His next
controversy
was
with Baxter.
with Baxter.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v07
6
They were, at the same time, a family that cherished, in prosperity
and in adversity alike, the principles of conduct in both public and
private life to the observation of which the greatness and the
freedom of England are deeply indebted; and, in their case, the
principles in question were practised not less constantly by
the women than by the men. Sir Edmund Verney, ultimus
Angliae Bannerettus, who, with many misgivings as to the policy
of Charles I, had loyally adhered to his cause, fell at Edge-
hill, his right hand, with the royal standard in its grasp, being
severed from his arm; the responsibilities of the headship of the
family descended to his son Ralph and remained with him for
nearly half a century. While Sir Edmund was described as 'one
of the strictness of a Puritan, of the charity of a papist, of the
civility of an Englishman,' Sir Ralph is an admirable example of
the best class of country gentleman of his or any day, gentle and
courteous, the mainstay of his brothers and sisters and kinsmen
and kinswomen of every degree, a thorough man of business, sober
in his religious views, and, in his political, loyal to his convictions,
but with a self-reliant loyalty unintelligible either to courts or to
mobs. Though he had taken the side of the parliament during the
civil war, he went into exile rather than accept the covenant, and
remained there for several years—even after the sequestration
of bis estates had been removed, thanks to the self-sacrificing
exertions of his wife Mary, the heroine par excellence of the
Verney records—Mischief, as Sir Ralph fondly called her, and,
in person, another Henrietta Maria', though not in the benefits
1 There is a prima facie resemblance between the portraits of the two ladies, both
of whom were small in stature.
13_2
## p. 196 (#212) ############################################
196 Historical and Political Writings
which her services brought to her husband. After its chief had
quitted house and country, the remainder of the family seemed to
fall to pieces—the brave Sir Edmund Verney the younger, slain at
Drogheda ; Tom, the black sheep of the family, a most unfortunate
traveller' by land and sea, and the rest of them. But Sir Ralph
survived his beloved wife for nearly half a century, and, in the
days of Charles II and James II, again sat in parliament, and was
again found on the side of civil and religious liberty. The history
of the times, public as well as private, is spread out before us in
this family correspondence, as it had been in no previous collection
since the Paston letters. It may, perhaps, be added that the in-
fluence of literature or learning upon the Verney family is not
perceptibly important, though some of them had been partly
educated at Oxford. The education of ladies in the seventeenth
century was, undoubtedly, inferior to that of some of their Eliza-
bethan predecessors? ; their penmanship is execrable, and their
spelling purely phonetic.
The Correspondence of the Family of Hatton (1601–1704),
though it cannot compare in breadth of interest to the Verney
papers, is one of the most amusing of the collections dating from
this period; though what has been published only forms part of a
larger family correspondence”, and mainly dates from post-restora-
tion times. Lord chancellor Sir Christopher Hatton, of Elizabethan
fame, left a son and namesake who, after the restoration, became
governor of Jersey, and was succeeded in this office by his son,
afterwards first viscount Hatton, to whom most of the letters now
printed were addressed. Nothing can be more characteristic of
the ‘frank age' from which they date than these outspoken family
communings, of which the spelling, by no means the least of their
charms, has, happily, not been modernised by their editor.
For final mention among the letter-writers of this period it has
been thought well to reserve one who may, perhaps, be considered
as the most widely representative of them all, inasmuch as, while
himself not unaccustomed to the lower walks of diplomacy, it is
rather as an 'intelligencer' of long standing, and as a more or less
private letter-writer, that he established his claim to the place
1 This does not specially apply to Anne and Mary Fitton, passages from whose
letters have been published under the title Gossip from a Muniment Room (by lady
Newdigate-Newdegate, 1897), and carry us back to the years 1574—1618. Mary
played only too conspicuous a part at queen Elizabeth's court. Anne may be regarded
as one of the worthies of Warwickshire. Their letters contain more of the prose than
of the poetry of women's experience.
2 The MS Finch-Hatton Correspondence in the British Museum.
## p. 197 (#213) ############################################
James Howell
197
ology, he came tumbling into the world a grave Cadet, a true fees
which he holds in the history of English literature. At the same
time, his general literary activity was such that it would be neither
just nor convenient were not some general account of his literary
labours to be attempted in this place.
Although James Howell earned his appointment by Charles II
as historiographer royal of England by a long succession of publica-
tions to be classed as historical, his enduring title to literary fame
rests on his Familiar Letters (Epistolae Ho-Elianae), which can
only in part be described as historical writing. They occupy a
place of their own in the literature of essays and table-talk clothed
in the mainly fictitious form of personal letters. Before he began
his literary career, James Howell had led an active life, which had
extended over some forty-five years since, to use his own phrase-
',
Cosmopolite ; not born to Land, Lease, House or Office. ' He had
seen many cities and the dwellers therein beyond the limits of
England and his native Wales; he had been engaged in commercial
dealings in Venice and in diplomatic negotiations in Spain, besides
being temporarily employed in foreign service in Denmark and in
France; he had held an administrative post in York, and had thus
come to sit for a time in parliament; and he had been sent on a
confidential mission by Strafford from Dublin to Edinburgh and
London. In 1642, before he had actually begun to perform the
duties of clerk of the privy council, into which office he had been
sworn, he was imprisoned in the Fleet-because of his loyalty or
because of his debts, or for both reasons. During the eight or nine
years of his imprisonment, he lived the laborious life of a man
supporting himself by his pen, and produced a large proportion of
his numerous writings. In these, he at first kept up a display
of antagonism to presbyterianism, becoming, as a matter of course,
involved in controversy with Prynde; but this attitude he modified,
and, in 1651, he was released on bail. During the protectorate, he
sought to secure the goodwill of Cromwell, advocating a compromise
between him and the royal pretender. The restoration, naturally,
he welcomed ; but he obtained nothing from the crown beyond a
small gift of money (£200) and the office aforesaid. Some ironical
consolations addressed to him by disappointed cavaliers led to a
controversy between him and Sir Roger L'Estrange, who had not
much trouble in pointing out certain inconsistencies in Howell's
political profession. He died in 16661.
1 He was buried in the Temple church, where his monument is preserved, though
not on its original site.
>
## p. 198 (#214) ############################################
198
Historical and Political Writings
Such a life might well provide abundant materials for the
volume of Letters which Howell published from his prison in 1645,
and which was succeeded by a second volume in 1647, and a new
edition of both, with a third volume, in 1650. A fourth was added
in a collected edition which appeared in 1655. The reader will
not be long in discerning the fictitious character of many of these
letters. Even so outspoken a writer as he was would hardly have
.
cared actually to send to Buckingham, when at the height of his
power, the ‘few advertisements of the letter of advice (dated
13 February 1626/7), which I would not dare to present, had I not
hopes that the Goodness which is concomitant with your Greatness
would make them venial,' or have troubled Charles I, not long after
Marston moor, with variations on the consolatory fact that, in the
past, other kings had found themselves in an even worse plight.
There is further internal evidence to support the same conclusion,
besides the occasional great length of these letters, their sans gêne,
remarkable even in an age not habituated to reticence, their excess
of anecdotes (though often good in themselves, and always well
told) and of verse, with which an experienced man of the world
would scarcely have tired most of his correspondents. Moreover,
as a matter of fact, the few letters from Howell actually preserved
by those to whom they were sent,' are in a shorter and more
businesslike form.
