times. The whole principle of his government | pelled to serve in the army. Money, however, was resistance to public opinion; nor did he make any real concession to that opinion till it mattered not whether he resisted or conceded; till the nation, which had long ceased to love him or to trust him, had at last ceased to fear him. came in slowly and the king was compelled to summon another Parliament. In the hope of conciliating his subjects, he set at liberty the persons who had been imprisoned for refusing to comply with his unlawful demands. Hampden regained his freedom; and was immediately re-elected burgess for Wendover. of offences to the ordinary tribunals. In the summer this memorable Parliament was prorogued. It met again in January, 1629. Buckingham was no more. That weak, violent, and dissolute adventurer, who, with no talents or acquirements but those of a mere courtier, had, in a great crisis of foreign and domestic politics, ventured on the part of prime minister, had fallen, during the recess of Parliament, by the hand of an assassin. Both before and after his death, the war had been feebly and unsuccessfully conducted. The king had continued, in direct violation of the Petition of Right, to raise tonnage and poundage, without the consent of Parliament. The troops had again been billeted on the people; and it was clear to the Commons, that the five subsidies which they had given, as the price of the national liberties, had been given in vain. His first Parliament met in June, 1625. Hampden sat in it as burgess for Wendover. Early in 1628 the Parliament met. During The king wished for money. The Commons its first session, the Commons prevailed on the wished for the redress of grievances. The king, after many delays and much equivocawar, however, could not be carried on without tion, to give, in return for five subsidies, his funds. The plan of the Opposition was, it full and solemn assent to that celebrated inshould seem, to dole out supplies by small strument, the second great charter of the libersums in order to prevent a speedy dissolution. ties of England, known by the name of the They gave the king two subsidies only, and Petition of Right. By agreeing to this act, the proceeded to complain that his ships had been king bound himself to raise no taxes without employed against the Huguenots in France, the consent of Parliament, to imprison no man and to petition in behalf of the Puritans who except by legal process, to billet no more solwere persecuted in England. The king dis-diers on the people, and to leave the cognisance solved them, and raised money by letters under his privy seal. The supply fell far short of what he needed; and, in the spring of 1626, he called together another Parliament. In this Parliament, Hampden again sat for Wendover. The Commons resolved to grant a very liberal supply, but to defer the final passing of the act for that purpose till the grievances of the nation should be redressed. The struggle which followed far exceeded in violence any that had yet taken place. The Commons impeached Buckingham. The king threw the managers of the impeachment into prison. The Commons denied the right of the king to levy tonnage and poundage without their consent. The king dissolved them. They put forth a remonstrance. The king circulated a declaration vindicating his measures, and committed some of the most distinguished members of the Opposition to close custody. Money was raised by a forced loan, which was appor- They met accordingly in no complying hutioned among the people according to the rate mour. They took into their most serious conat which they had been respectively assessed sideration the measures of the government to the last subsidy. On this occasion it was concerning tonnage and poundage. They that Hampden made his first stand for the fun- summoned the officers of the custom-house to damental principle of the English constitution. their bar. They interrogated the barons of He positively refused to lend a farthing. He the exchequer. They committed one of the was required to give his reasons. He answer- sheriffs of London. Sir John Eliot, a distined, nat he could be content to lend as well guished member of the opposition, and an as others, but feared to draw upon himself intimate friend of Hampden, proposed a resothat curse in Magna Charta which should | lution condemning the unconstitutional impobe read twice a year against those who in-sition. The speaker said that the king had fringe it." For this noble answer the Privy Council committed him close prisoner to the Gate-House. After some time, he was again brought up; but he persisted in his refusal, and was sent to a place of confinement in Hampshire. The government went on, oppressing at home, and blundering in all its measures abroad. A war was foolishly undertaken against France, and more foolishly conducted. Buckingham led an expedition against Rhé, and failed ignominiously. In the mean time, soldiers were billeted on the people. Crimes, of