him this Testimony; That he ever dealt, in Businesse, Suavibus Modis; Which was the way, that was most according to his own Heart.

Neither was He, in his time, lesse Gracious with the Subject, then with his Soveraign: He was ever Acceptable to the House of Commons, when He was a Member thereof. Being the Kings Atturney, & chosen to a place, in Parliament, He was allowed, and dispensed with, to sit in the House; which was not permitted to other Atturneys.

And as he was a good Servant, to his Master; Being never, in 19. years Service, (as himself averred,) rebuked by the King, for any Thing, relating to his Majesty; So he was a good Master, to his Servants; And rewarded their long Attendance, with good Places, freely, when they fell into his Power. Which was the Cause, that so many young Gentlemen, of Bloud, and Quality, sought to list themselves, in his Retinew. And if he were abused, by any of them, in their Places; It was onely the Errour of the Goodnesse of his Nature; But the Badges of their Indiscretions, and Intemperances.

12.

BEN JONSON.

Born 1573. Died 1637.

By CLARENDON.

Ben Johnsons name can never be forgotten, havinge by his very good learninge, and the severity of his nature, and manners, very much reformed the Stage and indeede the English poetry it selfe; his naturall advantages were judgement to order and governe fancy, rather then excesse of fancy, his productions beinge slow and upon deliberation, yett then aboundinge with greate witt and fancy, and will lyve accordingly, and surely as he did exceedingly exalte the English language, in eloquence, propriety, and masculyne exspressions, so he was the best judge of, and fittest to prescribe rules to poetry and poetts, of any man who had lyved with or before him, or since, if M'r Cowly had not made a flight beyounde all men, with that modesty yett to own much of his to the example and learninge of Ben. Johnson: His conversation was very good and with the men of most note, and he had for many yeares an extraordinary kindnesse for M'r Hyde, till he founde he betooke himselfe to businesse, which he believed ought never to be preferred before his company: He lyved to be very old, and till the Palsy made a deepe impression upon his body and his minde.

13.

By JAMES HOWELL.

To Sir THO. HAWK. Knight.

Sir,

I was invited yesternight to a solemne supper by B.I. wher you were deeply remembred, ther was good company, excellent chear, choice wines, and joviall welcom; one thing interven'd which almost spoyld the relish of the rest, that B. began to engross all the discourse, to vapour extremely of himself, and by villifying others to magnifie his owne muse; T. Ca. buz'd me in the eare, that though Ben had barreld up a great deal of knowledg, yet it seems he had not read the Ethiques, which among other precepts of morality forbid self-commendation, declaring it to be an ill favourd solecism in good manners; It made me think upon the Lady (not very young) who having a good while given her guests neat entertainment, a capon being brought upon the table, instead of a spoon she took a mouthfull of claret and spouted it into the poope of the hollow bird; such an accident happend in this entertainment you know—Proprio laus sordet in ore; be a mans breath never so sweet, yet it makes ones prayses stink, if he makes his owne mouth the conduit pipe of it; But for my part I am content to dispense with this Roman infirmity of B. now that time hath snowed upon his pericranium. You know Ovid, and (your) Horace were subject to this humour, the first bursting out into,

Tamq; opus exegi quod nec Iovis ira, nec ignis, &c.

The other into,

Exegi monumentum ære perennius, &c.

As also Cicero while he forc'd himself into this Exameter; O fortunatam natam me consule Romam. Ther is another reason that excuseth B. which is, that if one be allowed to love the naturall issue of his body, why not that of the brain, which is of a spirituall and more noble extraction; I preserve your manuscripts safe for you till your return to London, what newes the times afford this bearer will impart unto you. So I am,

Sir,
Your very humble and most faithfull Servitor, J.H.
Westmin. 5 Apr. 1636.

14.

HENRY HASTINGS.

Born 1551. Died 1650.

By SHAFTESBURY.

Mr. Hastings, by his quality, being the son, brother, and uncle to the Earls of Huntingdon, and his way of living, had the first place amongst us. He was peradventure an original in our age, or rather the copy of our nobility in ancient days in hunting and not warlike times; he was low, very strong and very active, of a reddish flaxen hair, his clothes always green cloth, and never all worth when new five pounds. His house was perfectly of the old fashion, in the midst of a large park well stocked with deer, and near the house rabbits to serve his kitchen, many fish-ponds, and great store of wood and timber; a bowling-green in it, long but narrow, full of high ridges, it being never levelled since it was ploughed; they used round sand bowls, and it had a banqueting-house like a stand, a large one built in a tree. He kept all manner of sport-hounds that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger, and hawks long and short winged; he had all sorts of nets for fishing: he had a walk in the New Forest and the manor of Christ Church. This last supplied him with red deer, sea and river fish; and indeed all his neighbours' grounds and royalties were free to him, who bestowed all his time in such sports, but what he borrowed to caress his neighbours' wives and daughters, there being not a woman in all his walks of the degree of a yeoman's wife or under, and under the age of forty, but it was extremely her fault if he were not intimately acquainted with her. This made him very popular, always speaking kindly to the husband, brother, or father, who was to boot very welcome to his house whenever he came. There he found beef pudding and small beer in great plenty, a house not so neatly kept as to shame him or his dirty shoes, the great hall strewed with marrow bones, full of hawks' perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers, the upper sides of the hall hung with the fox-skins of this and the last year's skinning, here and there a polecat intermixed, guns and keepers' and huntsmen's poles in abundance. The parlour was a large long room, as properly furnished; on a great hearth paved with brick lay some terriers and the choicest hounds and spaniels; seldom but two of the great chairs had litters of young cats in them, which were not to be disturbed, he having always three or four attending him at dinner, and a little white round stick of fourteen inches long lying by his trencher, that he might defend such meat as he had no mind to part with to them. The windows, which were very large, served for places to lay his arrows, crossbows, stonebows, and other such like accoutrements; the corners of the room full of the best chose hunting and hawking poles; an oyster-table at the lower end, which was of constant use twice a day all the year round, for he never failed to eat oysters before dinner and supper through all seasons: the neighbouring town of Poole supplied him with them. The upper part of this room had two small tables and a desk, on the one side of which was a church Bible, on the other the Book of Martyrs; on the tables were hawks' hoods, bells, and such like, two or three old green hats with their crowns thrust in so as to hold ten or a dozen eggs, which were of a pheasant kind of poultry he took much care of and fed himself; tables, dice, cards, and boxes were not wanting. In the hole of the desk were store of tobacco-pipes that had been used. On one side of this end of the room was the door of a closet, wherein stood the strong beer and the wine, which never came thence but in single glasses, that being the rule of the house exactly observed, for he never exceeded in drink or permitted it. On the other side was a door into an old chapel not used for devotion; the pulpit, as the safest place, was never wanting of a cold chine of beef, pasty of venison, gammon of bacon, or great apple-pie, with thick crust extremely baked. His table cost him not much, though it was very good to eat at, his sports supplying all but beef and mutton, except Friday, when he had the best sea-fish as well as other fish he could get, and was the day that his neighbours of best quality most visited him. He never wanted a London pudding, and always sung it in with 'my part lies therein-a.' He drank a glass of wine or two at meals, very often syrrup of gilliflower in his sack, and had always a tun glass without feet stood by him holding a pint of small beer, which he often stirred with a great sprig of rosemary. He was well natured, but soon angry, calling his servants bastard and cuckoldy knaves, in one of which he often spoke truth to his own knowledge, and sometimes in both, though of the same man. He lived to a hundred, never lost his eyesight, but always writ and read without spectacles, and got to horse without help. Until past fourscore he rode to the death of a stag as well as any.

