The military errors of Essex were probably in some degree produced by political timidity. He was honestly, but not warmly, attached to the cause of the Parliament; and next to a great defeat, he dreaded a great victory. Hampden, on the other hand, was for vigorous and decisive measures. When he drew the sword, as Clarendon has well said, he threw away the scabbard. He had shown that he knew better than any public man of his time, how to value and how to practise moderation. But he knew that the essence of war is violence, and that moderation in war is imbecility. On several occasions particularly during the operations in the neighbourhood of Brentford, he remonstrated earnestly w Essex. Wherever he commanded separa, the boldness and rapidity of his movements presented a striking contrast to the sluggishness of his superior.

person in the cause. He subscribed two thou- | do more to make a general than all the dia sand pounds to the public service. He took a grams of Jomini. This, however, is certain, colonel's commission in the army, and went that Hampden showed himself a far better offiinto Buckinghamshire to raise a regiment of cer than Essex, and Cromwell than Lesley. infantry. His neighbours eagerly enlisted under his command. His men were known by their green uniform, and by their standard, which borc on one side the watchword of the Parliament, "God with us," and on the other the device of Hampden, "Vestigia nulla retrorsum." This motto well described the line of conduct which he pursued. No member of his party had been so temperate, while there remained a hope that legal and peaceable measures might save the country. No member of his party showed so much energy and vigour when it became necessary to appeal to arms. He made himself thoroughly master of his military duty, and "performed it," to use the words of Clarendon, "upon all occasions most punctually." The regiment which he had raised and trained was considered as one of the best in the service of the Parliament. He exposed his person in every action, with an intrepidity which made him conspicuous even among thousands of brave men. "He was," says Clarendon, "of a personal courage equal to his best parts; so that he was an enemy not to be wished wherever he might have been made a friend, and as much to be apprehended where he was so as any man could deserve to bc." Though his military career was short, and his military situation subordinate, he fully proved that he possessed the talents of a great general, as well as those of a great statesman. We shall not attempt to give a history of the war. Lord Nugent's account of the military operations is very animated and striking. Our abstract would be dull, and probably unintelligible. There was, in fact, for some time, no great and connected system of operations on either side. The war of the two parties was like the war of Arimanes and Oromazdes, neither of whom, according to the Eastern theologians, has any exclusive domain, who are equally omnipresent, who equally pervade all space, who carry on their eternal strife within every particle of matter. There was a petty war in almost every county. A town furnished troops to the Parliament, while the The languid proceedings of Essex were manor-house of the neighbouring peer was loudly condemned by the troops. All the argarrisoned for the king. The combatants were dent and daring spirits in the parliamentary rarely disposed to march far from their own party were eager to have Hampden at their homes. It was reserved for Fairfax and Crom-head. Had his life been prolonged, there is well to terminate this desultory warfare. by moving one overwhelming force successively against all the scattered fragments of the royal party.

It is a remarkable circumstance, that the officers who had studied tactics in what were considered as the best schools-under Vere in the Netherlands, and under Gustavus Adolphus in Germany-displayed far less skill than those commanders who had been bred to peaceful employments, and who never saw even a skirmish till the civil war broke out. An unlearned person might hence be inclined to suspect that the military art is no very profound mystery; that its principles are the principles of plain good sense; and that a quick eye, a cocl head, and a stout heart will VOL. II.-22

In the Parliament he possessed boundless influence. His employments towards the close of 1642 have been described by Denham in some lines, which, though intended to be sar castic, convey in truth the highest eulogy. Hampden is described in this satire, as perpetually passing and repassing between the military station at Windsor and the House of Commons at Westminster; overawing the general, and giving law to that Parliament which knew no other law. It was at this time that he organized that celebrated association of counties, to which his party was principally indebted for its victory over the king.