which ordinary justice should have taken cognisance, were punished by martial law. Nearly eighty gentlemen were imprisoned for refusing to contribute to the forced loan. The ower people, who showed any signs of insubriination, were pressed into the fleet, or com commanded him to put no such question to the vote. This decision produced the most violent burst of feeling ever seen within the walls of Parliament. Hayman remonstrated vehemently against the disgraceful language which had been heard from the chair. Eliot dashed the paper which contained his resolution on the floor of the House. Valentine and Hollis held the speaker down in his seat by main force, and read the motion amidst the loudest shouts. The door was locked; the key was laid on the table. Black Rod knocked for admittance in vain. After passing several strong resolutions, the House adjourned.—On the day appointed for its meeting, it was dissolved by the king, and several of its most eminent members, among whom were Hollis and Sir John Eliot, were committed to prison. LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. Though Hampden had as yet taken little part in the debates of the House, he had been a member of many very important committees, and had read and written much concerning the law of Parliament. A manuscript volume of Parliamentary Cases, which is still in existence, contains many extracts from his notes. He now retired to the duties and pleasures of a rural life. During the eleven years which followed the dissolution of the Parliament of 1628, he resided at his seat in one of the most beautiful parts of the county of Buckingham. The house, which has, since his time, been greatly altered, and which is now, we believe, almost entirely neglected, was then an old English mansion, built in the days of the Plantagenets and the Tudors. It stood on the brow of a hill which overlooks a narrow valley. The extensive woods which surround it One of those were pierced by long avenues. avenues the grandfather of the great statesman cut for the approach of Elizabeth; and the opening, which is still visible for many miles, retains the name of the Queen's Gap. In this delightful retreat Hampden passed several years, performing with great activity all the duties of a landed gentleman and a magistrate, and amusing himself with books and with fieldsports. For will, in the intermissions of action, add study to practice, and adorn that lively spirit with flowers of contemplation, he will raise our expectations of another Sir Edward Vere, that had this character-all summer in the field, ali winter in his study-in whose fall fame makes this kingdom a great loser; and, having taken this resolution from counsel with the highest wisdom, as I doubt not you have, I hope and pray that the same Power will crown it with a blessing answerable to our wish. The way you take with my other friend shows you to be none of the Bishop of Exeter's converts;* of whose mind neither am I superstitiously. But had my opinion been asked, I should, as vulgar conceits use to do, have showed my power rather to raise objections than to answer them. A tempert between France and Oxford might have taken away his scruples, with more advantage to his years. although he be one of those that, if his age were looked for in no other book but that of the mind, would be found no ward if you should die to-morrow; yet it is a great hazard, methinks, to see so sweet a disposition guarded with no more, amongst a people whereof many make it their religion to be superstitious in But God, who only knoweth the ill manners. impiety, and their behaviour to be affected in periods of life and opportunities to come, hath designed him, I hope, for his own service be time, and stirred up your providence to husband him so early for great affairs. Then shall he be sure to find Him in France that Abraham did in Sechem and Joseph in Egypt, Sir John Eliot employed himself, during his under whose wing alone is perfect safety." imprisonment, in writing a treatise on govern Part of the correspondence relates to the ment, which he transmitted to his friend. two sons of Sir John Eliot. These young Hampden's criticisms are strikingly characmen were wild and unsteady; and their father, teristic. They are written with all that "flowThe objections are insinuated who was now separated from them, was na- ing courtesy" which is ascribed to him by turally anxious about their conduct. He at Clarendon. ength resolved to send one of them to France, with so much delicacy, that they could scarceand the other to serve a campaign in the Lowly gall the most irritable author. We see, too, Countries. The letter which we subjoin shows how highly Hampden valued in the writings that Hampden, though rigorous towards him- of others that conciseness which was one of self, was not uncharitable towards others, and the most striking peculiarities of his own elothat his puritanism was perfectly compatible quence. Sir Joba Eliot's style was, it seems, with the sentiments and the