15.

CHARLES I.

Born 1600. Succeeded James I 1625. Beheaded 1649.

By CLARENDON.

The severall unhearde of insolencyes which this excellent Prince was forced to submitt to, at the other tymes he was brought before that odious judicatory, his Majesticke behaviour under so much insolence, and resolute insistinge upon his owne dignity, and defendinge it by manifest authorityes in the lawe, as well as by the cleerest deductions from reason, the pronouncinge that horrible sentence upon the most innocent person in the worlde, the execution of that sentence by the most execrable murther that ever was committed, since that of our blessed Savyour, and the circumstances therof, the application and interposition that was used by some noble persons to prævent that wofull murther, and the hypocrisy with which that interposition was deluded, the Saintlike behaviour of that blessed Martir, and his Christian courage and patience at his death, are all particulars so well knowne, and have bene so much inlarged upon in treatises peculiarly applyed to that purpose, that the farther mentioninge it in this place, would but afflicte and grieve the reader, and make the relation itselfe odious; and therfore no more shall be sayd heare of that lamentable Tragedy, so much to the dishonour of the Nation, and the religion professed by it; but it will not be unnecessary to add the shorte character of his person, that posterity may know the inestimable losse which the nation then underwent in beinge deprived of a Prince whose example would have had a greater influence upon the manners and piety of the nation, then the most stricte lawes can have.

To speake first of his private qualifications as a man, before the mention of his princely and royall virtues, He was, if ever any, the most worthy of the title of an honest man; so greate a lover of justice, that no temptation could dispose him to a wrongfull action, except it were so disguysed to him, that he believed it to be just; he had a tendernesse and compassion of nature, which restrayned him from ever doinge a hard hearted thinge, and therfore he was so apt to grant pardon to Malefactors, that his Judges represented to him the damage and insecurity to the publique that flowed from such his indulgence, and then he restrayned himselfe from pardoninge ether murthers or highway robberyes, and quickly decerned the fruits of his severity, by a wounderfull reformation of those enormityes. He was very punctuall and regular in his devotions, so that he was never knowne to enter upon his recreations or sportes, though never so early in the morninge, before he had bene at publique prayers, so that on huntinge dayes, his Chaplynes were bounde to a very early attendance, and he was likewise very stricte in observinge the howres of his private cabbinett devotions, and was so seveare an exactor of gravity and reverence in all mention of religion, that he could never indure any light or prophane worde in religion, with what sharpnesse of witt so ever it was cover'd; and though he was well pleased and delighted with readinge verses made upon any occasyon, no man durst bringe before him any thinge that was prophane or uncleane, that kinde of witt had never any countenance then. He was so greate an example of conjugall affection, that they who did not imitate him in that particular, did not bragge of ther liberty, and he did not only permitt but directe his Bishopps to prosequte those skandalous vices, in the Ecclesiasticall Courtes, against persons of eminence, and neere relation to his service.

His kingly virtues had some mixture and allay that hindred them from shyninge in full lustre, and from producinge those fruites they should have bene attended with; he was not in his nature bountifull, though he gave very much, which appeared more after the Duke of Buckinghams death, after which those showers fell very rarely, and he paused to longe in givinge, which made those to whome he gave lesse sensible of the benefitt. He kept state to the full, which made his Courte very orderly, no man prsesuminge to be seene in a place wher he had no pretence to be; he saw and observed men longe, before he receaved any about his person, and did not love strangers, nor very confident men. He was a patient hearer of causes, which he frequently accustomed himselfe to, at the Councell Board, and judged very well, and was dextrous in the mediatinge parte, so that he often putt an end to causes by perswasion, which the stubbornesse of mens humours made delatory in courts of justice. He was very fearelesse in his person, but not enterpryzinge, and had an excellent understandinge, but was not confident enough of it: which made him often tymes chaunge his owne opinion for a worse, and follow the advice of a man, that did not judge so well as himselfe: and this made him more irresolute, then the conjuncture of his affayres would admitt: If he had bene of a rougher and more imperious nature, he would have founde more respecte and duty, and his not applyinge some seveare cures, to approchinge evills, proceeded from the lenity of his nature, and the tendernesse of his conscience, which in all cases of bloode, made him choose the softer way, and not hearken to seveare councells how reasonably soever urged. This only restrayned him from pursuinge his advantage in the first Scotts expedition, when humanely speakinge, he might have reduced that Nation to the most slavish obedyence that could have bene wished, but no man can say, he had then many who advized him to it, but the contrary, by a wounderfull indisposition all his Councell had to fightinge, or any other fatigue. He was alwayes an immoderate lover of the Scottish nation, havinge not only bene borne ther, but educated by that people and besiedged by them alwayes, havinge few English aboute him till he was kinge, and the major number of his servants beinge still of those, who he thought could never fayle him, and then no man had such an ascendent over him, by the lowest and humblest insinuations, as Duke Hambleton had.

As he excelled in all other virtues, so in temperance he was so stricte that he abhorred all deboshry to that degree, that at a greate festivall solemnity wher he once was, when very many of the nobility of the English and Scotts were entertayned, he was[1] told by one who withdrew from thence, what vast draughts of wine they dranke, and that ther was one Earle who had dranke most of the rest downe and was not himselfe mooved or altred, the kinge sayd that he deserved to be hanged, and that Earle comminge shortly into the roome wher his Majesty was, in some gayty to shew how unhurte he was from that battle, the kinge sent one to bidd him withdraw from his Majestys presence, nor did he in some dayes after appeare before the kinge.

Ther were so many miraculous circumstances contributed to his ruine, that men might well thinke that heaven and earth conspired it, and that the starres designed it, though he was from the first declension of his power, so much betrayed by his owne servants, that there were very few who remayned faythfull to him; yett that trechery proceeded not from any treasonable purpose to do him any harme, but from particular and personall animosityes against other men; and afterwards the terrour all men were under of the Parliament and the guilte they were conscious of themselves, made them watch all opportunityes to make themselves gratious to those who could do them good, and so they became spyes upon ther master, and from one piece of knavery, were hardned and confirmed to undertake another, till at last they had no hope of præservation but by the destruction of ther master; And after all this, when a man might reasonably believe, that lesse then a universall defection of three nations, could not have reduced a greate kinge to so ugly a fate, it is most certayne that in that very howre when he was thus wickedly murthered in the sight of the sunn, he had as greate a share in the heartes and affections of his subjects in generall, was as much beloved, esteemed and longed for by the people in generall of the three nations, as any of his predecessors had ever bene. To conclude, he was the worthyest gentleman, the best master, the best frende, the best husbande, the best father, and the best Christian, that the Age in which he lyved had produced, and if he was not the best kinge, if he was without some parts and qualityes which have made some kings greate and happy, no other Prince was ever unhappy, who was possessed of half his virtues and indowments, and so much without any kinde of vice.

