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A short time before Hampden's death the sacrament was administered to him. He declared that though he disliked the government of the Church of England, he yet agreed with that Church as to all essential matters of doctrine. His intellect remained unclouded. When all was nearly over,

could return only by Chiselhampton | of England, with whom he had lived Bridge. A force ought to be instantly in habits of intimacy, and by the chapdespatched in that direction for the lain of the Buckinghamshire Greenpurpose of intercepting them. In coats, Dr. Spurton, whom Baxter the mean time, he resolved to set describes as a famous and excellent out with all the cavalry that he divine. 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, he lay murmuring faint prayers for "second to none but the General him- himself, and for the cause in which he self in the observance and application died. "Lord Jesus," he exclaimed in of all men." On the field of Chal- the moment of the last agony, "receive grove he came up with Rupert. A my soul. O Lord, save my country. fierce skirmish ensued. In the first O Lord, be merciful to charge Hampden was struck in the that broken ejaculation passed away shoulder by two bullets, which broke his noble and fearless spirit. 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.

In

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 to whom a thousand years are as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the night.

Hampden, with his head drooping, and his hands leaning on his horse's neck, moved feebly out of the battle. The mansion which had been inhabited by his father-in-law, and from which in his youth he had carried home his The news of Hampden's death probride Elizabeth, was in sight. There duced as great a consternation in his still remains an affecting tradition party, according to Clarendon, as if that he looked for a moment towards their whole army had been cut off. that beloved house, and made an effort The journals of the time amply prove to go thither to die. But the enemy that the Parliament and all its friends lay in that direction. He turned his were filled with grief and dismay. horse towards Thame, where he arrived Lord Nugent has quoted a remarkable almost fainting with agony. The sur-passage from the next Weekly Intelligeons dressed his wounds. But there gencer. "The loss of Colonel Hampwas no hope. The pain which he suf- den goeth near the heart of every man fered was most excruciating. But he that loves the good of his king and endured it with admirable firmness country, and makes some conceive and resignation. His first care was little content to be at the army now for his country. He wrote from his that he is gone. The memory of this bed several letters to London concern- deceased colonel is such, that in no ing public affairs, and sent a last age to come but it will more and more pressing message to the head-quarters, be had in honour and esteem ; a man recommending that the dispersed forces so religious, and of that prudence, should be concentrated. When his judgment, temper, valour, and integpublic duties were performed, he calmly rity, that he hath left few his like prepared himself to die. He was at- behind." tended by a clergyman of the Church

He had indeed left none his like

behind him. There still remained, indeed, in his party, many acute intellects, many eloquent tongues, many brave and honest hearts. There still remained a rugged and clownish soldier, half fanatic, half buffoon, whose talents, discerned as yet only by one penetrating eye, were equal to all the highest duties of the soldier and the prince. But in Hampden, and in Hampden alone, were united all the qualities which, at such a crisis, were necessary to save the state, the valour and energy of Cromwell, the discernment and eloquence of Vane, the humanity and moderation of Manchester, the stern integrity of Hale, the ardent public spirit of Sydney. 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 Scoth army descending from the heights over Dunbar. But it was when to the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles had succeeded the fierce conflict of sects and factions, ambitious of ascendency and burning for revenge, it was when the vices and ignorance which the old tyranny had generated threatened the new freedom with destruction, that England missed the sobriety, the self-command, the perfect soundness of judgment, the perfect rectitude of intention, to which the history of revolutions furnishes no parallel, or furnishes a parallel in Washington alone.

BURLEIGH AND HIS TIMES. (APRIL, 1832.)

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 Elizabeth. 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 Private and Official Correspondence and other Papers, now first published from the Originals. By the Reverend EDWARD NARES, D. D., Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. 3 vols. 4to. London: 1828, 1832.

THE work of Dr. Nares has filled us with astonishment similar to that which Captain Lemuel Gulliver felt when first he landed in Brobdingnag, 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 quarto 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 Shalum. But unhappily the life of man is now threescore years and ten; and we cannot but think it somewhat unfair in Dr. Nares to demand from us so large a portion of so short an existence.

Compared with the labour of reading through these volumes, all other labour, the labour of thieves on the treadmill, of children in factories, of negroes in sugar plantations, is an agrecable recreation. There was, it is said, a criminal in Italy, who was suffered to make his choice between Guicciardini and the galleys. He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was too much for him. He changed his mind, and went to the oar. Guicciardini, though cer

tainly not the most amusing of writers, | temper, a sound judgment, great powers is a Herodotus or a Froissart, when of application, and a constant eye to the compared with Dr. Nares. It is not main chance. In his youth he was, it merely in bulk, but in specific gravity seems, fond of practical jokes. Yet also, that these memoirs exceed all even out of these he contrived to exother human compositions. On every tract some pecuniary profit. When he subject which the Professor discusses, was studying the law at Gray's Inn, he he produces three times as many pages lost all his furniture and books at the as another man; and one of his pages gaming table to one of his friends. He is as tedious as another man's three. accordingly bored a hole in the wall His book is swelled to its vast dimen- which separated his chambers from sions by endless repetitions, by episodes those of his associate, and at midnight which have nothing to do with the bellowed through this passage threats main action, by quotations from books of damnation and calls to repentance in which are in every circulating library, the ears of the victorious gambler, who and by reflections which, when they lay sweating with fear all night, and happen to be just, are so obvious that refunded his winnings on his knees they must necessarily occur to the mind next day. "Many other the like merry of every reader. He employs more jests," says his old biographer, "I have words in expounding and defending a heard him tell, too long to be here truism than any other writer would noted." To the last, Burleigh was employ in supporting a paradox. Of somewhat jocose; and some of his the rules of historical perspective, he sportive sayings have been recorded by has not the faintest notion. There is Bacon. They show much more shrewdneither foreground nor background in ness than generosity, and are, indeed, his delineation. The wars of Charles neatly expressed reasons for exacting the Fifth in Germany are detailed at money rigorously, and for keeping it almost as much length as in Robert-carefully. It must, however, be acson'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 Dr. 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.

