greens of Cambridge, produced violent revolu- | many suitors as were drawn to Belmont by the tions in the government and discipline of the fame of Portia. The most distinguished on colleges, and unsettled the minds of the stu- the list was Henry Cromwell. Destitute of the dents. Temple forgot at Emmanuel all the little capacity, the energy, the magnanimity of his Greek which he had brought from Bishop- illustrious father, destitute also of the meek Stortford, and never retrieved the loss;-a cir- and placid virtues of his elder brother, this cumstance which would hardly be worth notic- young man was perhaps a more formidable ing but for the almost incredible fact, that fifty rival in love than either of them would have years later, he was so absurd as to set up his been. Mrs. Hutchinson, speaking the senti own authority against that of Bentley on ques- ments of the grave and aged, describes him as tions of Greek history and philology. He made an "insolent fool," and a "debauched ungodly no proficiency either in the old philosophy Cavalier." These expressions probably mean which still lingered in the schools of Cam- that he was one who, among young and dissibridge, or in the new philosophy of which pated people, would pass for a fine gentleman. Lord Bacon was the founder. But to the end Dorothy was fond of dogs of larger and more of his life he continued to speak of the former formidable breed than those which lie on mowith ignorant admiration, and of the latter dern hearth-rugs; and Henry Cromwell prowith equally ignorant contempt. mised that the highest functionaries at Dublin should be set to work to procure her a fine Irish greyhound. She seems to have felt his attentions as very flattering, though his father was then only Lord-General, and not yet Protector. Love, however, triumphed over ambition, and the young lady appears never to have regretted her decision; though, in a letter written just at the time when all England was ringing with the news of the violent dissolution of the Long Parliament, she could not refrain from reminding Temple, with pardonable vanity, "how great she might have been, if she had been so wise as to have taken hold of the offer of H. C." After residing at Cambridge two years, he departed without taking a degree, and set out upon his travels. He seems then to have been a lively, agreeable young man of fashion, not by any means deeply read, but versed in all the superficial accomplishments of a gentleman, and acceptable in all polite societies. In politics he professed himself a Royalist. His opinions on religious subjects seem to have been such as might be expected from a young man of quick parts, who had received a rambling education, who had not thought deeply, who had been disgusted by the morose austerity of the Puritans, and who, surrounded from childhood by the hubbub of conflicting sects, might easily learn to feel an impartial contempt for them all. On his road to France he fell in with the son and daughter of Sir Peter Osborne. Sir Peter was Governor of Guernsey for the king, and the young people were, like the father, warm for the royal cause. At an inn where they stopped, in the Isle of Wight, the brother amused himself with inscribing on the windows his opinion of the ruling powers. For this instance of malignancy the whole party were arrested and brought before the governor. The sister, trusting to the tenderness which, even in those troubled times, scarcely any gentleman of any party ever failed to show where a woman was concerned, took the crime on herself, and was immediately set at liberty with her fellow-travellers. This incident, as was natural, made a deep impression on Temple. He was only twenty. Dorothy Osborne was twenty-one. She is said to have been handsome; and there remains abundant proof that she possessed an ample share of the dexterity, the vivacity, and the tenderness of her sex. Temple soon became, in the phrase of that time, her servant, and she returned his regard. But difficulties as great as ever expanded a novel to the fifth volume, opposed their wishes. When the courtship commenced, the father of the hero was sitting in the Long Parliament, the father of the heroine was holding Guernsey for King Charles. Even when the war ended, and Sir Peter Osborne returned to his seat at Chicksands, the prospects of the lovers were scarcely less gloomy. Sir John Temple had a more advantageous alliance in view for his son. Dorothy Osborne was in the mean time beseiged by as Nor was it only the influence of rivals that Temple had to dread. The relations of his mistress regarded him with personal dislike, and spoke of him as an unprincipled adventurer, without honour or religion, ready to render services to any party for the sake of preferment. This is, indeed, a very distorted view of Temple's character. Yet a character, even in the most distorted view taken of it by the most angry and prejudiced minds, generally retains something of its outline. No