[Footnote 1: 'he was' altered to 'being' in ed. 1792.]

16.

By SIR PHILIP WARWICK.

He was a person, tho' born sickly, yet who came thro' temperance and exercise, to have as firm and strong a body, as most persons I ever knew, and throughout all the fatigues of the warr, or during his imprisonment, never sick. His appetite was to plain meats, and tho' he took a good quantity thereof, yet it was suitable to an easy digestion. He seldom eat of above three dishes at most, nor drank above thrice: a glasse of small beer, another of claret wine, and the last of water; he eat suppers as well as dinners heartily; but betwixt meales, he never medled with any thing. Fruit he would eat plentifully, and with this regularity, he moved as steddily, as a star follows its course. His deportment was very majestick; for he would not let fall his dignity, no not to the greatest Forraigners, that came to visit him and his Court; for tho' he was farr from pride, yet he was carefull of majestie, and would be approacht with respect and reverence. His conversation was free, and the subject matter of it (on his own side of the Court) was most commonly rational; or if facetious, not light. With any Artist or good Mechanick, Traveller, or Scholar he would discourse freely; and as he was commonly improved by them, so he often gave light to them in their own art or knowledge. For there were few Gentlemen in the world, that knew more of useful or necessary learning, than this Prince did: and yet his proportion of books was but small, having like Francis the first of France, learnt more by the ear, than by study. His way of arguing was very civil and patient; for he seldom contradicted another by his authority, but by his reason: nor did he by any petulant dislike quash another's arguments; and he offered his exception by this civill introduction, By your favour, Sir, I think otherwise on this or that ground: yet he would discountenance any bold or forward addresse unto him. And in suits or discourse of busines he would give way to none abruptly to enter into them, but lookt, that the greatest Persons should in affairs of this nature addresse to him by his proper Ministers, or by some solemn desire of speaking to him in their own persons. His exercises were manly; for he rid the great horse very well; and on the little saddle he was not only adroit, but a laborious hunter or field-man: and they were wont to say of him, that he fail'd not to do any of his exercises artificially, but not very gracefully; like some well-proportion'd faces, which yet want a pleasant air of countenance. He had a great plainnes in his own nature, and yet he was thought even by his Friends to love too much a versatile man; but his experience had thorowly weaned him from this at last.

He kept up the dignity of his Court, limiting persons to places suitable to their qualities, unless he particularly call'd for them. Besides the women, who attended on his beloved Queen and Consort, he scarce admitted any great Officer to have his wife in the family. Sir Henry Vane was the first, that I knew in that kind, who having a good dyet as Comptroller of the Houshold, and a tenuity of fortune, was winkt at; so as the Court was fill'd, not cramm'd. His exercises of Religion were most exemplary; for every morning early, and evening not very late, singly and alone, in his own bed-chamber or closet he spent some time in private meditation: (for he durst reflect and be alone) and thro' the whole week, even when he went a hunting, he never failed, before he sat down to dinner, to have part of the Liturgy read unto him and his menial servants, came he never so hungry, or so late in: and on Sundays and Tuesdays he came (commonly at the beginning of Service) to the Chappell, well attended by his Court-Lords, and chief Attendants, and most usually waited on by many of the Nobility in town, who found those observances acceptably entertain'd by him. His greatest enemies can deny none of this; and a man of this moderation of mind could have no hungry appetite to prey upon his subjects, tho' he had a greatnes of mind not to live precariously by them. But when he fell into the sharpnes of his afflictions, (than which few men underwent sharper) I dare say, I know it, (I am sure conscientiously I say it) tho' God dealt with him, as he did with St. Paul, not remove the thorn, yet he made his grace sufficient to take away the pungency of it: for he made as sanctified an use of his afflictions, as most men ever did.

No Gentleman in his three nations, tho' there were many more learned, (for I have supposed him but competently learned, tho' eminently rational) better understood the foundations of his own Church, and the grounds of the Reformation, than he did: which made the Pope's Nuncio to the Queen, Signior Con, to say (both of him and Arch-Bishop Laud, when the King had forced the Archbishop to admit a visit from, and a conference with the Nuncio) That when he came first to Court, he hoped to have made great impressions there; but after he had conferr'd with Prince and Prelate, (who never denyed him any thing frowardly or ignorantly, but admitted all, which primitive and uncorrupted Rome for the first 500 years had exercised,) he declared he found, That they resolved to deal with his Master, the Pope, as wrestlers do with one another, take him up to fling him down. And therefore tho' I cannot say, I know, that he wrote his Icon Basilike, or Image, which goes under his own name; yet I can say, I have heard him, even unto my unworthy selfe, say many of those things it contains: and I have bin assur'd by Mr. Levett, (one of the Pages of his Bedchamber, and who was with him thro' all his imprisonments) that he hath not only seen the Manuscript of that book among his Majestie's papers at the Isle of Wight, but read many of the chapters himselfe: and Mr. Herbert, who by the appointment of Parliament attended him, says, he saw the Manuscript in the King's hand, as he believed; but it was in a running character, and not that which the King usually wrote. And whoever reads his private and cursory letters, which he wrote unto the Queen, and to some great men (especially in his Scotch affairs, set down by Mr. Burnet, when he stood single, as he did thro' all his imprisonments) the gravity and significancy of that style may assure a misbeliever, that he had head and hand enough to express the ejaculations of a good, pious, and afflicted heart; and Solomon says, that affliction gives understanding, or elevates thoughts: and we cannot wonder, that so royal a heart, sensible of such afflictions, should make such a description of them, as he hath done in that book.

And tho' he was of as slow a pen, as of speech; yet both were very significant: and he had that modest esteem of his own parts, that he would usually say, He would willingly make his own dispatches, but that he found it better to be a Cobler, than a Shoomaker. I have bin in company with very learned men, when I have brought them their own papers back from him, with his alterations, who ever contest his amendments to have bin very material. And I once by his commandment brought him a paper of my own to read, to see, whether it was suitable unto his directions, and he disallow'd it slightingly: I desir'd him, I might call Doctor Sanderson to aid me, and that the Doctor might understand his own meaning from himselfe; and with his Majestie's leave, I brought him, whilst he was walking, and taking the aire; whereupon wee two went back; but pleas'd him as little, when wee return'd it: for smilingly he said, A man might have as good ware out of a Chandler's shop: but afterwards he set it down with his own pen very plainly, and suitable unto his own intentions. The thing was of that nature, (being too great an owning of the Scots, when Duke Hamilton was in the heart of England so meanely defeated, and like the crafty fox lay out of countenance in the hands of his enemies,) that it chilled the Doctors ink; and when the matter came to be communicated, those honourable Persons, that then attended him, prevayl'd on him to decline the whole. And I remember, when his displeasure was a little off, telling him, how severely he had dealt in his charactering the best pen in England, Dr. Sanderson's; he told me, he had had two Secretaries, one a dull man in comparison of the other, and yet the first best pleas'd him: For, said he, my Lord Carleton ever brought me my own sense in my own words; but my Lord Faulkland most commonly brought me my instructions in so fine a dress, that I did not alwaies own them. Which put me in mind to tell him a story of my Lord Burleigh and his son Cecil: for Burleigh being at Councill, and Lord Treasurer, reading an order penn'd by a new Clerk of the Councill, who was a Wit and Scholar, he flung it downward to the lower end of the Table to his son, the Secretary, saying, Mr. Secretary, you bring in Clerks of the Councill, who will corrupt the gravity and dignity of the style of the Board: to which the Secretary replied, I pray, my Lord, pardon this, for this Gentleman is not warm in his place, and hath had so little to do, that he is wanton with his pen: but I will put so much busines upon him, that he shall be willing to observe your Lordship's directions. These are so little stories, that it may be justly thought, I am either vain, or at leasure to sett them down; but I derive my authority from an Author, the world hath ever reverenced, viz, Plutarch; who writing the lives of Alexander the great and Julius Cesar, runs into the actions, flowing from their particular natures, and into their private conversation, saying, These smaller things would discover the men, whilst their great actions only discover the power of their States.