tastes of an accom- too diffuse, and it is impossible not to admire plished gentleman. It also illustrates admi- the skill win which this is suggested. rably what has been said of him by Clarendon: piece," says Hampden, "is as complete an He was of that rare affability and temper in image of the pattern as can be drawn by lines debate, and of that seeming humility and sub-a lively character of a large mind-the submission of judginent, as if he brought no opinion of his own with him, but a desire of information and instruction. Yet he had so subtle a way of interrogating, and, under cover of doubts, insinuating his objections that he infused his own opinions into those from whom he pretended to learn and receive them." He was not in his retirement unmindful of his prosecuted friends. In particular, he kept up a close correspondence with Sir John Eliot, who was confined in the Tower. Lord Nugent has published several of the letters. We may perhaps be fanciful; but it seems to us that every one of them is an admirable illustration of some part of the character of Hampden which Clarendon has drawn. The letter runs thus: "I am so perte tly acquainted with your clear insight ir.o the dispositions of men, and ability to ft them with courses suitable, that, had you westowed cons of mine as you have done your own, my udgment durst hardly have called it into question, especially when, in laying the deSign, you have prevented the objections to be ade against it. For if Mr. Richard Eliot "The jec', method, and expression, excellent and ticular seem many-all, I confess, excellent. | every thing that seemed likely to stunt it, struck The fountain was full, the channel narrow; its roots deep into a barren soil, and spread its that may be the cause; or that the author re-branches wide to an inclement sky. The mul sembled Virgil, who made more verses by titude thronged round Prynne in the pillory many than he intended to write. To extract with more respect than they paid to Mainwar a just number, had I seen all his, I could easily ing in the pulpit, and treasured up the rags have bid him make fewer; but if he had bade which the blood of Burton had soaked, with a me tell which he could have spared, I had been veneration such as rochets and surplices had posed." ceased to inspire. For the misgovernment of this disastrous period, Charles himself is principally responsible. After the death of Buckingham, he seemed to have been his own prime minister. He had, however, two counsellors who se conded him, or went beyond him, in intolerance and lawless violence; the one a superstitious driveller, as honest as a vile temper would suffer him to be; the other a man of great valour and capacity, but licentious, faithless, corrupt, and cruel. This is evidently the writing, not only of a man of good sense and good taste, but of a man of literary habits. Of the studies of Hampden little is known. But as it was at one time in contemplation to give him the charge of the education of the Prince of Wales, it cannot be doubted that his acquirements were considerable. Davila, it is said, was one of his favourite writers. The moderation of Davila's opinions, and the perspicuity and manliness of his style, could not but recommend him to so judicious a reader. It is not improbable Never were faces more strikingly characterthat the parallel between France and England, istic of the individuals to whom they belonged, the Huguenots and the Puritans, had struck than those of Laud and Strafford, as they still the mind of Hampden, and that he already felt remain portrayed by the most skilful hand of within himself powers not unequal to the lofty that age. The mean forehead, the pinched part of Coligni. While he was engaged in features, the peering eyes of the prelate suit these pursuits, a heavy domestic calamity fell admirably with his disposition. They mark on him. His wife, who had borne him nine him out as a lower kind of Saint Dominic, children, died in the summer of 1634. She differing from the fierce and gloomy enthu lies in the parish church of Hampden, close to siast who founded the Inquisition, as we might the manor-house The tender and energetic imagine the familiar imp of a spiteful witch to language of her epitaph still attests the bitter-differ from an archangel of darkness. When ness of her husband's sorrow, and the consolation which he found in a hope full of immortality. In the mean time, the aspect of public affairs grew darker and darker. The health of Eliot had sunk under an unlawful imprisonment of several years. The brave sufferer refused to purchase liberty, though liberty would to him have been life, by recognising the authority which had confined him. In consequence of the representations of his physicians, the severity of restraint was somewhat relaxed. But it was in vain. He languished and expired a martyr to that good cause, for which his friend Hampden was destined to meet a more brilliant but not a more honourable death. we read his judgments, when we read