In the early part of 1643, the shires lying in the neighbourhood of London, which were devoted to the cause of the Parliament, were incessantly annoyed by Rupert and his cavalry. Essex had extended his lines so far, that almost every point was vulnerable. The young prince, who, though not a great general, was an active and enterprising partisan, frequently surprised posts, burned villages, swept away cattle, and was again at Oxford, before a force sufficient to encounter him could be as sembled.

every reason to believe that the supreme command would have been intrusted to him But it was decreed that, at this conjuncture, Eng land should lose the only man who united per fect disinterestedness to eminent talents-the only man who, being capable of gaining the victory for her, was incapabie of abusing that victory when gained.

In the evening of the 17th of June, Rupert darted out of Oxford with his cavalry on a predatory expedition. At three in the morning of the following day, he attacked and dispersed a few parliamentary soldiers who were quar tered at Postcombe. He then flew to Chinnor, burned the village, killed or took all the troops who were posted there, and prepared to hurry back with his booty and his prisoners to Oxford

P

He was buried in the parish church of Hampden. His soldiers, bareheaded, with reversed arms and muffled drums and colours, escorted his body to the grave, singing, as they marched, that lofty and melancholy psalm, in which the fragility of human life is contrasted with the immutability of Him, in whose sight a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

Hampden had, on the preceding day, strong- O Lord, save my country-O Lord, be merci ly represented to Essex the danger to which ful to." In that broken ejaculation passed this part of the line was exposed. As soon away his noble and fearless spirit. as he received intelligence of Rupert's incursions, he sent off a horseman with a message to the general. The Cavaliers, he said, could return only by Chiselhampton Bridge. A force ought to be instantly despatched in that direction, for the purpose of intercepting them. In the mean time, he resolved to set cut with all the cavalry that he could muster, for the purpose of impeding the march of the enemy till Essex could take measures for cutting off their retreat. A considerable body of horse and dragoons volunteered to follow him. He was not their commander. He did not even belong to their branch of the service. But "he was," says Lord Clarendon, "second to none but the general himself in the obser-quoted a remarkable passage from the next vance and application of all men." On the field of Chalgrove he came up with Rupert. A fierce skirmish ensued In the first charge, Hampden was struck in the shoulder by two bullets, which broke the bone, and lodged in his body. The troops of the Parliament lost heart and gave way. Rupert, after pursuing them for a short time, hastened to cross the bridge, and made his retreat unmolested to Oxford.

The news of Hampden's death produced as great a consternation in his party, according to Clarendon, as if their whole army had been cut off. The journals of the time amply prove that the Parliament and all its friends were filled with grief and dismay. Lord Nugent has Weekly Intelligencer. "The loss of Colonel Hampden goeth near the heart of every man that loves the good of his king and country, and makes some conceive little content to be at the army now that he is gone. The memory of this deceased colonel is such, that in no age to come but it will more and more be had in honour and esteem;-a man so religious, and of that prudence, judgment, temper, valour, and integrity, that he hath left few his like behind him."

Hampden, with his head drooping, and his nands leaning on his horse's neck, moved feebly out of the battle. The mansion which He had indeed left none his like behind him. had been inhabited by his father-in-law, and There still remained, indeed, in his party, from which in his youth he had carried home many acute intellects, many eloquent tongues, his bride, Elizabeth, was in sight. There still many brave and honest hearts. There still remains an affecting tradition, that he looked remained a rugged and clownish soldier, halffor a moment towards that beloved house, and fanatic, half-buffoon, whose talents, discerned made an effort to go thither to die. But the as yet only by one penetrating eye, were equal enemy lay in that direction. He turned his to all the highest duties of the soldier and the horse towards Thame, where he arrived almost prince. But in Hampden, and in Hampden fainting with agony. The surgeons dressed his alone, were united all the qualities which, at wounds. But there was no hope. The pain such a crisis, were necessary to save the state which he suffered was most excruciating. But the valour and energy of Cromwell, the dishe endured it with admirable firmness and re-cernment and eloquence of Vane, the humanity signation. His first care was for his country. and moderation of Manchester, the stern inteHe wrote from his bed several letters to Lon-grity of Hale, the ardent public spirit of Sidney. don concerning public affairs, and sent a last pressing message to the head-quarters, recommending that the dispersed forces should be concentrated. When his last public duties were performed, he calmly prepared himself to die. He was attended by a clergyman of the Church of England, with whom he had lived in habits of intimacy, and by the chaplain of the Buckinghamshire Green-coats, Dr. Spurton, whom Baxter describes as a famous and excellent divine.