One or two things more then I may warrantably observe: First, as an evidence of his natural probity, whenever any young Nobleman or Gentleman of quality, who was going to travell, came to kiss his hand, he cheerfully would give them some good counsel, leading to morall virtue, especially to good conversation; telling them, that If he heard they kept good company abroad, he should reasonably expect, they would return qualified to serve him and their Country well at home; and he was very carefull to keep the youth in his times uncorrupted. This I find in the Mémoires upon James Duke Hamilton, was his advice unto that noble and loyal Lord, William, afterwards, Duke Hamilton, who so well serv'd his Son, and never perfidiously disserv'd him, when in armes against him. Secondly, his forementioned intercepted letters to the Queen at Naisby had this passage in them, where mentioning religion, he said, This is the only thing, wherein we two differ; which even unto a miscreant Jew would have bin proofe enough of this King's sincerity in his religion; and had it not bin providence or inadvertence, surely those, who had in this kind defam'd him, would never themselves have publish'd in print this passage, which thus justified him.

This may be truly said, That he valued the Reformation of his own Church, before any in the world; and was as sensible and as knowing of, and severe against, the deviations of Rome from the primitive Church, as any Gentleman in Christendom; and beyond those errors, no way quarrelsom towards it: for he was willing to give it its due, that it might be brought to be willing to accept, at least to grant, such an union in the Church, as might have brought a free and friendly communion between Dissenters, without the one's totall quitting his errors, or the other's being necessitated to partake therein: and I truly believe this was the utmost both of his and his Archbishop's inclinations; and if I may not, yet both these Martyrs confessions on the scaffold (God avert the prophecy of the last, Venient Romani) surely may convince the world, that they both dyed true Assertors of the Reformation. And the great and learned light of this last age, Grotius, soon discern'd this inclination in him: for in his dedication of his immortal and scarce ever to be parallel'd book, De Jure Belli & Pacis, he recommends it to Lewis XIII, King of France, as the most Royall and Christian design imaginable for his Majestic to become a means to make an union amongst Christians in profession of religion; and therein he tells him, how well-knowing and well-disposed the King of England was thereunto. In a word, had he had as daring and active a courage to obviate danger; as he had a steddy and undaunted in all hazardous rencounters; or had his active courage equall'd his passive, the rebellious and tumultuous humor of those, who were disloyall to him, probably had been quash'd in their first rise: for thro'-out the English story it may be observed, that the souldier-like spirit in the Prince hath bin ever much more fortunate and esteem'd, than the pious: a Prince's awfull reputation being of much more defence to him, than his Regall (nay Legall) edicts.

17.

THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

Thomas Wentworth, knighted 1611, second baronet 1614, created Viscount Wentworth 1628, Earl of Strafford 1640.

Born 1593. Beheaded 1641.

By CLARENDON.

All thinges beinge thus transacted, to conclude the fate of this greate person, he was on the 12. day of May brought from the Tower of London, wher he had bene a prysoner neere six moneths, to the Skaffold on Tower Hill, wher with a composed, undaunted courage, he told the people, he was come thither to satisfy them with his heade, but that he much feared, the reformation which was begunn in bloode, would not proove so fortunate to the kingdom as they exspected, and he wished, and after greate expressyons of his devotion to the Church of Englande, and the Protestant Religion established by Law and professed in that Church, of his loyalty to the Kinge, and affection to the peace and welfare of the Kingdome, with marvellous tranquillity of minde, he deliver'd his Heade to the blocke, wher it was sever'd from his body at a blow; many of the standers by, who had not bene over charitable to him in his life, beinge much affected with the courage and Christianity of his death. Thus fell the greatest subjecte in power (and little inferiour to any in fortune) that was at that tyme in ether of the three Kingdomes; who could well remember the tyme when he ledd those people, who then pursued him to his grave. He was a man of greate partes and extraordinary indowments of nature, not unadorned with some addicion of Arte and learninge, though that agayne was more improoved and illustrated by the other, for he had a readynesse of conception, and sharpnesse of expressyon, which made his learninge thought more, then in truth it was. His first inclinations and addresses to the Courte, were only to establish his Greatnesse in the Country, wher he apprehended some Actes of power from the[1] L'd Savill, who had bene his ryvall alwayes ther, and of late had strenghtened himselfe by beinge made a Privy Counsellour, and Officer at Courte, but his first attempts were so prosperous that he contented not himselfe with beinge secure from his power in the Country, but rested not till he had bereaved him of all power and place in Courte, and so sent him downe a most abject disconsolate old man to his Country, wher he was to have the superintendency over him too, by getting himselfe at that tyme made L'd President of the North. These successes, applyed to a nature too elate and arrogant of it selfe, and a quicker progresse into the greatest imployments and trust, made him more transported with disdayne of other men, and more contemninge the formes of businesse, then happily he would have bene, if he had mett with some interruptions in the beginning, and had passed in a more leasurely gradation to the office of a Statesman. He was no doubte of greate observation, and a piercinge judgement both into thinges and persons, but his too good skill in persons made him judge the worse of thinges, for it was his misfortune to be of a tyme, wherin very few wise men were æqually imployed with him, and scarce any (but the L'd Coventry, whose trust was more confined) whose facultyes and abilityes were æquall to his, so that upon the matter he wholy relyed upon himselfe, and decerninge many defects in most men, he too much neglected what they sayd or did. Of all his passyons his pryde was most prædominant, which a moderate exercise of ill fortune might have corrected and reformed, and which was by the hande of heaven strangely punished, by bringinge his destruction upon him, by two thinges, that he most despised, the people, and S'r Harry Vane; In a worde, the Epitaph which Plutarch recordes, that Silla wrote for himselfe, may not be unfitly applyed to him; That no man did ever passe him, ether in doinge good to his frends, or in doinge mischieve to his enimyes, for his Actes of both kindes were most exemplar and notorious.

[Footnote 1: 'old' inserted in another hand before 'L'd'.]

18.

By SIR PHILIP WARWICK.