Of the letters as we have them, some are lucid, as well as
readable, summaries of the political condition and historical de-
velopment of particular countries or communities—Venice, the
united provinces of the Netherlands, the Hanseatic league and
Spain (which he studied with particular curiosity); statements as
to the distribution of different religions on the earth, of the Jews
in Europe, and the like ; accounts of the inquisition, and of par-
ticular episodes of recent or contemporary history. Others are
practically nothing else than short essays—'middles,' as journalists
would call them on social or literary topics of divers kinds,
especially problems of language-for Howell was a scholar by
training as well as by instinct, and, in 1623, after some of his
travels were over, was elected a fellow of his college (Jesus) at
Oxford. His scientific interests appear to have been few, though
he could speculate on the changes in the human body, and,
in moral science, on the mysterious ways of Providence in its
dealing with man', and on demonology, for he was no exception
· Letter 4 in book iv (Jacobs's ed. ), there can be little doubt, is the original of
Parnell's famous tale of the hermit.
## p. 199 (#215) ############################################
Howell's Familiar Letters
199
6
to his generation in his belief in witchcraft. Occasionally, he
turns to more material topics—the potations of the chief nations of
the globe (from 'whisky' to 'cauphe') and the virtues of tobacco,
which even king James acknowledged in circumstances of stress?
All these matters, and a great many others, Howell discusses
in 'these rambling Letters,' 'which indeed,' he writes", "are
naught else than a Legend of the cumbersome Life and various
Fortunes of a Cadet'; and he deprecates the assurances of his
correspondent that
some of them are freighted with many excellent and quiet passages de
livered in a masculine and solid style, adorn'd with much eloquence and stuck
with the choicest flowers pick'd from the Muses garden.
But the praise was not, in all respects, undeserved. Howell com-
bined instruction and entertainment with admirable effect, and
possessed what was still the rare gift of imparting information
that was not only to a large extent new, but, also, true so far as
its purveyor could ascertain its truth. Accuracy of detail, in the
matter of dates and places, was not his fortes; on the other hand,
neither was a tendency to exaggeration, or a habit of garbling his
facts so as to suit his point of view, among his foibles. And,
above all, he said what he had to say clearly, often with not a
little force, and with a humour usually apposite and sound. His
anti-puritanism (as the later conduct of his life shows) was not
very violent, and sometimes takes a rather ingenious turn”; his
personal piety was quite unaffected, though his way of placing on
record his religious habits may savour rather too much of what he
calls 'striking a talley in the Exchequer of Heaven. ' And if, on
this and other occasions, he may seem to talk overmuch about
himself—'what subject,' as Thackeray asks in a passage where
James Howell is honoured by being coupled with Montaigneº +
'does a man know better? ' Thus, his letters as a whole, and
especially the earlier (for the later are not altogether exempt
from the decline noticeable in most continuations) do not fall far
short of his own description of 'Familiar Letters' as
the Keys of the Mind; they open all the Boxes of one's Breast, all the cells
of the Brain, and truly set forth the inward Man; nor can the Pencil so
lively represent the Face as the Pen can do the Fancy? .
i When he found himself in a pigsty.
From the Fleet, 5 May, book 11, letter 61.
3 Syracuse, now Messina' (book I, sect. 1, letter 27), is, perhaps, a rather out-of-
the-way instance of looseness.
* See the clever comparison (it hardly deserves a higher kind of comme
mendation)
between the advantages of prayer and those of praise (book ni, letter 67).
5 Book 1, sect. iv, letter 32.
• Roundabout Papers: On Two Children in Black.
7 Book 11, letter 70.
>
6
5
## p. 200 (#216) ############################################
200
Historical and Political Writings
James Howell's literary activity was very far from being
exhausted by his letters; during the years from 1642 to 1651,
his pen was never at rest, and the habit, once acquired, was never
relinquished. But, in one way or another, most of his lesser pro-
ductions seem more or less supplementary to the work on which his
literary reputation rests. An apparent exception is Dendrologia,
Dodona's Grove, or the Vocall Forest (1640), the earliest of his
publications, which may be described as an allegorical gallery of
characters conveying, under the thin veil of the names of trees
or of designations derived from them, the political sympathies or
antipathies of the writer? An allegory of this sort admitted of
easy multiplication, and Howell appended to it a series of skeleton
pleas, similar in design, for the monarchical form of government?
A second appendix, England's Teares for the present Warres, is a
rhetorical lament by London's mother, England.
In a different vein-one of rough satirical humour—are two
curious pieces of Howell's later years, which, as it were, travesty
the sober summaries exemplified in his letters—A Brief Character
of the Low Countries under the States (1660) and A Perfect De-
scription of the Country of Scotland (1659). The satire against
the Dutch is at least accompanied by a recognition of some of
their merits; but the anti-Scottish tract descends into invective
80 bitter and so coarse that its date alone can excuse it"; the
unerring instinct of Wilkes, more than a century later, selected
it for reproduction, with a sly preamble, in No. 31 of The North
Briton (August 1762).
In his capacity as a traveller, Howell, though familiar only with
western, and parts of southern and central, Europe, promulgated
Instructions for Forreine Travell (1642, republished 1650, with a
1 Cedar' is the emperor; “Oke, Vine, Beech' are the kings of England, France,
Sweden and Poland ; • Elder' is duke Maximilian I of Bavaria (so-called both from his
age and the ill favour he hath amongst us '); 'Elmes,' the nobility; ·Ampeluna,'
France; Adriana,' Venice; 'Alchorana,' Turkey; "Druina,' England; ‘Boetia,'
the university of Oxford, etc. That the opinions suggested by the allegory are not
altogether conventional is shown by the character of Elaiana' (Spain, the land of
oil), which displays discriminating insight.
6
6
6
The Great Conjunction or Parliament of Stars; Ornilogia (sic), or The Great
Consult of Birds ; Anthologia, or Parliament of Flowers; The Assembly of Architects
(on the value of such a pillar as an ancient court of justice); The Insurrection of the
Winds (against rebellion).
* It ends with the expression of a desire that, if England and her Monarch mis-
carry, her Epitaph may be written by her dearly beloved Childe, James Howell. '
' • There are spiders as bigge as Shrimps, and I think as many'—'You may sooner
convert a Jew, than make an ordinary Dutch-man yeild to Arguments that Crosse him. '
5 If the Almighty came down from heaven in the last day with His Angels in their
whitest garments, the Scots 'would run away, crying, The Children of the Chappel are
come again to torment us, let us flie from the abomination of these boys. '
6
## p. 201 (#217) ############################################
Howell's Londinopolis
201
new appendix 'for Travelling into Turkey and the Levant parts,'
which, unlike Fynes Moryson and Coryate, he had himself never
visited). The little book is a very diverting, but, at the same time,
very rational anticipation of the introductions to guidebooks of later
days, containing, as it does, much valuable historical, political and
(allowing for the philological shortcomings of the age) linguistic
observation interspersed with interesting observations on men
and manners.
It could, however, hardly be that he should not be most at home
in London, where, by his own choice, or lodged by the parliament,
he spent a large portion of his life; and his Londinopolis ; An
Historical Discourse or Perlustration of the City of London
(1657), a careful guidebook of London, with a survey of its
several wards, and special mention of its lawcourts, is among
the last literary fruits of his life, bearing the characteristic motto
Senesco, non segnesco. It makes no pretence of being wholly
original; and, indeed, the author confesses that, in this instance, he
has followed the examples of the Lord Bacon's Henry the Seventh,
and my Lord Herbert's Henry the eighth,' of which the noble
authors,
though the composition, and digesting be theirs, whereby they determined
their Books, yet, under favour, touching the main ingredients . . . took them
from others, who had written the life of these Kings before.