Others might possess the qualities which were necessary to save the popular party in the crisis of danger; he alone had both the power and the inclination to restrain its excesses in the hour of triumph. Others could conquer; he alone could reconcile. A heart as bold as his brought up the cuirassiers who turned the tide of battle on Marston Moor. As skilful an eye as his watched the Scotch army descending from the heights over Dunbar. But it was when, to the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles, had A short time before his death, the sacrament succeeded the fierce conflict of sects and fac was administered to him. He declared that, tions, ambitious of ascendency and burning though he disliked the government of the for revenge; it was when the vices and ignoChurch of England, he yet agreed with that rance which the old tyranny had generated, Church as to all essential matters of doctrine. threatened the new freedom with destruction His intellect remained unclouded. When all that England missed that sobriety, that selfwas nearly over, he lay murmuring faint command, that perfect soundness of judgment, prayers for himself and for the cause in which that perfect rectitude of intention, to which the he died. "Lord Jesus," he exclaimed, in the history of revolutions furnishes no parallel, or moment of the last agony, "receive my soul-furnishes a parallel in Washington alone.

NARES'S MEMOIRS OF LORD BURGHLEY.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1832.]

THE work of Doctor Nares has filled us with astonishment similar to that which Captain Lemuel Gulliver felt, when first he landed in Brobdignag, and saw corn as high as the oaks in the New Forest, thimbles as large as buckets, and wrens of the bulk of turkeys. The whole book, and every component part of it, is on a gigantic scale. The title is as long as an ordinary preface. The prefatory matter would furnish out an ordinary book; and the book contains as much reading as an ordinary library. We cannot sum up the merits of the stupendous mass of paper which lies before us, better than by saying, that it consists of about two thousand closely printed pages, that it occupies fifteen hundred inches cubic measure, and that it weighs sixty pounds avoirdupois. Such a book might, before the deluge, have been considered as light reading by Hilpa and Shallum. But unhappily the life of man is now threescore years and ten; and we cannot but think it somewhat unfair in Doctor Nares to demand from us so large a portion of so short an existence.

radox. Of the rules of historical perspective he has not the faintest notion. There is neither foreground nor background in his delineation. The wars of Charles the Fifth in Germany are detailed at almost as much length as in Robertson's Life of that prince. The troubles of Scotland are related as fully as in M'Crie's Life of John Knox. It would be most unjust to deny that Doctor Nares is a man of great industry and research; but he is so utterly incompetent to arrange the materials which he has collected, that he might as well have left them in their original repositories.