the re- All the promises of the king were violated without scruple or shame. The Petition of Right, to which he had, in consideration of moneys duly numbered, given a solemn assent, was set at naught. Taxes were raised by the royal authority. Patents of monopoly were granted. The old usages of feudal times were made pretexts for harassing the people with exactions unknown during many years. The Puritans were persecuted with cruelty worthy of the Holy Office. They were forced to fly from the country. They were imprisoned. They were whipped. Their ears were cut off. Their noses were slit. Their cheeks were branded with red-hot iron. But the cruelty of" that I had the scurvy; and that forthwith all the oppressor could not tire out the fortitude of the victims. The mutilated defenders of liberty again defied the vengeance of the StarChamber, came back with undiminished resolution to the place of their glorious infamy, and manfully presented the stumps of their ears to be grubbed out by the hangman's knife. The nardy sect grew up and flourished, in spite of my teeth became loose. There was one in especial in my lower jaw, which I could scarcely keep in with my finger till I had called for help." Here was a man to have the superintendence of the opinions of a great nation! But Wentworth-who ever names him without thinking of those harsh dark features, ennobled by their expressions into more than the LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. majesty of an antique Jupiter; of that brow, scribed even by the partial Clarendon as powthat eye, that cheek, that lip, wherein, as in a erful acts-acts which marked a nature exces chronicle, are written the events of many sively imperious-acts which caused dislike stormy and disastrous years; high enterprise and terror in sober and dispassionate persons accomplished, frightful dangers braved, power-high acts of oppression. Upon a most friunsparingly exercised, suffering unshrink- volous charge, he obtained a capital sentence ingly borne; of that fixed look, so full of severity, of mournful anxiety; of deep thought, of dauntless resolution, which seems at once to forebode and defy a terrible fate, as it lowers on us from the living canvass of Vandyke? Even at this day the haughty earl overawes posterity as he overawed his contemporaries, and excites the same interest when arraigned before the tribunal of history, which he excited at the bar of the House of Lords. In spite of ourselves, we sometimes feel towards his memory a certain relenting, similar to that relenting which his defence, as Sir John Denham tells us, produced in Westminster Hall. from a court-martial against a man of high Among the humbler tools of Charles, were Chief-justice Finch, and Noy, the attorneygeneral. Noy had, like Wentworth, supported the cause of liberty in Parliament, and had, This great, brave, bad man entered the like Wentworth, abandoned that cause for the House of Commons at the same time with sake of office. He devised, in conjunction Hampden, and took the same side with Hamp- with Finch, a scheme of exaction which made den. Both were among the richest and most the alienation of the people from the throne powerful commoners in the kingdom. Both complete. A writ was issued by the king, comwere equally distinguished by force of charac-manding the city of London to equip and man ter and by personal courage. Hampden had more judgment and sagacity than Wentworth. But no orator of that time equalled Wentworth in force and brilliancy of expression. In 1626, both these eminent men were committed to prison by the king; Wentworth, who was among the leaders of the Opposition, on account of his parliamentary conduct; Hampden, who had not as yet taken a prominent part in debate, for refusing to pay taxes illegally imposed. Here their paths separated. After the death In Ireland, where he stood in the place of ships of war for his service. Similar writs Clarendon distinctly admits that this tax was "Till this time," says Clarendon, "he was rather of reputation in his own county, than of public discourse or fame in the kingdom; but then he grew the argument of all tongues, every man inquiring who and what he was that durst, at his own charge, support the liberty and prosperity of the kingdom." by the sentence of the Star-Chamber, and sent to rot in remote dungeons. The estate and the person of every man who had opposed the court were at its mercy. Hampden determined to leave England. Beyond the Atlantic Ocean, a few of the persecuted Puritans had formed, in the wilderness of Connecticut, a settlement which has since become a prosperous commonwealth; and which, in spite of the lapse of time, and of the change of government, still retains something of the character given to it by its first founders. Lord Say and Lord Brooke were the original projectors of this scheme of emigration Hampden had been early consulted respecting Towards the close of the year 1636, this great cause came on in the Exchequer Chamber before all the judges