particulars to any general estimate of the character before us, as no philosophical or moral oasis appears in the life of Clarendon uninvaded by the blinding dust and hot breath of faction. Neither his futile efforts to philosophise upon events which he only viewed through a microscopic and discoloured medium, nor his affected equanimity in adverse affairs, which is belied by traits of bitter spite and vain anticipation, give any evidence of reflective and well-centred existence. Yet we cannot withhold our pity from the poor diseased old man, cast off by royal gratitude and by foreign hospitality; while we admire that force of self-delusion which led him, as he says, 'not to reflect upon any one thing he had done of which he was so much ashamed as he was of the vast expense he had made in the building of his house,' and that impotence of mind which laid him prostrate (to employ his own words,) so broken under the daily insupportable instances of his majesty's terrible displeasure, that he knew not what to do, hardly what to wish.' Alas for human nature! that such helpless debasement should be compatible with a rule of life which many still panegyrise as a pattern of the highest morality. Alas for mankind! that if such instances affect them with a feeling of indignant amazement, that emotion rarely penetrates to the origin of the evil in the absence of some grand and guiding principle of action. There was a moment in our history when the civic wreaths of yore seemed interwoven with the mild domestic life of later ages. But it is past; and even youth deserts the school-themes of antiquity, and the monuments of old English patriotism, for the perplexed and tortuous paths of modern practical politics. Many a mind that would have spurned the slavish lessons of prerogative is poisoned with the lore of balances, influences, and compromises,-many an eye that would have kindled in the star-chamber sinks beneath the satire of some frivolous circle,—many a heart that would have sympathised and bled with Hampden's, learns to idolise human power, in the example of Cromwell; to disbelieve in human virtue, on the authority of Clarendon."

Sir William Morice.

BORN a. d. 1602.-DIED A. D. 1676.

SIR WILLIAM MORICE was born at Exeter in the year 1602. His father, Dr John Morice, was chancellor of the diocese of Exeter. After the preliminary course of education, young Morice was entered of Exeter college, Oxford, where he had for tutor the learned Nathaniel Carpenter. Such was the diligence manifested by the young student, that Dr Prideaux used to say of him, "that though he was but little of stature, yet, in time, he would come to be great in the state." Having commenced bachelor of arts, he retired to his paternal estate, where he devoted himself to study. Prince, in his Worthies of Devon,' says that, in his younger years, he "was very much addicted to poetry and apothegmatical learning." He took no part in those convulsions of the state which now commenced, though it is highly probable that he was a moderate royalist in sentiment. In 1645 he was chosen to represent his native county in parliament,-an honour wholly unsolicited on his

part; but he refused to take his seat in the house, till the members excluded by the army-faction were restored by Monk. In 1651, he was appointed high-sheriff of Devonshire.

It is generally agreed that Morice was the only person in Monk's confidence as to his real intentions between Richard's abdication and Charles's arrival. He also received a letter from Charles, urging him to use all his influence towards effecting the Restoration, and Clarendon represents him as one of the principal agents in bringing about that event. To render his co-operation more effective, Charles appointed him his secretary of state, and Monk made him colonel of a regiment of infantry, and governor of Plymouth. He was one of those gentlemen who welcomed the restored king to Dover, where he received from him the honour of knighthood. Shortly after this he was chosen a privy-councillor. After having honourably filled the office of secretary of state for more than seven years, Sir William retired, in 1668, to his estate at Warrington, in Devonshire, where he died in 1676. His eldest son was created a baronet in 1661.

Sir William may be considered as one of the last of the lay-puritans, -a character that almost ceased with the act of conformity. That act, obliging those who had, in the former times of episcopacy, been moderate in their service, and who, with some dislike to a few ceremonies, yet retained so much affection to the establishment as to dislike separation still more, now to act a more decided part, a stronger line was henceforward drawn between the episcopalians and the nonconformists,—a line which has continued to this day, and which still acts as a barrier between the two parties. In his doctrinal sentiments, Sir William was a moderate Calvinist. His views on church-government are not so easily ascertained. He was not an episcopalian; he was not a presbyterian; still less was he an independent. Perhaps an episcopacy modified according to Usher's plan was that system of church-government which most nearly coincided with his own views. His work on the Lord's Supper evinces his almost universal reading and profound learning.