The Lord Viscount Wentworth, Lord President of the North, whom the Lord Treasurer Portland had brought into his Majestie's affairs, from his ability and activity had wrought himselfe much into his Majestie's confidence; and about the year 1632 was appointed by the King to be Lord Deputy of Ireland, where the state of affairs was in no very good posture, the revenue of the crown not defraying the standing army there, nor the ordinary expences; and the deportment of the Romanists being there also very insolent, and the Scots plantations in the northern parts of that Realm looking upon themselves, as if they had been a distinct body. So as here was subject matter enough for this great man to work on; and considering his hardines, it may well be supposed, that the difficulties of his employment, being means to shew his abilities, were gratefull to him; for he was every way qualified for busines; his naturall faculties being very strong and pregnant, his understanding, aided by a good phansy, made him quick in discerning the nature of any busines; and thro' a cold brain he became deliberate and of a sound judgement. His memory was great, and he made it greater by confiding in it. His elocution was very fluent, and it was a great part of his talent readily to reply, or freely to harangue upon any subject. And all this was lodged in a sowre and haughty temper; so as it may probably be believed, he expected to have more observance paid to him, than he was willing to pay to others, tho' they were of his own quality; and then he was not like to conciliate the good will of men of the lesser station.

His acquired parts, both in University and Inns-of-Court Learning, as likewise his forreign-travells, made him an eminent man, before he was a conspicuous; so as when he came to shew himselfe first in publick affairs, which was in the House of Commons, he was soon a bell-weather in that flock. As he had these parts, he knew how to set a price on them, if not overvalue them: and he too soon discovered a roughnes in his nature, which a man no more obliged by him, than I was, would have called an injustice; tho' many of his Confidents, (who were my good friends, when I like a little worm, being trod on, would turn and laugh, and under that disguise say as piquant words, as my little wit would help me with) were wont to swear to me, that he endeavoured to be just to all, but was resolv'd to be gracious to none, but to those, whom he thought inwardly affected him: which never bowed me, till his broken fortune, and as I thought, very unjustifiable prosecution, made me one of the fifty six, who gave a negative to that fatall Bill, which cut the thread of his life.

He gave an early specimen of the roughnes of his nature, when in the eager pursuit of the House of Commons after the Duke of Buckingham, he advised or gave a counsel against another, which was afterwards taken up and pursued against himselfe. Thus pressing upon another man's case, he awakened his own fate. For when that House was in consultation, how to frame the particular charge against that great Duke, he advised to make a generall one, and to accuse him of treason, and to let him afterwards get off, as he could; which befell himselfe at last. I beleive he should make no irrational conjecture, who determined, that his very eminent parts to support a Crown, and his very rugged nature to contest disloyalty, or withstand change of government, made his enemies implacable to him. It was a great infirmity in him, that he seem'd to overlooke so many, as he did; since every where, much more in Court, the numerous or lesser sort of attendants can obstruct, create jealousies, spread ill reports, and do harme: for as 'tis impossible, that any power or deportment should satisfy all persons: so there a little friendlines and opennes of carriage begets hope, and lessens envy.

In his person he was of a tall stature, but stooped much in the neck. His countenance was cloudy, whilst he moved, or sat thinking; but when he spake, either seriously or facetiously, he had a lightsom and a very pleasant ayre: and indeed whatever he then did, he performed very gracefully. The greatnes of the envy, that attended him, made many in their prognosticks to bode him an ill end; and there went current a story of the dream of his Father, who being both by his wife, nighest friends, and Physicians, thought to be at the point of his death, fell suddenly into so profound a sleep, and lay quietly so long, that his Wife, uncertain of his condition, drew nigh his bed, to observe, whether she could hear him breath, and gently touching him, he awaked with great disturbance, and told her the reason was, she had interrupted him in a dream, which most passionately he desired to have known the end of. For, said he, I dream'd one appear'd to me, assuring me, that I should have a son, (for 'till then he had none) who should be a very great and eminent man: but—and in this instant thou didst awake me, whereby I am bereaved of the knowledge of the further fortune of the child. This I heard, when this Lord was but in the ascent of his greatnes, and long before his fall: and afterwards conferring with some of his nighest Relations, I found the tradition was not disown'd. Sure I am, that his station was like those turfs of earth or sea-banks, which by the storm swept away, left all the in-land to be drown'd by popular tumult.

19.

THE EARL OF NORTHAMPTON.

Spencer Compton, second Earl of Northampton.

Born 1601. Fell at Hopton Heath 1643.

By CLARENDON.

In this fight, which was sharpe and shorte, there were killed and taken prysoners of the Parliament party above 200. and more then that number wounded, for the horse charginge amonge ther foote, more were hurte then killed; Eight pieces of ther Cannon and most of ther Ammunition was likewise taken. Of the Earles party were slayne but 25. wherof ther were two Captaynes, some inferiour officers, and the rest common men, but ther were as many hurte, and those of the chiefe officers. They who had all the Ensignes of victory (but ther Generall) thought themselves undone, whilst the other syde who had escaped in the night and made a hard shifte to carry his deade body with them, hardly believed they were loosers,

Et velut æquali bellatum sorte fuisset componit cum classe virum:

The truth is, a greater victory had bene an unæquall recompence for a lesse losse. He was a person of greate courage, honour, and fidelity, and not well knowne till his Eveninge, havinge in the ease, and plenty, and luxury of that too happy tyme indulged to himselfe with that licence, which was then thought necessary to greate fortunes, but from the beginninge of these distractions, as if he had bene awakened out of a lethargy, he never proceeded with a lukewarme temper. Before the Standard was sett up, he appeared in Warwickshyre against the L'd Brooke, and as much upon his owne reputation as the justice of the cause (which was not so well then understoode) discountenanced and drove him out of that County, Afterwardes tooke the Ordinance from Banbury Castle, and brought them to the Kinge; assoone as an Army was to be raysed he leavyed with the first upon his owne charge a troope of Horse and a Regiment of foote, and (not like other men, who warily distributed ther Family to both sydes, one Sunn to serve the Kinge, whilst the father, or another sunn engaged as farr for the Parliament) intirely dedicated all his Children to the quarrell, havinge fowre Sunns officers under him, wherof three charged that day in the Fielde; and from the tyme he submitted himselfe to the professyon of a souldyer, no man more punctuall upon commaunde, no man more diligent and vigilant in duty, all distresses he bore like a common man, and all wants and hardnesses as if he had never knowne plenty, or ease, most prodigall of his person to daunger, and would often say, that if he outlived these warres, he was certayne never to have so noble a death, so that it is not to be woundred, if upon such a stroke, the body that felte it, thought it had lost more then a Limbe.

20.

THE EARL OF CARNARVON.

Robert Dormer, created Earl of Carnarvon 1628.

Born 1610. Fell at Newbury 1643.

By CLARENDON.