caricaturist ever represented Mr. Pitt as a Falstaff, or Mr. Fox as a skeleton; nor did any libeller ever impute parsimony to Sheridan, or profusion to Marlborough. It must be allowed that the turn of mind which the eulogists of Temple have dignified with the appellation of philosophical indifference, and which, however becoming it may be in an old and experienced statesman, has a somewhat ungraceful appearance in youth, might easily appear shocking to a family who were ready to fight or suffer martyrdom for their exiled king and their persecuted church. The poor girl was exceedingly hurt and irritated by these imputations on her lover, defended him warmly behind his back. and addressed to himself some very tender and anxious admonitions, mingled with assurances of her confidence in his honour and virtue. On one occasion she was most highly provoked by the way in which one of her brothers spoke of Temple: "We talked ourselves weary,' she says-"he renounced me, and I defied him." Nearly seven years did this arduous wooing continue. We are not accurately informed respecting Temple's movements during that time. But he seems to have led a rambling life, sometimes on the Continent, sometimes in Ireland, sometimes in London. He made him- | good or evil may hereafter be produced. The self master of the French and Spanish languages, and amused himself by writing Essays and Romances-an employment which at least served the purpose of forming his style. The specimen which Mr. Courtenay has preserved of those early compositions is by no means contemptible. Indeed, there is one passage on Like and Dislike which could have been produced only by a mind habituated carefully to reflect on its own operations, and which reminds us of the best things in Montaigne. He appears to have kept up a very active correspondence with his mistress. His letters are mistress. His letters are lost, but hers have been preserved; and many of them appear in these volumes. Mr. Courtenay expresses some doubt whether his readers will think him justified in inserting so large a number of these epistles. We only wish that there were twice as many. Very little indeed of the diplomatic correspondence of that generation is so well worth reading. There is a vile phrase of which bad historians are exceedingly fond-" the dignity of history." One writer is in possession of some anecdotes which would illustrate most strikingly the operation of the Mississippi scheme on the manners and morals of the Parisians. But he suppresses those anecdotes because they are too low for the dignity of history. Another is strongly tempted to mention some facts indi- | cating the horrible state of the prisons of England two hundred years ago. But he hardly thinks that the sufferings of a dozen felons pigging together on bare bricks in a hole fifteen feet square would form a subject suited to the dignity of history. Another, from respect for the dignity of history, publishes an account of the reign of George II., without ever mentioning Whitefield's preaching in Moorfields. How should a writer, who can talk about senates, and congresses of sovereigns, and pragmatic sanctions, and ravelines, and counterscarps, and battles where ten thousand men are killed and six thousand men with fifty stands of colours and eighty guns taken, stoop to the StockExchange, to Newgate, to the theatre, to the tabernacle? Tragedy has its dignity as well as history; and how much the tragic art has owed to that lignity any man may judge who will compare the majestic Alexandrines in which the "Seigneur Oreste" and "Madame Andromaque" utter their complaints, with the chattering of the fool in "Lear," and of the nurse in "Romeo and Juliet." poisoning of an emperor is in one sense a far more serious matter than the poisoning of a rat. But the poisoning of a rat may be an era in chemistry; and an emperor may be poisoned by such ordinary means, and with such ordinary symptoms, that no scientific journal would notice the occurrence. An action for a hundred thousand pounds is in one sense a more momentous affair than an action for fifty pounds. But it by no means follows that the learned gentlemen who report the proceedings of the courts of law ought to give a fuller account of an action for a hundred thousand pounds than of an action for fifty pounds. For a cause, in which a large sum is at stake, may be important only to the particular plaintiff and the particular defendant. A cause, on the other hand, in which a small sum is at stake, may establish some great principle interesting to half the families in the kingdom. The case is exactly the same with that class of subjects of which historians treat. To an Athenian, in the time of the Peloponnesian war, the result of the battle of Delium was far more important than the fate of the comedy of the "Knights." But to us the fact that the comedy of the "Knights" was brought on the Athenian stage with success is far more important than the fact that the Athenian