Neither the facts which Doctor Nares has discovered, nor the arguments which he urges, will, we apprehend, materially alter the opinion generally entertained by judicious readers of history concerning his hero. Lord Burghley can hardly be called a great man. He was not one of those whose genius and energy change the fate of empires. He was by nature and habit one of those who follow, not one of those who lead. Nothing that is recorded, either cf his words or of his actions, indicates intellectual Compared with the labour of reading through or moral elevation. But his talents, though these volumes, all other labour-the labour of not brilliant, were of an eminently useful thieves on the tread-mill, of children in facto-kind; and his principles, though not inflexible, ries, of negroes in sugar plantations-is an were not more relaxed than those of his asso agreeable recreation. There was, it is said, a ciates and competitors. He had a cool temper, criminal in Italy, who was suffered to make his a sound judgment, great powers of application, choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. and a constant eye to the main chance. In his He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was youth he was, it seems, fond of practical jokes. too much for him. He changed his mind, and Yet even out of these he contrived to extract went to the oar. Guicciardini, though certainly some pecuniary profit. When he was study not the most amusing of writers, is an Herodotus, ing the law at Gray's Inn, he lost all his furor a Froissart, when compared with Doctor niture and books to his companion at the Nares. It is not merely in bulk, but in specific gaming-table. He accordingly bored a hole gravity also, that these memoirs exceed all in the wall which separated his chambers from other human compositions. On every subject those of his associate, and at midnight bellow. which the professor discusses, he produces ed through his passage threats of damnation three times as many pages as another man; and calls to repentance in the ears of the victo and one of his pages is as tedious as another rious gambler, who lay sweating with fear all man's three. His book is swelled to its vast night, and refunded his winnings on his knees dimensions by endless repetitions, by episodes next day. "Many other the like merry jests," which have nothing to do with the main action, says his old biographer, "I have heard him by quotations from books which are in every tell, too long to be here noted." To the last, circulating library, and by reflections which, Burghley was somewhat jocose; and some of when they happen to be just, are so obvious his sportive sayings have been recorded by that they must necessarily occur to the mind Bacon. They show much more shrewdness of every reader. He employs more words in than generosity; and are, indeed, neatly exexpounding and defending a truism, than any pressed reasons for exacting money rigorously, other writer would employ in supporting a pa- and for keeping it carefully. It must, however, be acknowledged, that he was rigorous and Careful for the public advantage, as well as for his own. To extol his moral character, as Doctor Nares has extolled it, would be absurd. It would be equally absurd to represent him as a corrupt, rapacious, and bad-hearted man. He paid great attention to the interest of the state, and great attention also to the interest of his own family. He never deserted his friends til!

Memoirs of the Life and Administration of the Right Honourable William Cecil Lord Burghley, Secretary of State in the Reign of King Edward the Sixth, and Lord High Treasurer of England in the Reign of Queen Eliza beth. Containing an Historical View of the Times in which he lived, and of the many eminent and illustrious Persons with whom he was connected; with extracts from his Prirate and Official Correspondence and other Papers, now first published from the Originals. By the Reverend EDWARD NARES, D.D, Regins Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. 3 vols. 4to. London. 1828, 1832.

was very inconvenient to stand by them; | estates to his son, and carried arms about his was an excellent Protestant when it was not person. His best arms, however, were his savery advantageous to be a Papist; recommend-gacity and his self-command. The plot in ed a tolerant policy to his mistress as strongly as he could recommend it without hazarding her favour; never put to the rack any person from whom it did not seem probable that very useful information might be derived; and was so moderate in his desires, that he left only inree hundred distinct landed estates, though he might, as his honest servant assures us, have left much more, "if he would have taken money out of the exchequer for his own use, as many treasurers have done."

Burghley, like the old Marquess of Winchester, who preceded him in the custody of the White Staff, was of the willow, and not of the oak. He first rose into notice by defending the supremacy of Henry the Eighth. He was subsequently favoured and promoted by the Duke of Somerset. He not only contrived to escape unhurt when his patron fell, but became an important member of the administration of Northumberland. Doctor Nares assures us over and over again, that there could have been nothing base in Cecil's conduct on this occasion; for, says he, Cecil continued to stand well with Cranmer. This, we confess, hardly satisfies us. We are much of the mind of Falstaff s tailor. We must have better assurance for Sir John than Bardolph's. We like not the security.

which he had been an unwilling accomplice, ended, as it was natural that so odious and absurd a plot should end, in the ruin of its contrivers. In the mean time, Cecil quietly extricated himself, and, having been successively patronised by Henry, Somerset, and Northumberland, continued to flourish under the protection of Mary.