This day fell the Earle of Carnarvon, who after he had charged and rowted a body of the enimyes horse, cominge carelesly backe by some of the scattered troopers, was by one of them who knew him runn through the body with a sworde, of which he dyed within an howre. He was a person with whose greate partes and virtue the world was not enough acquainted. Before the warr, though his education was adorned by travell, and an exacte observation of the manners of more nations then our common travellers use to visitt, for he had after the view of Spayne, France, and most partes of Italy, spent some tyme in Turkey and those Easterne Countryes, he seemed to be wholly delighted with those looser exercises of pleasure, huntinge, hawkinge, and the like, in which the nobility of that tyme too much delighted to excell; After the troubles begann, havinge the commaunde of the first or secounde Regiment of Horse that was raysed for the Kinges service, he wholy gave himselfe up to the office and duty of a Souldyer, noe man more diligently obeyinge, or more dextrously commaundinge, for he was not only of a very keene courage in the exposinge his person, but an excellent discerner and pursuer of advantage upon his enimy, and had a minde and understandinge very present in the article of daunger, which is a rare benefitt in that profession. Those infirmityes and that licence which he had formerly indulged to himselfe, he putt off with severity, when others thought them excusable under the notion of a souldyer. He was a greate lover of justice, and practiced it then most deliberately, when he had power to do wronge, and so stricte in the observation of his worde and promise, as a Commander, that he could not be perswaded to stay in the west, when he founde it not in his power to performe the agreement he had made with Dorchester and Waymoth. If he had lived he would have proved a greate Ornament to that profession, and an excellent Souldyer, and by his death the Kinge founde a sensible weakenesse in his Army.

21.

LORD FALKLAND.

Lucius Gary, second Viscount Falkland 1633.

Born 1610. Fell at Newbury 1643.

By CLARENDON.

But I must heare take leave a little longer to discontinue this narration, and if the celebratinge the memory of eminent and extraordinary persons, and transmittinge ther greate virtues for the imitation of posterity, be one of the principle endes and dutyes of History, it will not be thought impertinent in this place to remember a losse, which noe tyme will suffer to be forgotten, and no successe or good fortune could repayre; In this unhappy battell was slayne the L'd Viscounte Falkelande, a person of such prodigious partes of learninge and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetenesse and delight in conversation, of so flowinge and obliginge a humanity and goodnesse to mankinde, and of that primitive simplicity, and integrity of life, that if ther were no other brande upon this odious and accursed Civill war, then that single losse, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity:

Turpe mori post te, solo non posse dolore.

Before this parliament his condition of life was so happy, that it was hardly capable of improovement; before he came to twenty yeeres of Age, he was master of a noble fortune, which descended to him by the gifte of a grandfather, without passinge through his father or mother, who were then both alive, and not well enough contented to finde themselves passed by in the descent: His education for some yeeres had bene in Ireland, wher his father was Lord Deputy, so that when he returned into Englande, to the possessyon of his fortune, he was unintangled with any acquaintance or frends, which usually grow up by the custome of conversation, and therfore was to make a pure election of his company; which he chose by other rules then were prescribed to the younge nobility of that tyme; And it cannot be denyed, though he admitted some few to his frendshipp for the agreablenesse of ther natures, and ther undoubted affection to him, that his familiarity and frendshipp for the most parte was with men of the most eminent and sublime partes, and of untouched reputations in pointe of integrity: and such men had a title to his bosome.

He was a greate cherisher of witt, and fancy, and good partes in any man, and if he founde them clowded with poverty or wante, a most liberall and bountifull Patron towards them, even above his fortune, of which in those administrations he was such a dispenser, as if he had bene trusted with it to such uses, and if ther had bene the least of vice in his expence, he might have bene thought too prodigall: He was constant and pertinatious in whatsoever he resolved to doe, and not to be wearyed by any paynes that were necessary to that end, and therfore havinge once resolved not to see London (which he loved above all places) till he had perfectly learned the greeke tonge, he went to his owne house in the Country, and pursued it with that indefatigable industry, that it will not be believed, in how shorte a tyme he was master of it, and accurately reade all the Greeke Historyans. In this tyme, his house beinge within tenn myles of Oxford, he contracted familiarity and frendshipp with the most polite and accurate men of that University; who founde such an immensenesse of witt, and such a soliddity of judgement in him, so infinite a fancy bounde in by a most logicall ratiocination, such a vast knowledge, that he was not ignorant in any thinge, yet such an excessive humillity as if he had knowne nothinge, that they frequently resorted and dwelt with him, as in a Colledge scituated in a purer ayre, so that his house was a University bounde in a lesser volume, whither they came not so much for repose, as study: and to examyne and refyne those grosser propositions, which lazinesse and consent made currant in vulgar conversation.

Many attempts were made upon him, by the instigation of his mother (who was a Lady of another perswasion in religion, and of a most maskulyne understandinge, allayed with the passyon and infirmityes of her owne sex) to perverte him in his piety to the Church of Englande, and to reconcile him to that of Rome, which they prosequted with the more confidence, because he declined no opportunity or occasyon of conference with those of that religion, whether Priests or Laiques, havinge diligently studyed the controversyes, and exactly reade all or the choycest of the Greeke and Latine fathers, and havinge a memory so stupendious, that he remembred on all occasyons whatsoever he reade: And he was so greate an enimy to that passyon and uncharitablenesse which he saw produced by difference of opinion in matters of religion, that in all those disputations with Priests and others of the Roman Church, he affected to manifest all possible civillity to ther persons, and estimation of ther partes, which made them retayne still some hope of his reduction, even when they had given over offeringe farther reasons to him to that purpose: But this charity towards them was much lesned, and any correspondence with them quyte declined, when by sinister Artes they had corrupted his two younger brothers, beinge both children, and stolen them from his house, and transported them beyonde seas, and perverted his sisters, upon which occasyon he writt two large discources against the principle positions of that Religion, with that sharpnesse of Style, and full waight of reason, that the Church is deprived of greate jewells, in the concealment of them, and that they are not published to the world.

He was superiour to all those passyons and affections which attende vulgar mindes, and was guilty of no other ambition, then of knowledge, and to be reputed a lover of all good men, and that made him to much a contemner of those Artes which must be indulged to in the transaction of humane affayrs. In the last shorte Parliament he was a Burgesse in the house of Commons, and from the debates which were then managed with all imaginable gravity and sobriety, he contracted such a reverence to Parliaments that he thought it really impossible, that they could ever produce mischieve or inconvenience to the kingdome, or that the kingdome could be tolerably happy in the intermissyon of them; and from the unhappy, and unseasonable dissolution of that convention, he harboured it may be some jealousy and præjudice of the Courte, towards which he was not before immoderately inclined, his father havinge wasted a full fortune ther, in those offices and imployments, by which other men use to obtayne a greater. He was chosen agayne this Parliament to serve in the same place, and in the beginninge of it, declared himselfe very sharply and sevearely against those exorbitances which had bene most grievous to the State; for he was so rigidd an observer of established Lawes and rules, that he could not indure the least breach or deviation from them, and thought no mischieve so intollerable, as the præsumption of ministers of State, to breake positive rules for reason of State, or judges to transgresse knowne Lawes, upon the title of conveniency or necessity, which made him so seveare against the Earle of Straforde, and the L'd Finch, contrary to his naturall gentlenesse and temper; insomuch as they who did not know his composition to be as free from revenge as it was from pryde, thought that the sharpnesse to the former might proceede from the memory of some unkindnesses, not without a mixture of injustice from him towards his father; but without doubte he was free from those temptations, and was only misledd by the authority of those, who he believed understoode the Lawes perfectly, of which himselfe was utterly ignorant, and if the assumption, which was scarce controverted, had bene true, that an endeavour to overthrow the fundamentall Lawes of the kingdome had beene treason, a stricte understandinge might make reasonable conclusions to satisfy his owne judgement, from the exorbitant partes of ther severall charges.