Bulstrode Whitelocke.

BORN A. D. 1605.-DIED A. D. 1676.

BULSTRODE WHITELOCK E, Son of James Whitelocke, a learned English lawyer, was born on the 6th of August, 1605, in Fleet-street, London. He was educated at Merchant-tailors' school, and from thence went to St John's college, Oxford. Laud, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, was president of St John's at the time, and being the intimate friend of young Whitelocke's father, treated him with much kindness. He left the university without a degree, and went to the Middle Temple, where he commmenced the assiduous study of law, and soon entered upon the practice of that profession.

In 1640, Whitelocke was chosen burgess for Marlow in Buckinghamshire. He acted as chairman of the committee appointed to manage Strafford's impeachment, and bore himself in that office with great firmness and dignity. He had early acquired the reputation of a

good common lawyer; in so much so, that Hampden is said to have frequently consulted him on the subject of ship-money; and to his professional reputation was soon added that of being a good parliamentary speaker, and an adept in the technicalities and forms of the house. His early conduct was marked by moderation, and an apparent desire to soothe and conciliate the contending parties; but as soon as hostilities had actually commenced, he adhered closely to the parliament, and accepted under them the office of deputy-lieutenant of Bucks and Oxford. In January, 1643, he acted as one of the commissioners for treating with the king; soon after, he sat as one of the lay-commissioners in the Westminster assembly of divines. Charles appears to have reposed more confidence in Whitelocke and Hollis than in most others of their party. He even condescended to solicit their advice in framing an answer to the propositions which they had themselves been the bearers of from the parliament. Whitelocke hesitated at first to comply with their request, but before leaving the king he made a hasty memorandum of what he judged might form the substance of an answer to the parliament's proposals, and left it upon the table of the king's withdrawing room. For this transaction, both he and Hollis were impeached in 1645, but after a long and severe scrutiny, the commons acquitted them of all blame in the transaction.

Whitelocke was now one of the leading men of the commonwealth, and he used his influence to restrain and moderate the excessive intolerance of the presbyterian party, especially in respect of their claim to the divine right of their order of church government. In the year 1645, the house of commons ordered all the books and manuscripts of the lord-keeper Littleton, whose estate had been sequestered, to be given to Whitelocke. In his 'Memorials,' Whitelocke alluding to this, says, "he undertook this business, as he had done others of the like kind, to preserve these books and manuscripts from being sold, which the sequestration would have done, but he saved them, to have the present use of them, and resolving, if God gave them a happy accommodation, to restore them to the owner, or to some of his family." On several other occasions, Whitelocke showed his regard to the interests of literature, particularly in preventing the sale of the king's library and collection of medals. "Being informed," he says, "of a design in some to have them sold, and transported beyond seas, which I thought would be a dishonour and damage to our nation, and to all scholars therein; and fearing that in other hands they might be more subject to embezzling, and being willing to preserve them for public use, I did accept of the trouble of being library-keeper at St James's, and therein was encouraged and much persuaded to it by Mr Selden, who swore that if I did not undertake the charge of them, all those rare monuments of antiquity, and these choice books and manuscripts would be lost: and there were not the like of them, except only in the Vatican, in any other library in Christendom."

Cromwell gave Whitelocke more of his confidence than might have been expected, seeing that the fact was known that he had been consulted by Essex's party on the subject of impeaching Cromwell. It does not, however, appear that Whitelocke used any great efforts to return and secure the confidence of so important a personage. When the trial of the king had been decided upon, he was named one of the

committee of thirty-eight, who were appointed to draw up the charge; but he never attended the sittings, and refused afterwards to pronounce his approval of the proceedings of the high court of justice. His memorandum on the king's death is thus expressed :-" Jan. 30, I went not to the house, but stayed all day at home, in my study and at my prayers, that this day's work might not so displease God as to bring prejudice to this poor afflicted nation." Yet there was certainly a degree of trimming and vacillation about Whitelocke's conduct at this crisis, for, in the month of February following, we find him pronouncing his disapprobation of the vote of the house, of the 5th of December, namely, "that his majesty's concessions to the propositions of the parliament were sufficient grounds for settling the peace of the kingdom;" and he even drew up the act for abolishing the house of lords, with his own hand, although he had formally dissented from that contemplated measure.