knowledged that he was rigorous and careful for the public advantage as well as for his own. To extol his moral character as Dr. Nares has extolled it is absurd. It would be equally absurd to represent him as a corrupt, rapacious, and bad-hearted man. He paid great attention to the interests of the state, and great attention also to the interest Neither the facts which Dr. Nares of his own family. He never deserted has discovered, nor the arguments which his friends till it was very inconvenient he urges, will, we apprehend, materially to stand by them, was an excellent alter the opinion generally entertained Protestant when it was not very adby judicious readers of history con- vantageous to be a Papist, recom cerning his hero. Lord Burleigh can mended a tolerant policy to his mishardly be called a great man. He was tress as strongly as he could recomnot one of those whose genius and mend it without hazarding her favour, energy change the fate of empires. He never put to the rack any person from was by nature and habit one of those whom it did not seem probable that who follow, not one of those who lead. useful information might be derived, Nothing that is recorded, either of his and was so moderate in his desires words or of his actions, indicates in- that he left only three hundred distinct tellectual or moral elevation. But his landed estates, though he might, as his talents, though not brilliant, were of an honest servant assures us, have left eminently useful kind; and his prin- much more, "if he would have taken ciples, though not inflexible, were not money out of the Exchequer for his more relaxed than those of his asso-own use, as many Treasurers have ciates and competitors. He had a cool done"

Burleigh, like the old Marquess of tions against the foresaid duke's amWinchester, who preceded him in the bition." custody of the White Staff, was of the This was undoubtedly the most pewillow, and not of the oak. He first rilous conjuncture of Cecil's life. Wherrose into notice by defending the su-ever there was a safe course, he was premacy of Henry the Eighth. He was safe. But here every course was full subsequently favoured and promoted of danger. His situation rendered it 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. Dr. 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.

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 money and plate out of London, made over his estates to his son, and carried arms about his person. His best arms, however, were his sagacity and his self-command. The plot in 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, by Somerset, and by Northumberland, continued to flourish under the protection of Mary.

house. Dr. Nares, whose simplicity passes that of any casuist with whom we are acquainted, vindicates his hero by assuring us that this was not superstition, but pure unmixed hypocrisy.

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Through the whole course of that miserable intrigue which was carried on round the dying bed of Edward the Sixth, Cecil so bemeaned himself as to avoid, first, the displeasure of North- He had no aspirations after the crown umberland, and afterwards the dis- of martyrdom. He confessed himself, pleasure of Mary. He was prudently therefore, with great decorum, heard unwilling to put his hand to the instru-mass in Wimbledon Church at Easter, ment which changed the course of the and, for the better ordering of his spisuccession. But the furious Dudley ritual concerns, took a priest into his was master of the palace. Cecil, therefore, according to his own account, excused himself from signing as a party, but consented to sign as a witness. It is not easy to describe his dexterous conduct at this most perplexing crisis, in language more appropriate than that which is employed by old Fuller. "His hand wrote it as secretary of state," says that quaint writer; " but his heart consented not thereto. Yea, he openly opposed it; though at last yielding to the greatness of Northumberland, in an age when it was present drowning not to swim with the stream. the philosopher tells us, that though the planets be whirled 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 counter-endeavours against the strain of the court herein, and privately advanced his rightful inten

But as

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 favour 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. We never should have blamed him if he had really gone to Wimbledon Church, with the feelings of a good Catholic, to worship the host. Dr. 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.

ship of Pole with great assiduity, and received great advantage from the Legate's protection.

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 bis 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 confidence. Yet he continued to receive marks of favour from the Queen. In the House of Commons, 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.

We do not blame Cecil for not choosing to be burned. The deep stain upon his memory is that, for differences of opinion for which he would risk nothing himself, he, in the day of his power, took away without scruple the lives of others. One of the excuses suggested in these Memoirs for his conforming, during the reign of Mary, to the Church of Rome, is that he may have been of the same mind with those German Protestants who were called Adiaphorists, and who considered the popish rites as matters indifferent. Melancthon was one of these moderate persons, and "appears," says Dr. Nares, "to have gone greater lengths than any imputed to Lord Burleigh." We should have thought this not only an excuse, but a complete vindication, if Cecil had been an Adiaphorist for the benefit of others as well as for his own. If the popish At length Mary died: Elizabeth sucrites were matters of so little moment ceeded; and Cecil rose at once to greatthat a good Protestant might lawfully ness. He was sworn in Privy-counpractise them for his safety, how could cillor and Secretary of State to the it be just or humane that a Papist new sovereign before he left her prison should be hanged, drawn, and quar- of Hatfield; and he continued to serve tered, for practising them from a sense her during forty years, without interof duty? Unhappily these non-essen- mission, in the highest employments. tials soon became matters of life and His abilities were precisely those which death. Just at the very time at which keep men long in power. He belonged Cecil attained the highest point of to the class of the Walpoles, the Pelpower and favour, an Act of Parlia- hams, and the Liverpools, not to that ment was passed by which the penal- of the St. Johns, the Carterets, the ties of high treason were denounced Chathams, and the Cannings. If he 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 body 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 friend

had been a man of original genius and of an enterprising spirit, 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 Burleigh. 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

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