Yet the work is far from deficient in vigour, and includes a
* Parallel with other great Cities,' showing in which of twenty
several points they are respectively inferior to London.
1 Of Coryate and his Crudities (1610), as well as of other English travellers, some-
thing has been said ante, vol. iv, pp. 89 ff. Midway between Coryate's over-advertised,
but, as a matter of fact, unjustly decried, book and James Howell's Instructions, there
appeared so much as up to a recent date was allowed to become publicly known of Fynes
Moryson's Travels. The first three parts of his Itinerary were published in 1617; but
part 1v, with an imprimatur dated 1626, remained, unprinted, at Corpus Christi college,
Oxford, till the more important portions of it were published, thanks to the energy of
Charles Hughes, in 1903. The whole work was originally written in Latin, in which form
it is preserved among the Harleian MSS in the British Museum. The English version is
also by Fynes Moryson. On the whole, he was an impartial, as well as a candid, observer,
whose eyes were open to national vices, such as Italian immorality and German
intemperance. Though by no means infallible in his statements of fact, he is not
habitually inaccurate. He writes in good Elizabethan prose, but without any effort
at displaying his scholarship after the fashion of James Howell.
## p. 202 (#218) ############################################
CHAPTER IX
HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL WRITINGS
II
HISTORIES AND MEMOIRS
In the present chapter, which has to deal with a number of
more or less conscious endeavours to put the results of historical
study or of personal experience into a literary shape, it seems well
to begin with a notice of some of the works produced in the period
under discussion which aimed at being perfect history' or history
proper. Whether the masterpiece of the historical works of the
age, Clarendon's Rebellion, viewed in connection with his autobio-
graphy—from which (as will be seen) there is no possibility of
detaching it—be regarded as history proper, or as partaking of the
character of memoirs, it must mark the height of our survey of the
histories of the age, and will, at the same time, serve as a transition
from these to the accumulation of memoirs, diaries, contemporary
biographies and autobiographies, and personal narratives of various
sorts from which some selection will be attempted. What has to
be said of political literature, for the most part, will be added as
occasion may arise, for it would not be feasible to spread the net
widely over the sea of unnumbered pamphlets of an age in which
every subject in church and state was regarded as contentious, and
few were left undiscussed in 'fundamental' argument and with a
vast expenditure of printer's ink.
The days of the later Tudor annalists and chroniclers, thoroughly
national in their spirit and sympathies, had not passed away when
upon some few far-seeing minds had dawned the conception of
historical writing which, while still furnishing a full account of the
events of the past should, at the same time, interest the political
thinker and satisfy the demands of literary art.
Bacon's Historie of the Reigne of King Henry the Seventh
(1622), which may practically be regarded as the earliest of English
## p. 203 (#219) ############################################
Bacon's Reigne of Henry VII 203
historical monographs, was actually composed in 1621, probably
after Bacon, on his release from the Tower, had returned to
Gorhambury. In the circumstances, as Spedding points out, the
book could not be written otherwise than at secondhand; for,
during all but the last six weeks of the four or five months
within which the task was executed, the author was excluded
from London and from the house of Sir Robert Cotton, who
supplied him with some of his material. It is, consequently, in
the main, founded on Bernard André and Polydore Vergil, with
Fabyan and the later chroniclers, and a few additions by Stow,
and, more especially, by Speed, some of whose mistakes were
copied by Bacon. Yet this Life was by no means a piece of mere
compilation, either in design or execution. The conception of the
character of Henry VII dates from an early period of Bacon's career,
as is proved by a fragment of a history of the Tudor reigns from
Henry VIII to Elizabeth, discovered by Spedding? ; which also
seems to refute Mackintosh's idea that the Historie of the Reigne of
King Henry the Seventh was written, not only (as, in a sense, it cer-
tainly was) to justify James I, but, also, to flatter him by representing
Henry VII as a model king and the prototype of the reigning
monarch. For the rest, if features are observable in Bacon's king
Henry which seem to support Mackintosh's view (thus, Henry
was careful to obtain good intelligence from abroad'), there
are others in which the resemblance is most imperfect for his
pleasures, there is no news of them'; ‘he was governed by none')
—though it might be possible to see in this very unlikeness the
most subtle flattery. There is certainly no flattery to be found in
some touches of unmistakable irony-in the reference to Henry's
great attention to religious foundations as he became old, or in the
turn given to the application of the phrase "his Salomon of England
(for Salomon also was too heavy upon his people in exactions). '
On the whole, Henry VII, in the mirror of Bacon's narrative,
appears, not as a man of genius, but as a wise and singularly ready
politician, and as one of whom it might be said that 'what he
minded he compassed. ' It need hardly be added that the spirit of
the book is thoroughly monarchical ; the writer's contempt for
'the rude people,' always intent upon being deceived, is especially
noticeable in the narrative of the attempts of Lambert Simnel and
Perkin Warbeck. The style of this work possesses a kind of
charm absent from few of Bacon's writings, which always have the
6
1 Bacon's Literary and Professional Works, vol. 1 (v1), pp. 23 ff.
See ibid. pp. 17–22.
## p. 204 (#220) ############################################
204
Historical and Political Writings
>
fascination belonging to deep waters, and the concluding sentence
of the work is exceedingly graceful. The author's fondness for
Latin forms (“militar,' 'indubiate,' and so forth) is very obvious ;
the Latin translation of his book seems to have been made either
by himself or under his own eye.
Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Life and Reign of King Henry
the Eighth, together with which is briefly represented A general
History of the Times, marks a very conscious advance in historical
composition. There is here, coupled with a dignified ease of
style characteristic of most of the author's writings, and of his
Autobiography in particular, an evident wish to make as full use
as possible of the original documents at the historian's disposal.
No doubt, the work was also written with a personal purpose, and
of this it is impossible to lose sight in estimating the literary effect
produced ; indeed, it is to be discovered in most of Herbert's
historical writings. They were composed at a later period of his
life than the Autobiography, which only reaches the year 1624, and
the merits of which are surprisingly exiguous for an author com-
manding a wide experience of the world and possessed of original
intellectual power! Yet the characteristic qualities of the book,
both for better and for worse, have been much exaggerated.
Horace Walpole (who first printed the MS at Strawberry Hill in
1764) must have been beyond the mark in describing it as 'the most
curious and entertaining' produced by his press? ; and, if, as he
states, he and lady Waldegrave could not get on' with it 'for
laughing and screaming3,' their sense of the ridiculous must have
been excessively acute, though, to be sure, on one occasion, at least,
the autobiographer all but falls into the Falstaffian vein“.
Beyond all doubt, Edward Herbert was inordinately vain of
his powers as a duellist-whether on foot or on horseback-which,
in his opinion, evidently entitled him to say to all comers (in-
cluding ministers, governors, and ambassadors) 'Je suis Herbert,'
as one of his French rivals declared 'Je suis Balagny'; and in his
relations with women he certainly had the advantage of sublime
self-confidence. But duelling was the most fashionable vice of the
time; added to which he took his vows as knight of the Bath
6
1 An estimate of lord Herbert of Cherbury's position among modern speculative
thinkers has been given in vol. iv, pp. 292—4.
2 Letters, ed. Cunningham, vol. iv, p. 156.
3 Ibid. p. 252.
* See Autobiography, ed. Lee, S. , p. 185, for Herbert's night escapade, when he was
about to start on his embassy in 1619.