The greate opinion he had of the uprightnesse and integrity of those persons, who appeared most active, especially of Mr. Hambden, kept him longer from suspectinge any designe against the peace of the kingdome, and though he differed commonly from them in conclusyons, he believed longe ther purposes were honest; When he grew better informed what was Law, and discerned a desyre to controle that Law, by a vote of one, or both houses, no man more opposed those attempts, and gave the adverse party more trouble, by reason and argumentation, insomuch as he was by degrees looked upon as an Advocate for the Courte, to which he contributed so little, that he declined those addresses, and even those invitations, which he was oblieged almost by civillity to entertayne: And he was so jealous of the least imagination that he should inclyne to præferment, that he affected even a morosity to the Courte, and to the Courtyers, and left nothinge undone which might prevent and deverte the Kings or Queenes favour towards him, but the deservinge it: for when the Kinge sent for him once or twice, to speake with him, and to give him thankes for his excellent comportment in those Councells, which his Majesty gratiously tearmed doinge him service, his answers were more negligent and lesse satisfactory than might be exspected, as if he cared only that his Actions should be just, not that they should be acceptable, and that his Majesty should thinke that they proceeded only from the impulsyon of conscience, without any sympathy in his affections, which from a Stoicall and sullen nature might not have bene misinterpreted, yet from a person of so perfecte a habitt of generous and obsequious complyance with all good men, might very well have bene interpreted by the Kinge as more then an ordinary aversenesse to his service, so that he tooke more paynes, and more forced his nature to actions unagreable and unpleasant to it, that he might not be thought to inclyne to the Courte, then any man hath done to procure an office ther; and if any thinge but not doinge his duty could have kept him from receavinge a testimony of the Kings grace and trust at that tyme, he had not bene called to his Councell: not that he was in truth averse to the Courte, or from receavinge publique imployment: for he had a greate devotion to the Kings person, and had before used some small endeavour to be recommended to him for a forrainge negotiation, and had once a desyre to be sent Ambassadour into France, but he abhorred an imagination or doubte should sinke into the thoughts of any man, that in the discharge of his trust and duty in Parliament he had any byas to the Court, or that the Kinge himselfe should apprehende that he looked for a rewarde for beinge honest.

For this reason when he heard it first whispered that the Kinge had a purpose to make him a Counsellour, for which in the beginninge ther was no other grounde, but because he was knowne sufficient, haud semper errat fama, aliquando et elegit, he resolved to declyne it, and at last suffred himselfe only to be overruled by the advice, and persuasions of his frends to submitt to it; afterwards when he founde that the Kinge intended to make him his Secretary of State, he was positive to refuse it, declaringe to his frends that he was most unfitt for it, and that he must ether doe that which would be greate disquyet to his owne nature, or leave that undone which was most necessary to be done by one that was honored with that place, for that the most just and honest men did every day that, which he could not give himselfe leave to doe. And indeede he was so exacte and stricte an observer of justice and truth ad amussim, that he believed those necessary condescensions and applications to the weaknesse of other men, and those artes and insinuations which are necessary for discoveryes and prevention of ill, would be in him a declension from the rule which he acknowledged fitt and absolutely necessary to be practiced in those imploiments, and was so precise in the practique principles he prescribed to himselfe (to all others he was as indulgent) as if he had lived in republica Platonis non in fæce Romuli.

Two reasons prævayled with him to receave the seales, and but for those he had resolutely avoyded them, the first, the consideration that it might bringe some blemish upon the Kings affayres, and that men would have believed that he had refused so greate an honour and trust, because he must have beene with it oblieged to doe somewhat elce, not justifiable; and this he made matter of conscience, since he knew the Kinge made choyce of him before other men, especially because he thought him more honest then other men; the other was, least he might be thought to avoyde it, out of feare to doe an ungratious thinge to the house of Commons, who were sorely troubled at the displacinge S'r Harry Vane, whome they looked upon as remooved for havinge done them those offices they stoode in neede of, and the disdayne of so popular an incumbrance wrought upon him next to the other, for as he had a full appetite of fame by just and generous Actions, so he had an æquall contempt of it by any servile expedients, and he so much the more consented to and approved the justice upon S'r H. Vane, in his owne private judgement, by how much he surpassed most men in the religious observation of a trust, the violation wherof he would not admitt of any excuse for.

For these reasons he submitted to the Kings commaunde, and became his Secretary, with as humble and devoute an acknowledgement of the greatenesse of the obligation, as could be expressed, and as true a sense of it in his hearte; yet two thinges he could never bringe himselfe to whilst he continued in that office, (that was to his death) for which he was contented to be reproched, as for omissyons in a most necessary parte of his place; the one imployinge of Spyes, or givinge any countenance or entertaynement to them, I doe not meane such emissaryes as with daunger will venture to view the enimyes Campe, and bringe intelligence of ther number or quartringe, or such generalls as such an observation can comprehende, but those who by communication of guilte, or dissimulation of manners, wounde themselves into such trust and secretts, as inabled them to make discoveryes for the benefitt of the State; the other, the liberty of openinge letters, upon a suspicion that they might contayne matter of daungerous consequence; for the first, he would say, such instruments must be voyd of all ingenuity and common honesty, before they could be of use, and afterwards they could never be fitt to be credited, and that no single preservation could be worth so generall a wounde and corruption of humane society, as the cherishinge such persons would carry with it: The last he thought such a violation of the Law of nature, that no qualification by office, could justify a single person in the trespasse, and though he was convinced by the necessity and iniquity of the tyme, that those advantages of information were not to be declined, and were necessarily to be practiced, he founde meanes to shifte it from himselfe, when he confessed he needed excuse and pardon for the omissyon, so unwillinge he was to resigne any thinge in his nature, to an obligation in his office. In all other particulars, he filled his place plentifully, beinge sufficiently versed in languages, to understande any that is used in businesse, and to make himselfe agayne understoode: To speake of his integrity, and his high disdayne of any bayte that might seeme to looke towards corruption, in tanto viro, injuria virtutum fuerit.