He had no aspirations after the crown of martyrdom. He confessed himself, therefore, with great decorum, heard mass in Wimbledon church at Easter, and, for the better ordering of his spiritual concerns, took a priest into his house. Doctor Nares, whose simplicity passes that of any casuist with whom we are ac quainted, vindicates his hero by assuring us, that this was not superstition, but pure unmixed hypocrisy. “That he did in some manner conform, we shall not be able, in the face of existing documents, to deny; while we feel in our own minds abundantly satisfied, that, during this very trying reign, he never abandoned the prospect of another revolution in fayour of Protestantism." In another place, the doctor tells us, that Cecil went to mass "with no idolatrous intention." Nobody, we believe, ever accused him of idolatrous intentions. The very ground of the charge against him is, that he had no idolatrous intentions. Nobody would have blamed him if he had really gone to Wimbledon church, with the feelings of a good Catholic, to worship the host. Doctor Nares speaks in several places, with just severity, of the sophistry of the Jesuits, and with just admiration of the incomparable letters of Pascal. It is somewhat strange, therefore, that he should adopt, to the full extent, the jesuitical doctrine of the direction of intentions.

Through the whole course of that miserable intrigue which was carried on round the dying bed of Edward the Sixth, Cecil so demeaned himself as to avoid, first, the displeasure of Northumberland, and afterwards the displeasure of Mary. He was prudently unwilling to put his hand to the instrument which changed the course of the succession. But the furious Dudley was master of the palace. Cecil, therefore, according to his own account, excused We do not blame Cecil for not choosing to himself from signing as a party, but consented be burned. The deep stain upon his memory o sign as a witness. It is not easy to describe is, that, for differences of opinion for which he his dexterous conduct at this most perplexing would risk nothing himself, he, in the day of crisis, in language more appropriate than that his power, took away without scruple the lives which is employed by old Fuller: "His hand of others. One of the excuses suggested in wrote it as secretary of state,” says that quaint these Memoirs for his conforming, during the writer; "but his heart consented not thereto. reign of Mary, to the Church of Rome, is, tha Yea, he openly opposed it; though at last he may have been of the same mind with yielding to the greatness of Northumberland, those German Protestants who were called in an age when it was present drowning not Adiaphorists, and who considered the popish to swim with the stream. But as the philoso- rites as matters indifferent. Melancthon was pher tells us, that, though the planets be whirl-one of these moderate persons, and "appears," ed about daily from east to west, by the motion of the primum mobile, yet have they also a contrary proper motion of their own from west to east, which they slowly, though surely, move at their leisure; so Cecil had secret counterendeavours against the strain of the court herein, and privately advanced his rightful intentions against the foresaid duke's ambition." This was undoubtedly the most perilous conjuncture of Cecil's life. Wherever there was a safe course, he was safe. But here every course was full of danger. His situation rendered it impossible for him to be neutral. If he acted on either side, if he refused to act at all, he ran a fearful risk. He saw all the difficulties of his position. He sent his oney and plate out of London, made over his

says Doctor Nares, "to have gone greater lengths than any imputed to Lord Burghley." We should have thought this not only an excuse, but a complete vindication, if Burghley had been an Adiaphorist for the benefit of others, as well as for his own. If the popish rites were matters of so little moment, that a good Protestant might lawfully practise them for his safety, how could it be just or humane that a Papfst should be hanged, drawn, and quartered, for practising them from a sense of duty. Unhappily, these non-essentials soon became matters of life and death. Just at the very time at which Burghley attained the highest point of power and favour, an act of Parliament was passed, by which the penalties of high treason were denounced against persons

who should do in sincerity what he had done from cowardice.

Early in the reign of Mary, Cecil was employed in a mission scarcely consistent with the character of a zealous Protestant. He was sent to escort the Papal legate, Cardinal Pole, from Brussels to London. That great hody of moderate persons, who cared more for the quiet of the realm than for the controverted points which were in issue between the churches, seem to have placed their chief hope in the wisdom and humanity of the gentle cardinal. Cecil, it is clear, cultivated the friendship of Pole with great assiduity, and received great advantage from his protection.

knee. For Burghley alone, a chair was set in her presence; and there the old minister, by birth only a plain Lincolnshire esquire, took his ease, while the haughty heirs of the Fitzalans and the De Veres humbled themselves to the dust around him. At length, having survived all his early coadjutors and rivals, he died full of years and honours. His royal mistress visited him on his death-bed, and cheered him with assurances of her affection and esteem; and his power passed, with little diminution, to a son who inherited his abili ties, and whose mind had been formed by his counsels.