5 See the appendix on Duelling in France and England in the early years of the
Seventeenth Century' in Lee's edition,
## p. 205 (#221) ############################################
Lord Herbert of Cherbury
205
hi?
most seriously. Though vainglorious and quarrelsome, he was
free from revengefulness and any sort of meanness; and, though
something of a lady-killer, he was not wanton. Notwithstanding
his remarks on education, and his contributions 'both to natural
science and household medicine, it cannot be said that, except as
a picture of manners, his Autobiography has much serious interest
before the period of his embassy to France (161924); and, even
then, though his narrative of the Spanish and French marriage
negotiations is worth reading, as well as his characterisation of
Louis XIII, de Luynes, and Gondomar, he seems to reserve the
substance of his political experiences for treatment in another
form.
The Autobiography, of which the style is measured but agree-
able, though the record of some of the writer's youthful exploits in
camp and court, at times, has an almost pedantic solemnity, breaks
off with Herbert's recall from Paris. The remainder of his life
was given up to a series of endeavours to re-enter the active service
of the crown by conciliating the royal goodwill, and to literary
labours which, in part, are to be reckoned among these efforts.
Among them was the defence of Buckingham, drawn up in reply
to violent attacks upon the memory of the favourite after his
assassination, and dedicated to Charles I. Sir Henry Wotton
expressed his admiration of it while it was in the making ; but it
brought no recompense to its author.
Among these efforts, also, was his Life of Henry the Eighth, on
which he seems to have been at work as early as 1632, and on
which he was still engaged seven years later. The use of original
documents by which it is distinguished has been already noted.
It was not completed till 1645, when he was also bringing to an
end his chief philosophic labours. The rest of Herbert's life was
occupied by a painful and unedifying struggle for his estates.
Many indications of the growing interest in historical writing
in the reign of James I and in the earlier years of that of Charles I
must be passed by. Edmund Bolton, who, under the pseudonym
of 'Philanactophil'dedicated to Buckingham a translation of
Florus's epitome of Roman history, in order to demonstrate the
superiority of histories to 'epitomes,' took occasion, from the publica-
tion of an epistle by Sir Henry Savile lamenting the existing state
of English historical literature, to advocate, in a tract called Hyper-
critica, the production of a complete Corpus Rerum Anglicarum
1 He believed himself to have endangered the peace of mind of no less august and
devout a personage than Anne of Denmark,
## p. 206 (#222) ############################################
206
Historical and Political Writings
6
-'a felicity wanting to our Nation, now when even the name
thereof is as it were at an end. ' And we know how Milton contem-
plated on his own account a history of Britain from the origins, of
which he only executed a fragment". On the other hand, Thomas
May, secretary of the Long parliament, obeyed its authoritative
behest by publishing, in 1647, the history of the great assembly
which had begun its labours seven years earlier, together with
'a short and necessary view of some precedent years. ' May, who
was a writer of considerable versatility? , had produced, besides a
translation in rimed couplets of Lucan's stirring epic on the second
civil war of Rome, two moderately inspiring English poems on
the reigns of Edward III and Henry II, in which ‘Philip and all
her beauteous train' and Fair Rosamond do not fail to appear;
but his History of the Parliament of England, which began
3 November 1640, in conformity with the claim advanced, in
the title as well as in the motto of the book, that its distinctive
quality was veracity, exhibits both straightforwardness of manner
and dignity of tone. A succinct introduction dwells specially on
the relations with Rome, with whom James I is described as having
'temporised,' but holds the balance fairly between the personal
virtues of Charles I and his errors as a ruler. Strafford's trial and
death, we are told, did at last as much harm to the kingdom as
had resulted from his action while he was in power. The work,
in which some important speeches and documents are inserted
verbatim, ends with November 1643.
By way of contrast with the official historian of the Long
parliament may be mentioned a faithful, though by no means
uncomplaining, follower of Charles I and Charles II, to whom,
indeed, he successively acted as a kind of historiographer in the
campaigns of 1644, 1645 and 1650.
1644, 1645 and 1650. Sir Edward Walker, garter
king at arms, held the posts of secretary at war and secretary
extraordinary to the privy council both before and during the
siege of Oxford, and was allowed to assist Charles I in the illfated
negotiations at Newport; he afterwards accompanied Charles II
to Scotland in 1650 and formed part of his court in exile till the
1 See, as to Milton's History of England, and his History of Moscovia, ante, chap. v.
Milton's Reflections on the Civil War in England, etc. , which inveighs against
decay of religion during the civil wars and the period of uncertainty which ensued,
is rptd in Maseres's Select Tracts, etc. , part 11. For a review of Milton's historical
work, see Firth, C. H. , Milton as a Historian, Publications of the British Academy,
1909 (x).
2 See, as to his tragedies and comedies, of which the earliest is dated 1622, ante,
vol. vi, p. 235. He also wrote & Latin play, Julius Caesar, which remained in
manuscript.
## p. 207 (#223) ############################################
Peter Heylyn
207
restoration. Thereafter, he held sway at the Heralds' college for
the rest of his days. He had many grievances to urge, and many
controversies to conduct; so that there was much to include in
the Historical Discourses upon several Occasions, published
posthumously in 1705.
A word should, perhaps, be added as to Secret Observations on
the Life and Death of Charles King of England, by William Lilly,
'student of Astrology,' which forms part II of a larger tract entitled
Monarchy, or no Monarchy in England (1651). In part I, various
prophecies are in good faith treated as fulfilled—especially Ambrose
Merlin's famous prophecy of the white king, dating nine hundred
years back. Part II is a historical account of the life and death
of Charles I from his childhood to his death, which is fair to
certain sides of his character, though the animus of the whole is
anti-episcopalian and anti-royalist. As a matter of course, no
important occasion is allowed to go by without a horoscope.
One historian of note remains to be mentioned, before we pass
from England to Scotland and Ireland. Peter Heylyn loved learn-
ing from his youth ; but his belief in the value of discipline can
hardly have exceeded his craving for publicity. He began his
career as a historical writer in 1621 with the publication of his
Geography, a subject on which, as connected with history, he had
lectured at Oxford in his eighteenth year, and which, with the aid
of some experience of travel, he afterwards developed into that
of his Cosmography. He had been king's chaplain for many
years, as well as a prebendary of Westminster, when his personal
troubles began with the downfall of Laud, whose ecclesiastical
policy he had supported; and he was brought up before the
Commons as having helped to get up the case against the author
of Histriomastix. After the civil war broke out, he was com-
missioned to keep a record of public occurrences in Mercurius
Aulicus; but he speedily lost his benefice (Alresford) with his
house and library; nor was it till 1656 that he could again venture
to come to the front. In 1659, he published his Examen Criticum,
the first part of which adversely criticised Fuller's Church History,
but the pair managed to make friends.
His next controversy was
with Baxter.
When the restoration came, Heylyn returned into residence
at Westminster, and the brief remainder of his life was spent in
tranquillity. His pen continued active to the end. In 1661 he
brought out his chief work, Ecclesia Restaurata, or The History
of the Reformation, which passed through several editions. This
## p. 208 (#224) ############################################
208
Historical and Political Writings
6
book, which carries on the history of the church of England from
the accession of Edward VI to the Elizabethan settlement (1566),
is notable as an attempt to view the changes effected by the
reformation with as much of impartiality as was to be expected
from a prelatist opposed to reunion with Rome. Among Heylyn'
writings published posthumously are Cyprianus Anglicus, or The
History of the Life and Death of Archbishop Laud (1668),
defending him against Prynne's elaborate invective, and described
by Creighton as the chief authority for Laud's personal character
and private life’; and Aerius Redivivus, or The History of
Presbyterianism (1670), which traces back to Calvin the origin of
puritanism, here described as the source of England's internal
troubles. This remarkable man was no bigot, and was capable
of looking on things as a historian rather than as a professional
apologist ; but controversy was irresistible to him, and apt to ex-
pand and multiply in his hands like a river plant in its favourite
waters.