Some sharpe expressions he used against the Arch-Bishopp of Canterbury, and his concurringe in the first Bill to take away the Votes of Bishopps in the house of Peeres, gave occasyon to some to believe, and opportunity to others to conclude and publish that he was no frende to the Church, and the established goverment of it, and troubled his very frends much, who were more confident of the contrary, then præpared to answer the allegations. The truth is, he had unhappily contracted some præjudice to the Arch-Bishopp, and havinge only knowne him enough, to observe his passyon, when it may be multiplicity of businesse or other indisposition had possessed him, did wish him lesse intangled and ingaged in the businesse of the Courte or State, though, I speake it knowingly, he had a singular estimation and reverence of his greate learninge and confessed integrity, and really thought his lettinge himselfe to those expressyons which implyed a disesteeme of him, or at least an acknowledgement of his infirmityes, would inable him to shelter him from parte of the storme he saw raysed for his destruction, which he abominated with his soule. The givinge his consent to the first Bill for the displacinge the Bishopps, did proceede from two groundes, the first, his not understandinge the originall of ther right and suffrage ther, the other, an opinion that the combination against the whole goverment of the Church by Bishopps, was so violent and furious, that a lesse composition then the dispencinge with ther intermedlinge in sæcular affayres would not præserve the Order, and he was perswaded to this, by the profession of many persons of Honour, who declared they did desyre the one, and would then not presse the other, which in that particular misledd many men; but when his observation and experience made him discerne more of ther intencions then he before suspected, with greate frankenesse he opposed the secound Bill that was præferred for that purpose; and had without scruple the order it selfe in perfecte reverence, and thought too greate encouragement could not possibly be given to learninge, nor too greate rewardes to learned men, and was never in the least degree swayed or moved by the objections which were made against that goverment, holdinge them most ridiculous, or affected to the other which those men fancyed to themselves.

He had a courage of the most cleere and keene temper, and soe farr from feare, that he was not without appetite of daunger, and therfore upon any occasyon of action he alwayes engaged his person in those troopes which he thought by the forwardnesse of the Commanders to be most like to be farthest engaged, and in all such encounters he had aboute him a strange cheerefulnesse and companiablenesse, without at all affectinge the execution that was then principally to be attended, in which he tooke no delight, but tooke paynes to prevent it, wher it was not by resistance necessary, insomuch that at Edgehill, when the Enimy was rowted, he was like to have incurred greate perill by interposinge to save those who had throwne away ther armes, and against whome it may be others were more fierce for ther havinge throwne them away, insomuch as a man might thinke, he came into the Feild only out of curiosity to see the face of daunger, and charity to prævent the sheddinge of bloode; yet in his naturall inclination he acknowledged he was addicted to the professyon of a Souldyer, and shortly after he came to his fortune, and before he came to Age, he went into the Low Countryes with a resolution of procuringe commaunde, and to give himselfe up to it, from which he was converted by the compleate inactivity of that Summer; and so he returned into Englande, and shortly after entred upon that vehement course of study we mencioned before, till the first Alarum from the North, and then agayne he made ready for the feild, and though he receaved some repulse in the commande of a troope of Horse, of which he had a promise, he went a volunteere with the Earle of Essex.

From the entrance into this unnaturall warr, his naturall cheerefulnesse and vivacity grew clowded, and a kinde of sadnesse and dejection of spiritt stole upon him, which he had never bene used to, yet, beinge one of those who believed that one battell would end all differences, and that ther would be so greate a victory on one syde, that the other would be compelled to submitt to any conditions from the victor (which supposition and conclusion generally sunke into the mindes of most men, prævented the lookinge after many advantages which might then have bene layd hold of) he resisted those indispositions, et in luctu bellum inter remedia erat: but after the Kings returne from Brayneforde, and the furious resolution of the two houses, not to admitt any treaty for peace, those indispositions which had before touched him, grew into a perfecte habitt of uncheerefulnesse, and he who had bene so exactly unreserved and affable to all men, that his face and countenance was alwayes present and vacant to his company, and held any clowdinesse, and lesse pleasantnesse of the visage, a kinde of rudenesse or incivillity, became on a suddayne lesse communicable, and thence very sadd, pale, and exceedingly affected with the spleene. In his clothes and habitt, which he had intended before alwayes with more neatenesse, and industry, and exspence, then is usuall to so greate a minde, he was not now only incurious, but too negligent, and in his reception of suitors and the necessary or casuall addresses to his place so quicke, and sharpe, and seveare, that ther wanted not some men (who were strangers to his nature and disposition) who believed him prowde and imperious, from which no mortall man was ever more free. The truth is, as he was of a most incomparable gentlenesse, application, and even a demisnesse and submissyon to good, and worthy, and intire men, so he was naturally (which could not but be more evident in his place which objected him to another conversation, and intermixture, then his owne election had done) adversus males injucundus, and was so ill a dissembler of his dislike, and disinclination to ill men, that it was not possible for such not to discerne it; ther was once in the house of Commons such a declared acceptation of the good service an eminent member had done to them, and as they sayd, to the whole kingdome, that it was mooved, he beinge present, that the Speaker might in the name of the whole house give him thankes, and then that every member might as a testimony of his particular acknowledgement stirr or moove his Hatt towards him, the which (though not ordred) when very many did, the L'd of Falkelande (who believed the service itselfe not to be of that moment, and that an Honourable and generous person could not have stooped to it, for any recompence) insteede of moovinge his Hatt, stretched both his Armes out, and clasped his hands togither upon the Crowne of his Hatt, and held it close downe to his heade, that all men might see how odious that flattery was to him, and the very approbation of the person, though at that tyme most popular.

When ther was any overture or hope of peace, he would be more erecte, and vigorous, and exceedingly sollicitous to presse any thinge which he thought might promote it, and sittinge amongst his frends often after a deepe silence, and frequent sighes, would with a shrill and sadd Accent ingeminate the word, Peace, Peace, and would passyonately professe that the very Agony of the Warr, and the view of the calamityes, and desolation the kingdome did and must indure, tooke his sleepe from him, and would shortly breake his hearte; This made some thinke, or prætende to thinke, that he was so much enamour'd on peace, that he would have bene gladd the Kinge should have bought it at any pryce, which was a most unreasonable calumny, as if a man, that was himselfe the most punctuall and præcise, in every circumstance that might reflecte upon conscience or Honour, could have wished the Kinge to have committed a trespasse against ether; and yet this senselesse skandall made some impression upon him, or at least he used it for an excuse of the daringnesse of his spiritt; for at the leaguer before Gloster, when his frends passionately reprehended him for exposinge his person, unnecessarily to daunger, (as he delighted to visitt the trenches, and neerest approches, and to discover what the enimy did) as beinge so much besyde the duty of his place, that it might be understoode against it, he would say, merrily, that his office could not take away the priviledges of his Age, and that a Secretary in warr might be present at the greatest secrett of daunger, but withall alleadged seriously that it concerned him to be more active in enterpryzes of hazarde, then other men, that all might see that his impatiency for peace, proceeded not from pusillanimity, or feare to adventure his owne person. In the morninge before the battell, as alwayes upon Action, he was very cheerefull, and putt himselfe into the first ranke of the L'd Byrons Regiment, who was then advancinge upon the enimy, who had lyned the Hedges on both sydes with Musqueteers, from whence he was shott with a Musquett on the lower parte of the belly, and in the instant fallinge from his horse, his body was not founde till the next morninge: till when ther was some hope he might have bene a prysoner, though his neerest frends who knew his temper, receaved small comforte from that imagination; thus fell, that incomparable younge man, in the fowre and thirteeth yeere of his Age, havinge so much dispatched the businesse of life, that the oldest rarely attayne to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocence, and whosoever leads such a life, neede not care upon how shorte warninge it be taken from him.