On the 8th of February, he was appointed one of the three lords commissioners of the new great seal of the commonwealth of England. He urges the following reasons as his apology for the acceptance of this trust: "because he was already very deeply engaged with this party; and because the business to be undertaken by him was the execution of law and justice, without which men could not live one by another—a thing of absolute necessity to be done." On the 14th of the same month he was chosen one of the thirty members of the council of state, and a few months after he was elected high-steward of Oxford. Cromwell still continued to favour him with much of his confidence, and frequently consulted him on professional points. He at last got him appointed ambassador to Christina of Sweden. In this situation he displayed very respectable diplomatic talents, and concluded a well-based alliance between the two countries in 1654. The journal which he kept while employed in this embassy, was published by Dr Morton in 1772. It is a curious and valuable document, and is printed literally from Whitelocke's manuscript. After his return home, he received the thanks of parliament, and had £2000 ordered him for the expenses of his embassy. He appears, however, to have been dissatisfied with his treatment upon the whole, and talks of himself in the conclusion of his journal as having performed "a most difficult and dangerous work" for a very thankless government.

Richard Cromwell restored the great seal to him, which he had resigned in 1655; but his office ceased on Richard's deposition. During the confusion which followed, it has been suspected that Whitelocke negotiated a good deal with Hyde and the leading men among the royalists; but there is no clear proof of this; and the neglect amounting to contempt with which he was subsequently treated by Charles is some testimony in favour of his integrity. He died on the 28th of January, 1676. The first edition of his Memorials of the English affairs,' was published in 1682; the second in 1732. He also wrote Memorials of early English history which were published in 1709.

Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle.

BORN A. D. 1592.-died a. d. 1676.

THIS accomplished nobleman was the eldest son of Sir Charles Cavendish, younger brother to the first earl of Devonshire. He was born in the year 1592, and privately educated under his father's roof. In 1617, he succeeded to his father's fine estate, and in 1620 was raised to the peerage by the titles of Lord Ogle and Viscount Mansfield.

Charles I. advanced him, in 1627, to the earldom of Newcastle-onTyne. He now got involved in politics in spite of his unambitious and retiring disposition. He excited the jealousy of Buckingham, and won the friendship of Wentworth; but the king withstood the attempts of the favourite to displace the earl from his confidence, and in 1638 appointed him governor to the prince of Wales. The earl proved a munificent as well as faithful subject. He gave the king a most superb reception at Welbeck house when on his way to his coronation in Scotland; and within a year or two afterwards made the king and queen "a more stupendous entertainment" at Bolsover castle. He also assisted Charles's necessities with a free gift of £10,000, and a body of horse equipped at his own expense, when preparing to awe the Scottish covenanters into submission. Soon after his return from Scotland, whither he had accompanied Charles, he resigned his office of governor to the prince.

In the beginning of 1642 he met the king at York, and took possession with troops raised by himself, of Newcastle-on-Tyne. One of the first subsequent acts of the parliament was to declare Newcastle a traitor to the state, and excepted from any pardon; while the king, on his part, appointed him general of all forces to be levied north of the Trent. In his military command he was at first very successful, and was rewarded by a grant of the title of Marquess of Newcastle; but the battle of Marston-moor annihilated his army, and with difficulty he made his escape to Scarborough where he immediately embarked for Hamburgh. After spending some time successively at Hamburgh, Amsterdam, and Paris, he finally settled at Antwerp, where, though greatly depressed in his finances, he contrived to beguile the tedium of exile with literary composition, encouraged, doubtless, by the example of his countess, herself an authoress of high reputation in these times. He wrote four plays, and a treatise on the training and management of horses.

After an absence of eighteen years, he once more set foot on his native land in the suite of Charles II.; and on the 16th of March, 1664, he was elevated to the dignities of Earl of Ogle and Duke of Newcastle. He died on the 25th of December, 1676, having passed the closing years of his life mostly in retirement. Clarendon thus sketches his character: "he was a very fine gentleman, active, and full of courage, and most accomplished in those qualities of horsemanship, dancing, and fencing, which accompany a good breeding, in which his delight was. Besides that, he was amorous in poetry and music, to which he indulged the greatest part of his time; and nothing could have tempted him out of those paths of pleasure, which he enjoyed in a full and ample fortune,