Of the two kingdoms whose destinies were interwoven with
those of England, the one was not brought into personal union
with her till near the beginning of the period treated in this
chapter ; whereas the other, for centuries, had been riveted to the
side of her dominant partner by conquest and reconquest, and was
perpetually striving to burst her bonds asunder. Though Scottish
history had to tell of a long series of conflicts with the neighbour-
ing kingdom, and of periods of subjection as well as of revolt and
war, yet it ran its own course in both church and state, and the
ecclesiastical history of Scotland in particular, the interest in
which outweighed that of all other kinds of history, north of the
Tweed, covers a field of its own. The earliest record of the Scottish
reformed church is The Booke of the Universal Kirk of Scotland,
of which a most important portion was consumed at the fire of the
two houses of parliament in 1834. But what remains is an in-
valuable document for much of the national history, and, so far as
the history of the church is concerned, testifies at once to the
conservative spirit of the Scottish reformers and to their firm
adherence to the presbyterian form of church government set up by
them from the first. One prelatical and one anti-prelatical history
of importance belonging to this period deal with the material
at the command of the writers. Of archbishop Spottiswoode's
History of the Church of Scotland, beginning A. D. 203, and con-
tinued to the reign of king James IV, the first edition was printed
in 1665; but the book had advanced gradually in its author's
## p. 209 (#225) ############################################
Calderwood.
209
Spenser's Veue
>
hands, and the earliest MS of it extends only to the year 1602.
The work was written in tranquil times by a calm-minded man,
who was singularly free from a spirit of ecclesiastical bitterness.
On the other hand, David Calderwood's Historie of the Kirk of
Scotland, beginning at Patrik Hamilton and ending at the death
of James the Sixt, is the work of an indefatigable adversary of
prelacy, whose opinions, on this head, caused his expulsion from
presbytery and assembly in 1608, and, nine years later, though ex-
pressed with moderation, led James to denounce him to his face as
'a very knave. ' After undergoing both imprisonment and exile,
he returned to Scotland in 16251, and, in 1641, was allowed to sit
in the general assembly, though without the rights of a member.
Two years before his death, he was granted a handsome pension in
order to complete his History, which is a methodised and corrected
revision in three volumes of the larger work—the latter being
regarded by him rather as a commonplace book of facts and docu-
ments than as a finished history. Yet, to students, the complete
work is the most valuable, as containing the actual language
of Knox and the other reformers, which, in the revised edition,
Calderwood more or less assimilated to his own.
In the works dealing with Irish history from the Elizabethan
age to the time of the Cromwellian settlement, it is, of course,
difficult to separate the historical and political elements from each
other; or, rather, the former are dominated by the latter. Of
these works, the most celebrated has been reserved for a notice
in this place. Spenser's Veue of the Present State of Ireland
possesses a great biographical interest; while it supplements, or
illustrates one of the books of The Faerie Queene—the Vth,
containing the legend of Artegall, or Justice—which seeks to
immortalise the poet's patron as the incarnation of the policy
advocated by the poet himself as the only cure for ‘Ierne's ills'2.
In 1598 broke out the rebellion which, by October in that year,
had placed all Munster in the hands of the insurgents, and which
put an end to Spenser's sojourn in Ireland. It had amounted
altogether to fourteen years, more or less, and had for ever
associated the land of his adoption with his epical masterpiece
as well as with one of the noblest of English lyrics (Epi-
i Calderwood's Recantation (1623) is a forgery.
See the striking argument that there is an extraordinarily close parallel between
the Veue and the two cantos of Mutabilitie, the chief burden of the former being the
need for consistency in the policy to be pursued by the crown in Ireland, in C. Litton
Falkiner's interesting essay, 'Spenser in Ireland,' in Essays relating to Ireland (1909),
pp. 26, 27.
E. L. VII.
14
>
CH. IX.
## p. 210 (#226) ############################################
210
Historical and Political Writings
6
thalamion). That the rebellion, which cruelly blighted Spenser's
personal prospects, left him, in dean Church's words, 'a ruined
and broken-hearted man,' is, in all probability, an exaggerated
statement’; but there can be no question that A Veue of the Present
State of Irelund was composed under the influence of profoundly
moved personal feeling. It was certainly composed in 1596, during
the visit of Spenser (Irenaeus) to England, which lasted from 1595
till (probably) 1597.
Spenser's historico-political essay opens with a lengthy review
of the evils existing in the state of Ireland, which are described
as being of three kinds the first in the Lawes, the second in
Customes and the third in Religion. ' Parts of this demonstration,
hackneyed though it may have seemed even to the public to which
it was addressed, were very forcibly put—especially the clear
illustrations as to the evil effect of laws bad in themselves, and
the bold assertion that the most of the Irish are soe farre from
understanding of the popish religion as they are of the protestants
profession. ' There are, too, some pregnant passages, such as the
opening sentences of Irenaeus, suggesting, as a possible explanation
of the apparent hopelessness of the condition of Ireland, that,
peradventure, God 'reserveth her in this unquiett state still for
some secrett scourdge, which shall by her come to England'; and
the proposal, which strikes at the root of the barbarism over-
shadowing ‘Ierne,' that a schoolmaster shall be maintained in
every parish of the land. Though some of the historical and philo-
logical information may be questionable, the essay furnishes con-
stant proof, not only of a careful study of the people itself, but,
also, of a genuine interest in the associations which have always
meant so much for its life-conveyed in ballads and legends and
folklore of all sorts. The description of the influence of the bards
or Irish chroniclers, as radically tainted by inveracity, is curious ;
and there is a double edge in the denunciation of the folly of the
Irish in deriving their origin from the Spaniards- of all nations
under heaven (I suppose) the most mingled, most uncertayne, and
most bastardly. The Anglo-Irish—ipsis Hibernis Hiberniores-
the dialogue declares to be ‘more malicious to the English than
the very Irish themselves. '
As to the moral of the whole treatise—the supposed necessity of
a firm and vigorous policy of repression, and of doing away with
native customs of all sorts and the establishment of a strong rule,
represented by numerous garrisons throughout the country-
1 Spenser, English Men of Letters (1879), p. 177.
6
6
## p. 211 (#227) ############################################
Pacata Hibernia.
2 II
Davies
nothing further need be said here. Lord Grey de Wilton, as
whose private secretary Spenser came to Ireland in 1580, tried
this system for two years, and was recalled ; and it has been tried
since, for longer periods, with no more success. It has been, rather
cynically, said that the readers of Spenser's Veue and other
writings of his expressing similar sentiments should 'forget that
he was a poet and remember that he was trying to improve
forfeited lands. ' But there is nothing more unsatisfactory to the
highest conception of a great writer than this sort of analytical
separation of functions. The style of the essay is businesslike,
and the dialogue form is used with ease; though there is far too
much talk about the method of conducting the discussion—always
a tedious ingredient in any kind of discourse?
