up by the custom of conversation, and therefore was to make a pure election of his company, which he chose by other rules than were prescribed to the young nobility of that time. And it cannot be denied, though he admitted some few to his friendship for the agreeableness of their manners and their undoubted affection to him, that his familiarity and friendship for the most part was with men of the most eminent and sublime parts, and of untouched reputation in point of integrity, and such men had a title to his bosom.

"He was a great cherisher of wit, and fancy, and good parts in any man; and if he found them clouded with poverty or want, a most liberal and bountiful patron towards them, even above his fortune; of which in those administrations he was such a dispenser as if he had been trusted with it to such uses; and if there had been the least of vice in his expense, he might have been thought too prodigal. He was constant and pertinacious in whatsoever he resolved to do, and not to be wearied by any pains that were necessary to that end; and therefore having once resolved not to see London, which he loved above all other places, till he had perfectly learned the Greek tongue, he went to his own house in the country, and pursued it with that indefatigable industry, that it will not be believed in how short a time he was master of it, and had accurately read all the Greek historians.

"In this time his house being within little more than ten miles of Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite and accurate men of that University, who found such an immenseness

of wit, and such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a fancy, bound in by a most logical ratiocination, such a vast knowledge, that he was not ignorant in anything, yet such an excessive humility as if he had known nothing, that they frequently resided and dwelt with him, as in a college, situated in a purer air; so that his house was a University in a less volume, where they came not so much for repose as for study, and to examine and reform those grosser propositions, which laziness and consent made current in vulgar conversation.

"He was superior to all those passions and affections which attend vulgar minds, and was guilty of no other ambition than of knowledge and to be reputed a lover of all good men; and that made him too much a contemner of those acts which must be indulged in the transactions of human affairs. In the last short parliament he was a burgess in the House of Commons * * * The great opinion he had of the uprightness and integrity of those persons who appeared most active, especially of Mr. Hampden, kept him longer from suspecting any design against the peace of the kingdom; and though he differed from them commonly in conclusions, he believed long their purposes were honest. When he grew better informed what was law, and discerned in them a desire to control that law by a vote of one or both Houses, no man more opposed their attempts, or gave the adverse party more trouble by reason and argumentation; insomuch as he was by degrees looked upon as an advocate for the Court; to which he contributed so little that he declined more addresses

and even those invitations which he was obliged almost by civility to entertain. And he was so jealous of the least imagination that he should incline to preferment, that he affected even a moroseness to the Court and to the courtiers, and left nothing undone which might prevent and divert the King's or Queen's favour to him but the deserving it.

*

"He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and so far from fear that he seemed not without some appetite of danger; and therefore upon an occasion of action he always engaged his person in those troops which he thought by the forwardness of the commanders to be most like to be farthest engaged; and in all such encounters he had about him an extraordinary cheerfulness, without at all affecting the execution that usually attended them; in which he took no delight, but took pains to prevent it when it was not by resistance made necessary; insomuch that at Edge-hill, when the enemy was routed, he was like to have incurred great peril, by interposing to save those who had thrown away their arms, and against whom it may be others were more fierce for their having thrown them away; so that a man might think he came into the field chiefly out of curiosity to see the face of danger, and to prevent the shedding of blood. Yet in his natural inclination he acknowledged he was addicted to the profession of a soldier; and shortly after he came to his fortune, before he was of age, he went into the Low Countries with a resolution of procuring command to give himself up to it; from which he was diverted by the complete inactivity of that summer; so he returned again into

England, and shortly after entered upon that vehement course of study we mentioned before, till the first alarm from the north; then again he made ready for the field, and though he received some repulse in the command of a troop of horse of which he had a promise, he went a volunteer with the Earl of Essex.

"From the entrance into this unnatural war his natural vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him which he had never been used to. * * * * This grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he who had been so exactly easy and affable to all men, that his face and countenance was always present and vacant to his company, and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness of the visage a kind of moroseness or incivility, became on a sudden less communicable; and thence very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had minded before with more neatness and industry and expense than is usual to so great a soul, he was not now only incurious but too negligent; and in his reception of suitors and the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quick, and sharp, and severe, that there wanted not some men-strangers to his name and disposition-who believed him proud and imperious, from which no mortal man was ever more free.

*

"When there was any overture or hope of peace he would be more easy and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press anything which he thought might promote it; and sitting among his friends often after a deep silence and frequent sighs, would with a shr¡ll

and sad accent ingeminate the word 'Peace! Peace!' and would passionately profess that the very agony of the war, and the calamities and desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him and would shortly break his heart!

"In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, he was very cheerful, and put himself into the first ranks of the Lord Byron's regiment, then advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers, from whence he was shot with a musket, and in the instant fell from his horse. Thus died that incomparable young man in the four-and-thirtieth year of his age, having so much dispatched the true business of life, that the eldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocency whosoever leads such a life needs be the less anxious upon how short warning it is taken from him."

I had thought to insert as a companion picture Lord Clarendon's character of Hampden, but I find on reference that it does less justice to its subject and to its author. Such is party spirit!

The second battle of Newbury was fought about a twelvemonth after, the King having come to relieve Donnington Castle, and being suddenly attacked by Waller while at Mr. Doleman's house at Shaw.

I cannot attempt to give more than a brief description of the principal scene of action.

Shaw House is a stately specimen of Tudor architecture, with bay windows, porch and pinnacles, surrounded by magnificent trees, many of which must have been in existence two centuries ago, the clear