of England. The leading counsel against the writ was the celebrated Oliver St. John; a man whose temper was melancholy, whose manners were reserved, and who was as yet little known in Westminster Hall; but whose great talents had not escaped the penetrating eye of Hamp-it. He was now, it appears, desirous to withden. The attorney-general and solicitor-general appeared for the crown. The arguments of the counsel occupied many days; and the Exchequer Chamber took a considerable time for deliberation. The opinion of the bench was divided. So clearly was the law in favour of Hampden, that though he judges held their situations only during the royal pleasure, the majority against him was the least possible. Four of the twelve pronounced decidedly in his favour; a fifth took a middle course. The remaining seven gave their voices in favour of the writ. The only effect of this decision was to make the public indignation stronger and deeper. "The judgment," says Clarendon, "proved of more advantage and credit to the gentleman condemned than to the king's service." The courage which Hampden had shown on this occasion, as the same historian tells us, "raised his reputation to a great height generally throughout the kingdom." Even courtiers and crown-lawyers spoke respectfully of him. "His carriage," says Clarendon, "throughout that agitation, was with that rare temper and modesty, that they who watched him narrowly to find some advantage against his person, to make him less resolute in his cause, were compelled to give him a just testimony." But his demeanour, though it impressed Lord Falkland with the deepest respect, though it drew forth the praises of Solicitor-general Herbert, only kindled into a fiercer fiame the ever-burning hatred of Strafford. That minister, in his letters to Laud, murmured against the lenity with which Hampden was treated. "In good faith," he wrote, "were such men rightly served, they should be whipped into their right wits." Again he says, "I still wish Mr. Hampden, and others to his likeness, were well whipped into their right senses. And if the rod be so used that it smart not, I am the more sorry." draw himself beyond the reach of oppressors, who, as he probably suspected, and as we know, were bent on punishing his manful resistance to their tyranny. He was accompanied by his kinsman Oliver Cromwell, over whom he possessed great influence, and in whom he alone had discovered, under an exterior appearance of coarseness and extravagance, those great and commanding talents which were afterwards the admiration and the dread of Europe. The cousins took their passage in a vessel which lay in the Thames, bound for North America. They were actually on board, when an order of Council appeared, by which the ship was prohibited from sailing. Seven other ships, filled with emigrants, were stopped at the same time. Hampden and Cromwell remained; and with them remained the Evil Genius of the house of Stuart. The tide of public affairs was even now on the turn. The king had resolved to change the ecclesiastical constitution of Scot land, and to introduce into the public worship of that kingdom ceremonies which the great body of the Scots regarded as popish. This absurd attempt produced, first discontents, then riots, and at length open rebellion. A provisional government was established at Edinburgh, and its authority was obeyed throughout the kingdom. This government raised an army, appointed a general, and called a General Assembly of the Kirk. The famous instrument called the Covenant was put forth at this time, and was eagerly subscribed by the people. The beginnings of this formidable insurrection were strangely neglected by the king and his advisers. But towards the close of the year 1638, the danger became pressing. An army was raised; and early in the following spring Charles marched northward, at the head of a force sufficient, as it seemed, to reduce the Covenanters to submission. The person of Hampden was now scarcely safe. His prudence and moderation had hitherto disappointed those who would gladly But Charles acted, at this conjuncture, as he have had a pretence for sending him to the acted at every important conjuncture throughprison of Eliot. But he knew that the eye of out his life. After oppressing, threatening, and a tyrant was on him. In the year 1637, mis- blustering, he hesitated and failed. He was bold government had reached its height. Eight in the wrong place, and timid in the wrong place. years had passed without a Parliament. The He would have shown his wisdom by being decision of the Exchequer Chamber had placed | afraid before the liturgy was read in St. Giles's at the disposal of the crown the whole pro- church. He put off his fear till he had reached perty of the English people. About the time the Scottish border with his troops. at which that decision was pronounced, after a feeble campaign, he concluded a treaty lynne, Bastwick, and Burton were mutilated with the insurgents, and withdrew his army. Then, |