The important historical narrative Pacata Hibernia, originally
published in 1633, was almost entirely composed by some one
who stood very near to the person of Sir George Carew (after-
wards lord Carew of Clopton and earl of Totnes), president of
Munster during the three years (1600—3) through which the book
traces the history of that province, ending with the suppression
of the insurrection there. Possibly, the author was lieutenant
Thomas Stafford, who served under Carew, but whose name is
mentioned only a single time in the entire narrative. The book,
which, in the words of its editor, Standish O'Grady, 'deals with
the stormy conclusion of a stormy century, the lurid sunset of
one of the wildest epochs in Irish history,' shows how complete,
in the days of Mountjoy's viceroyalty3, was the absence of anything
like patriotism or public spirit from all but a very few of the
Irish lords and that of all sense of honourable dealing from
English officials.
Carew, who seems to have taken a warm interest in Irish
history, translated, from the French, with illustrative notes,
Morice Regan's History of Ireland, as well as the story of
Richard Il's last visit to Ireland by a French gentleman in his
suite. These were included in part 1 of Hibernica (1770), which
contains various documents of interest, including the project for
the division and plantation of Ulster. The policy advocated by
Spenser was carried out by Sir John Davies, who, in succession,
was solicitor- and attorney-general for Ireland during the years
1 Bagwell, R. , Ireland under the Tudors, vol. 1 (1890), p. 458.
2 Spenser also wrote in dialogue form a Discourse of Civill Life, containing the
Ethike Part of Morall Philosophie (not published till 1606).
* For an account of Mountjoy's rule, by a friendly hand, see Fynes Moryson's
Itinerary, part 11, ptd 1735 as his History of Ireland from 1599 to 1603.
14-2
## p. 212 (#228) ############################################
2 12
Historical and Political Writings
1603—11, became speaker of the (Irish) House of Commons in 1613,
and was appointed chief-justice of Ireland just before his death. His
rare administrative ability was exercised in the great historical
operation of the plantation of Ulster, as well as in the organisation
of local government, especially in that province, and in the reform
of the parliamentary system, which he established on the lines
followed by it for nearly two centuries. His Discovrie of the
True Causes why Ireland was not entirely subdued. . . until the
beginning of his Majesty's happie Raigne (1612, rptd 1613) marks
out the lines on which the system of government consistently
pursued by him was conducted; the parliament over whose House
of Commons he presided was, consequently, the first in which a
majority entirely controlled by the English council was confronted
by a nationalist opposition? . The historical interest of his book is,
therefore, exceptionally great.
The last works on Irish history which call for mention here
deal with a later period. Richard Bellings's contemporary History
of the Irish Confederation (to which he was secretary) and the War
in Ireland, 1641–3 (edited by J. T. Gilbert) is accompanied by many
documents, and necessarily takes a view of Irish affairs directly
opposed to that of a better known work, intended as a vindication of
the government of the duke of Ormonde and his royal master before
the outbreak of the Irish troubles under Charles I. The authorship
of the History of the Irish Rebellion and Civil Wars in Ireland,
with the true State and Condition of that Kingdom before the Year
1640, has been disputed; but there seems to be no doubt that it
was the work of Clarendon, with whose name it was brought out
in 1721, and in whose History, as afterwards published, it was
incorporated, as a seventh volume, under the title A Short
View of the State and Condition of the Kingdom of Ireland,
from 1640 to this time. Clarendon's authorship of the work was
attested by his successor in the earldom, and the internal evidence
would almost have sufficed to settle the question. For the narrative
is composed in his most forensic style, and throughout displays his
indiscreet pertinacity as well as his lucidity in argument. He is
said to have written it at Cologne, and to have had the assistance
of Ormonde in defending his conduct. The special object of the
work is to refute the Roman Catholic point of view, while an
appendix 2 shows how the 'Rebels of England’ retaliated upon ‘the
Papists that rebelled in Ireland. '
a
2
i See Falkiner, C. Litton, u. s. pp. 54, 55.
? A Collection of some of the Massacres and Murthers committed on the Irish in
Ireland, since the 23rd of August, 1641.
## p. 213 (#229) ############################################
Clarendon
213
Thus, through an apologia composed by the great statesman
and historical writer for a chapter of the royal government in which
he had no share', we are brought to consider, however briefly, his
contributions-half history, half memoir—to the records of a period
of the national history in which he played a part of high significance.
In any survey such as the present no other name can vie with that
of Edward Hyde, first earl of Clarendon-a great writer, whose
literary powers laid the foundation of his political greatness and,
without any disparagement of his lifelong services to crown and
country, remain his foremost title to enduring fame. He abhorred
the unconstitutional designation of prime minister, though, during
the septennate of his ascendency after the restoration, he came
almost as near to realising a complete conception of that office as
any English statesman before or since; but he would not have dis-
dained the palm of which no rival can deprive him, adjudged to
him by the unwavering consent of posterity as one of the great
masters of English prose.
Few readers of Clarendon's Life are likely to have forgotten
a passage, towards the close of what remains of the autobio-
graphical narrative proper, which may serve as a text for the few
comments it is possible to add on the present occasion. 'He was
wont to say,' he writes of himself, with that impersonality of form
which covers an exhorbitancy of self-consciousness :
that of the infinite blessings which God had vouchsafed to confer upon him
almost from his cradle . . . he esteemed himself so happy in none as in his
three acquiescences, which he called “his three vacations and retreats he had
in his life enjoyed from business of trouble and vexation, and in every one of
which God had given him grace and opportunity to make full reflections
apon his actions, and his observations on what he had done himself, and what
he had seen others do and suffer; to repair the breaches of his own mind,
and to justify himself with new resolutions against future encounters. . . . The
first of these recesses or acquiescences was, his remaining and residing at
Jersey, when the prince of Wales, his new majesty, first went into France. '
These years, from 1646 to 1648, between the so-called first and
second civil wars, were a dark period in the fortunes of the
royalist cause, with which Hyde had identified himself since, as
a young man without any special advantages of birth or wealth, he
had raised himself, by his own abilities and capacity for forming
friendships with his superiors, to a good position at the bar;
had, by his powers as a speaker, caught the ear of the House of
1 His long vindication of his relation to Irish affairs after the restoration, including
the results of Charles Il's gift to him from Irish sources, in vol. II of the Life,
belong, of course, to another period.
## p. 214 (#230) ############################################
214
Historical and Political Writings
6
Commons', and had placed his skilful pen at the service of the
king with great effect in the critical months preceding the
outbreak of the civil war. And the darkness was intensified by
dissensions between the royal councillors, headed by Hyde, and
his constant adversary the queen, who insisted on the prince
of Wales coming to France instead of holding out so long as
possible in England or near its coasts, while, at the same time,
eager that he should purchase the goodwill of the Scots by
throwing over the episcopal church of England. It was under
the pressure of all this trouble that Hyde sat down on 18 March
1646, in his exile in one of the Scilly isles, to write his History of
the Rebellion and carried on his task during a period of two years
in Jersey. By the spring of 1648,' says Firth, ‘he had brought
the story down to the opening of the campaign of 1644, and had
written seven books of the work, and a few sections of the eighth. '
Hyde's purpose was to recount, not for publication, but for the
use of future statesmen, and after a fashion which would be
appreciated by them, the origin of the great struggle whose present
issue seemed to have overwhelmed both crown and church ; to tell
of all the errors that had been committed from the point of view
of constitutional principle, as well as of the great sacrifices that
had been made, in order that they might be remembered, and not
remembered in vain, by later and more fortunate generations.