phalanx gave way at Delium. Neither the one event nor the other has any intrinsic importance. We are in no danger of being speared by the Thebans. We are not quizzed in the "Knights." To us, the importance of both events consists in the value of the general truth which is to be learned from them. What general truths do we learn from the accounts which have come down to us of the battle of Delium? Very little more than this, that when two armies fight, it is not improbable that one of them will be very soundly beaten-a truth which it would not, we appre hend, be difficult to establish, even if all memory of the battle of Delium were lost among men. But a man who becomes acquainted with the comedy of the "Knights," and with the history of that comedy, at once feels his mind enlarged. Society is presented to him under a new aspect. He may have read and travelled much. He may have visited all the countries of Europe, and the civilized nations of the East. He may have observed the manners of many barbarous races. But here is something altogether different from every thing which he has seen either among polished men or among savages. Here is a community, politically, intellectually, and morally unlike any other community of which he has the means of forming an opinion. This is the really precious part of history,-the corn which some threshers carefully sever from the chaff, for the purpose of gathering the chaff into the garner, and flinging the corn into the fire. That an historian should not record trifles, that he should confine himself to what is important, is perfectly true. But many writers seem never to have considered on what the historical importance of an event depends. They seem not to be aware that the importance of a fact, when that fact is considered with reference to its immediate effects, and the import- Thinking thus, we are glad to learn so much, ance of the same fact, when that fact is con- and would willingly learn more, about the sidered as part of the materials for the con- loves of Sir William and his mistress. In the struction of a science, are two very different seventeenth century, to be sure, Louis XIV. things. The quantity of good or evil which a was a much more important person than Temtransaction produces is by no means necessa-ple's sweetheart. But death and time equalize rily proportioned to the quantity of light which all things. Neither the great king, nor the that transaction affords as to the way in which beauty of Bedfordshire -neither the gorgeous When at last the constancy of the lovers had triumphed over all the obstacles which kinsmen and rivals could oppose to their union, a yet more serious calamity befell them. Poor Mistress Osborne fell ill of the small-pox, and, though she escaped with life, lost all her beauty. To this most severe trial the affection and honour of the lovers of that age was not unfrequently subjected. Our readers probably remember what Mrs. Hutchinson tells us of herself. The lofty Cornelia-like spirit of the aged matron seems to melt into a long-forgotten softness when she relates how her beloved Colonel "married her as soon as she was able paradise of Marli ncr Mistress Osborne's fa- | worse for some passages in which raillery and vourite walk "in the common that lay hard by tenderness are mixed in a very engaging the house, where a great many young wenches namby-pamby. used to keep sheep and cows and sit in the shade singing of ballads,"-is any thing to us. Louis and Dorothy are alike dust. A cottonmill stands on the ruins of Marli, and the Osbornes have ceased to dwell under the ancient roof of the Chicksands. But of that information, for the sake of which alone it is worth while to study remote events, we find so much in the love-letters which Mr. Courtenay has published, that we would gladly purchase equally interesting billets with ten times their weight in state papers taken at random. To us surely it is as useful to know how the young ladies of England employed themselves a hun- | dred and eighty years ago,-how far their to quit the chamber, when the priest and all minds were cultivated, what were their fa- that saw her were affrighted to look on her. vourite studies, what degree of liberty was But God," she adds, with a not ungraceful vaallowed to them, and what use they made of nity, “recompensed his justice and constancy, that liberty, what accomplishments they most by restoring her as well as before." Temple valued in men, and what proofs of tenderness showed on this occasion the same "justice and delicacy permitted them to give to favoured constancy" which did so much honour to suitors, as to know all about the seizure of Colonel Hutchinson. The date of the marriage Franche Comté and the treaty of Nimeguen. is not exactly known. But Mr. Courtenay supThe mutual relations of the two sexes seem to poses it to have taken place about the end of us to be at least as important as the mutual the year 1654. From this time we lose sight relations