The life of Burghley was commensurate with one of the most important periods in the history of the world. It exactly measures the time during which the house of Austria held unrivalled superiority, and aspired to univer sal dominion. In the year in which Burghley was born, Charles the Fifth obtained the imperial crown. In the year in which Burghley died, the vast designs which had for nearly a century kept Europe in constant agitation, were buried in the same grave with the proud and sullen Philip.

But the best protection of Cecil, during the gloomy and disastrous reign of Mary, was that which he derived from his own prudence and from his own temper;-a prudence which could never be lulled into carelessness, a temper which could never be irritated into rashness. The Papists could find no occasion against him. Yet he did not lose the esteem even of those sterner Protestants who had preferred exile to recantation. He attached himself to the persecuted heiress of the throne, and entitled himself to her gratitude and confi- The life of Burghley was commensurate dence. Yet he continued to receive marks of also with the period during which a great mo favour from the queen. In the House of Com-ral revolution was effected; a revolution, the mons, he put himself at the head of the party opposed to the court. Yet so guarded was his language, that even when some of those who acted with him were imprisoned by the Privy Council, he escaped with impunity.

consequences of which were felt, not only in the cabinets of princes, but at half the firesides in Christendom. He was born when the great religious schism was just commencing. He lived to see the schism complete, to see a line of demarcation, which, since his death, has been very little altered, strongly drawn between Protestant and Catholic Europe.

At length Mary died. Elizabeth succeeded, and Cecil rose at once to greatness. He was sworn in privy counsellor and secretary of state to the new sovereign before he left her The only event of modern times which can prison of Hatfield; and he continued to serve be properly compared with the Reformation, is her for forty years, without intermission, in the the French Revolution; or, to speak more achighest employments. His abilities were pre-curately, that great revolution of political feelcisely those which keep men long in power. He belonged to the class of the Walpoles, the Pelhams, and the Liverpools; not to that of the St. Johns, the Carterets, the Chathams, and the Cannings. If he had been a man of original genius, and of a commanding mind, it would have been scarcely possible for him to keep his power, or even his head. There was not room in one government for an Elizabeth and a Richelieu. What the haughty daughter of Henry needed, was a moderate, cautious, flexible minister, skilled in the details of business, competent to advise, but not aspiring to command. And such a minister she found in Burghley. No arts could shake the confidence which she reposed in her old and trusty servant. The courtly graces of Leicester, the brilliant talents and accomplishments of Essex, touched the fancy, perhaps the heart, of the woman; but no rival could deprive the Treasurer of the place which he possessed in the favour of the queen. She sometimes chid him sharply; but he was the man whom she delighted to honour. For Burghley, she forgot her usual parsimony both of wealth and of dignities. For Burghley, she relaxed that severe etiquette to which she was unreasonably attached. Every other person to whom she addressed her speech, or on whom the glance of her eagle eye fell, instantly sank on his

ing which took place in almost every part of the civilized world during the eighteenth century, and which obtained in France its most terrible and signal triumph. Each of these memorable events may be described as a rising up of human reason against a caste. The one was a struggle of the laity against the clergy for intellectual liberty; the other was a struggle of the people against the privileged orders for political liberty. In both cases, the spirit of innovation was at first encouraged by the class to which it was likely to be most prejudicial. It was under the patronage of Frederick, of Catharine, of Joseph, and of the French nobles, that the philosophy which afterwards threatened all the thrones and aristocracies of Europe with destruction, first became formidable. The ardour with which men betook themselves to liberal studies at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, was zealously encouraged by the heads of that very church, to which liberal studies were destined to be fatal. In both cases when the explosion came, it came with a violence which appalled and disgusted many of those who had previously been distinguished by the freedom of their opinions. The violence of the democratic party in France made Burke a tory, and Alfieri a courtier; the violence of the chiefs of the German schism made