Though, in this first version of the earlier part of the great work, there
is very little personal mention of the writer, his whole heart and
mind were with the country from which he had been driven because
of his loyalty to her ancient institutions in church and state. In
this loyalty, he had been born and bred as the descendant of an
old Cheshire family, as a student of the university where his name
was afterwards to be gratefully cherished, as an inns of court man
and lawyer, and as a constitutionalist member of parliament, who
had separated from the popular party so soon as it had begun to
tamper with the interests of the episcopacy, and whose advice to
king Charles I, since he had been taken into the royal confidence,
had consistently been that in any steps the sovereign might take,
or in any concessions he might make, he should remain within the
limits of the law and the constitution.
1 Burnet and Pepys both attest Clarendon's gifts as a speaker. The speeches
which remain from his later days, though delivered on important occasions and under
the responsibility of high office, are easy and often almost chatty in tone, while
seasoned with quotations and anecdote. Occasional passages rise to eloquence; but, al-
together, the style of these speeches suggests what may have been an excellent . House
of Commons manner' and is altogether lighter than Clarendon's usual style of writing.
?
## p. 215 (#231) ############################################
Clarendon's Second and Third Recess 215
Hyde's second 'recess or acquiescence' was during the two
years which, with lord Cottington, he spent in Spain as the
ambassador of the titular king Charles II. Dark as had been
the days of his Jersey exile, at this later stage all hope for the
recovery of the royal cause had been extinguished, except such as
could be extracted from an alternative policy of abject submission
on the part of Charles (whom Hyde had joined in Paris six months
before the axe fell at Whitehall) or intrigue with Irish rebels or a
foreign power not to be trusted much further than they. Hyde, 1:1
who inclined to the latter line of policy, set his hand to assist in
weaving a web of diplomacy which he could not but know to be
futile. Of the fourteen years of exile during which he was the
chief adviser of the younger Charles, this period of waiting upon
Providence at Madrid was probably that in which public trouble,
private sorrow and the sickness of hope deferred weighed most
heavily upon his trained self-control and extraordinary elasticity
of mind; it was during his embassy in Spain that he took com-
fort from the Psalms of David, and produced the bulk of those
Contemplations and Reflections upon them which fill half the
folio volume of his Miscellaneous Works. But he could not, in
these years of a depression which hardly ever lifted, though it
failed to affect a fidelity which never swerved', resume the self-
imposed task undertaken by him long since; and, even when
they came to an end, it seemed as if, during the remainder of his
days, his hand would be on the helm of state, and he would be
able to enforce in practice the lessons which he had sought to
place on record in the first large instalment of his History. But
this was not to be.
And the third was his last recess, by the disgrace he under-
went, and by the act of banishment. In which three acquiescences,'
the passage cited concludes, ‘he had learned more, knew himself
and other men much better, and served God and his country with
more devotion, and he hoped more effectually, than in all his life. '
There was no conscious hypocrisy in Clarendon, but the forms
which his self-confidence assumed were Protean in their variety.
This third retreat upon himself, to which his comment upon all
three must, of course, be intended to apply with special force, was
by far the longest in duration, and one from which there was to be
no return to action or power. The abrupt and sultan-like taking
from Clarendon of the great seal, held by him for seven laborious
years since the king's return, to the accomplishment of which no
1 The active services of Clarendon to the royal court cannot be described here.
>
## p. 216 (#232) ############################################
216
Historical and Political Writings
other of his subjects can have contributed so much thought and
labour, and the subsequent flight from England of the disowned
minister, followed by his impeachment and banishment, put an end
to his public life. To the last, however—and this should not be
overlooked by readers of the works which were the chief occupa-
tion of the remaining seven years of his life—he was scheming
and hoping for his return, or, at least, when even hope began
to grow faint, anxious to spend his last days in the country of his
birth and state. It was all in vain : neither king nor country had
any wish to see him again.
As a matter of course, the topic of his downfall and its causes
dominated the thoughts of his later years; in his Life, he demon-
strated the injustice of his doom in a series of answers to the
articles of impeachment drawn up against him, extending over
some seventy or eighty pages; while, in the preface to the first
edition of his History, he discusses the subject on broader lines.
He here comes to the conclusion that the chief authors of his
catastrophe were papists and women; and, so far as the im-
mediate agencies of his overthrow were concerned, he was probably
not far mistaken. In truth, however, Clarendon, who, in his
youth, had justly gloried in his capacity for making friends, found
very few to uphold him in the days of his downfall. He was
confronted by antagonistic interests with which he scorned to hold
parley—the catholics, whose advance he strove to stem, and the
protestant nonconformists, of whom he openly avowed his detesta-
tion'. He was incapable either of the duplicity of gaining the
gratitude of the hungry rank and file of the royalists by seeking,
or seeming to seek, to advance their personal claims, or of the
meanness which is ready to cringe to mistresses and favourites,
and affects to be hail-fellow with the revel rout of frivolity and
pleasure. Thus, Clarendon paid the penalty of an isolation due, at
the same time, to his qualities and their defects. He says of
himself, on one occasion, that (like Laud) he was too proud of a
good conscience. ' Possibly so; but it is certain that, in his days of
power, Clarendon, even with the aid of the church which he upheld
with unselfish consistency, failed to create a party that would have
rallied round him in his season of adversity, and might have saved
his name from being added to the list of victims of a fickleness
not confined to democracies.
See for instance, his remark, Life, vol. 11, p. 121, on the unhappy policy of
making concessions to that classis of men. ' Charles II, it may be added, broke his
promise to the protestant dissenters chiefly because of Clarendon's advice.
## p. 217 (#233) ############################################
The History of the Rebellion
217
No sooner had Clarendon, after chicaneries and discomforts,
settled down at Montpellier and indited his replies to the articles
exhibited against him? , than he began, as, with his essentially
literary temperament, he could not have failed to do, to write his
reminiscences. The portion of The History of the Rebellion which
he had composed twenty years earlier he had left behind him in
England with the rest of his manuscripts. Moreover, his present
design differed from that which had occupied him during his two
years of continuous labour in Jersey; what he had at heart now
was the vindication of his own career in the eyes of his children-
a memoir of his own life, introducing, of course, some of the great
events or transactions with which he was in contact, rather than a
history of the great struggle and its ultimate issue, in which he, too,
played his part. Thus, during two or three years, working, we may
rest assured, con amore, but without haste or even allowing the
whole of his literary energies to be absorbed by his task? , he
composed so much of his Life as preceded the date of the restora-
tion. (This amounted to more than half of the first of the three
printed volumes. ) In this part of the autobiography, the literary
powers of the author are displayed at their height, while the
freedom with which, in the absence of a great pressure of materials,
he could allow himself to write, gives a flow to his composition
which is not characteristic of the completed Rebellion. This
earlier part of the Life contains some of the most admirable
· The Vindication, which is also included in the Life, forms part of the Mis-
cellaneous Works, and is dated Montpellier, 24 July 1668.
? It is impossible to date most of Clarendon's miscellaneous writings, of which a
list will be found in the bibliography. The Contemplations and Reflections upon the
Psalms of David, already mentioned as, to a large extent, composed at an earlier date,
were concluded at Montpellier on 27 February 1670, and the dedication to my completiofi
children’ is dated in the following year; the concluding personal note, which has both
dignity and pathos, still breathes the hope that the writer may be restored to the
favour of the king. Among Essays Divine and Moral, that Of Human Nature is
dated Montpellier, 1668; that Of Liberty is an attack on Hobbes ; that Of Repentance
bas a very practical bearing on the question of the restoration of property taken away
in the rebellion. The others, for the most part, are moral rather than polemical, and
very readable. The essay on the old debating problem of the comparative advantages
of An Active and Contemplative Life, argues very strongly against monastic vows ;
and the essay Against multiplying Controversies, etc. , may be described as, in purport,
an elaborate defence of the laws for the maintenance of the church of England and
for keeping the Roman Catholics in order. Finally, there are two well sustained
dialogues On the Reverence due to Old Age and On Education, conducted by a group
of representatives of the previous generation, among whom, however, are to be found
advocates of conservative reform. The dialogue On Education has a few good points
and a few which are not quite out of date ; but it is not, on the whole, a very luminous
contribution to the discussion of a theme which some of Clarendon's contemporaries
had treated with far greater power and profundity.
## p. 218 (#234) ############################################
218
Historical and Political Writings
among the many admirable characters drawn by Clarendon-
a gallery which, in their different ways, neither Thucydides nor
Macaulay has surpassed—including the exquisite miniature of
Sydney Godolphin the elder, the delightful portraits of Hales,
Earle and Chillingworth, the discriminating sketch of Colepeper
and, above all, the famous character of Falkland. Here and there
occur some of those indications of an intuitive perception of the
weak sides of human nature which, in Clarendon, are at all times
compatible with a very imperfect openness to his own failings-
the recognition of the sharpness which marred the dignity of Laud,
and the insight into the true nature of the relations between
Charles I and his consort, and, again, of those between the king and
his servants. ' In Clarendon's account of his own early days, his
'
narrative, like the memoirs of so many successful lawyers, furnishes
us, unintentionally, with instruction as to the art of 'getting on’;
as he progresses, he falls into a way of attributing prejudice
against, or dislike of, himself to small and more or less accidental
causes (see his account of his early quarrel with Cromwell), and
begins his long list of nolo’s with a statement as to his resolution
not to be named secretary of state.
In 1671, Clarendon's son Lawrence (afterwards earl of Rochester)
visited him in his exile, bringing with him the unfinished MS of
the Rebellion, mainly written in Jersey. It was now that Clarendon
made up his mind to a process of contamination for which, con-
sidering the scale on which it was conducted and the rare im-
portance of the writings to which it was applied, a parallel cannot
easily be found in literary history? Taking the MS History, so
far as it went, as the framework of his book, he inserted into it a
great number of passages from the portion of the Life which he
had recently written; and then added, as books x—XVI of the
work, the whole of the latter part of the Life, from the restoration
to his days of exile. By way of a link between the earlier and
later parts of the work, he wrote book viII and part of book ix,
as more or less new matter, and then, after putting the whole into
a shape which, so far as possible, concealed the operations by which
it was joined together, he left the whole History of the Restoration
in the condition in which, after his death, it was given to the
world (in 1702).
Inasmuch as the original History and the first part of the Life,
as has been seen, were written with different ends in view, the
1 The process summarised by Firth in his lecture on Clarendon is detailed by him
in three articles contributed to The English Historical Review, 1904.
## p. 219 (#235) ############################################
Clarendon's Characters
219
result of the dovetailing process could not but be what Firth,
perhaps rather sternly, calls patchwork. It is, however, equally
clear that, in the whole work, we shall find some of the qualities
which belong to a reasoned history, and some of those that
belong to a personal memoir, fresh from the hands of an actor
in the scenes and events narrated by him. Among the former is
the faculty of taking and conveying a comprehensive view of an
entire situation or conjuncture in the affairs of the nation, or of
the court, or of a party or influential section of the community.
The picture of happy England (before the outbreak of the great
civil war) is, indeed, more or less conventional, and will be found
in the Life as well as in the History. But how excellent, in the
History, is the connected and succinct narrative of the Spanish
journey of the prince of Wales and Buckingham, and of the triumph
of the latter over the better judgment of his master king James ;
how persuasive, without any attempt at a whole-hearted defence, is
the pleading for the action of king Charles I in the critical matter of
Strafford's catastrophe ; how ingenious is the sketch of the attitude
of the foreign powers after the death of Charles I himself; how
masterly, too, in the later portion of the Life, is the description of
the jealousies and other foibles of the royalist party in the period
preceding the restoration !
Of some of the characters in the early portion of the Life,
mention has already been made; others, in the History, are
Buckingham, Coventry, Weston, Arundel and Pembroke; Hampden
(very skilfully drawn), archbishop Williams (very bitter), the two
Vanes (a touch of high comedy in the midst of tragic action); and,
at a much later stage of the History, the cruelly antithetical
labelling of Lauderdale, and the vignettes in acid of Bradshaw and
Harrison. Excellent, too, in the Life, is the note that St Albans
(Jermyn) 'had that kindness for himself that he thought everybody
did believe him,' and the sly remark that the duke of Albemarle
(Monck) 'knew that his wife was no wiser than she was born
to be. There are many touches of this kind in Clarendon, which,
to the observant reader, are hardly less attractive than are the
elaborate portraits in which he delighted.
The final character of Charles I (in vol. vi of the History) is
very tender, and at the same time, probably, not far from being
just. On the other hand (in vol. 1 of the Life and elsewhere), the
weaknesses of Charles II are suggested with considerable tact and
(in a remarkable passage of vol. 111) the transmitted failings of the
Stewart family-their tendency to follow the advice of inferior
## p. 220 (#236) ############################################
220
Historical and Political Writings
men, and their inability to refuse favours to those who asked them
—are pointed out with admirable insight. Clarendon is least
tolerable when he appears as an apologist for himself—a task
which he seems incapable of performing without an excess of
protests and an inordinate flow of unction. His defence of his
conduct in the matter of his daughter Anne's marriage is detestable
in tone ; the history of his actual downfall he could not be expected
to relate without taxing the patience of his readers.
Clarendon's style, like every style that attracts or interests, is
the man; and it would not be what it is without the constant
desire to please which had animated him as a member of parlia-
ment and a courtier, or without the consciousness of his own
dignity and rectitude which made him stand erect through mis-
fortune and obloquy. He sometimes comes near true wit, and
occasionally has a picturesque turn; but he very rarely rises into
actual eloquence. For this, he lacked the power of imagination in
which he showed himself wanting in more ways than one-more
especially in his incapacity of recognising the virtue or the great-
ness of an adversary or of appreciating the standpoint of a
political party or a religious denomination other than his own.
Even in the characters of his dramatic dialogues (which, in detail,
are happy enough), he could not travel beyond the range of
those who had been born about his own time, and who, more or
less, thought as he thought. But the style proper to nearly every-
thing written by him, from his History to his occasional tracts, is
never out of keeping with itself, always deliberate without being
dull, and dignified without being (except on fit occasions) solemn,
and, more frequently than it is the custom to assume, breaking
into a ripple of pleasantry which prevents it from growing tedious.
Few memoir writers have succeeded in so steadily sustaining the
attention of their readers as has Clarendon ; few historians have
been less pretentious or mannered than he. His style is not a
literary style in the sense in which this, in different ways, can be
predicated of the style of Gibbon or of that of Macaulay ; if it has
a model, this has still to be sought as with all the prose of the
age, in Latin literature rather than our own. In his dialogue On
Education, he argues in favour of the conversational (not the
vulgar colloquial) practice of Latin in schools, whether by means
of discourse or the acting of plays and the like; and how such a
training can inform the style of a writer is shown by Clarendon's
own prose, which Latin influence helped to mould, without pro-
claiming its presence as in the case of the magnificent but exotic
## p. 221 (#237) ############################################
Carey.