of any two governments in the world; of Dorothy, and are reduced to form our opiand a series of letters, written by a virtuous, nion of the terms on which she and her husamiable, sensible girl, and intended for the eye band were, from very slight indications which of her lover alone, can scarcely fail to throw may easily mislead us. some light on the relations of the sexes; whereas it is perfectly possible, as all who have made any historical researches can attest, to read bale after bale of despatches and protocols without catching one glimpse of light about the relations of governments. Temple soon went to Ireland, and resided with his father, partly in Dublin, partly in the county of Carlow. Ireland was probably ther a more agreeable residence for the higher classes, as compared with England, than it has ever been before or since. In no part of the empire were the superiority of Cromwell's abilities and the force of his character so signally displayed. He had not the power, and Mr. Courtenay proclaims that he is one of Dorothy Osborne's devoted servants, and expresses a hope that the publication of her letters will add to the number. We must declare our-probably had not the inclination, to govern that selves his rival. She really seems to have been a very charming young woman-modest, generous, affectionate, intelligent, and sprightly, -a royalist, as was to be expected from her connections, without any of that political asperity which is as unwomanly as a long beard,religious, and occasionally gliding into a very pretty and enduring sort of preaching, yet not too good to partake of such diversions as London afforded under the melancholy rule of the Puritans, or to giggle a little at a ridiculous sermon from a divine who was thought to be one of the great lights of the Assembly at Westminster, with a little turn for coquetry, which was yet perfectly compatible with warm and disinterested attachment, and a little turn for satire, which yet seldom passed the bounds of good nature. She loved reading; but her studies were not those of Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey. She read the verses of Cowley and Lord Broghill, French Memoirs recommended by her lover, and the Travels of Fernando Mendez Pinto. But her favourite books were those ponderous French Romances which modern readers know chiefly from the pleasant satire of Charlotte Lennox. She could not, however, help laughing at the vile English into which they were translated. Her own style is verv agreeable; nor are her letters at all the island in the best way. The rebellion of the She into public affairs till the way was plain for the king's happy restoration." It does not appear, indeed, that any offer of employment was made to him. If he really did refuse any preferment, we may, without much breach of charity, attribute the refusal rather to the caution which, during his whole life, prevented him from running any risk than to the fervour of his loyalty. ascendency was not an ascendency of ribands, | enclosures raised throughout the kingdom, and fiddles, and statues, and processions. He purchases made by one from another at very would never have dreamed of abolishing penal valuable rates, and jointures made upon mar laws against the Irish Catholics, and withhold-riages, and all other conveyances and settleing from them the elective franchise-of giving ments executed, as in a kingdom at peace withthem the elective franchise, and excluding them in itself, and where no doubt could be made from Parliament-of admitting them to Parlia- of the validity of titles." ment, and refusing to them a full and equal All Temple's feelings about Irish questions participation in all the blessings of society and were those of a colonist and a member of the government. The thing most alien from his dominant caste. He troubled himself as little clear intellect and his commanding spirit was about the welfare of the remains of the old Celtic petty persecution. He knew how to tolerate, population as an English farmer on the Swan and he knew how to destroy. His administra- river troubles himself about the New Holland tion in Ireland was an administration on what ers, or a Dutch boor at the Cape about the Caffres. are now called Orange principles,-followed out The years which he passed in Ireland while the most ably, most steadily and undauntedly, most | Cromwellian system was in full operation he unrelentingly, to every extreine consequence to always described as "years of great satisfacwhich those principles lead; and it would, if con- tion." Farming, gardening, county business, tinued, inevitably have produced the effect which and studies rather entertaining than profound, he contemplated,-an entire decomposition and occupied his time. In politics he took no part, reconstruction of society. He had a great and and many years after he attributed this inacdefinite object in view, to make Ireland tion to his love of the ancient constitution, thoroughly English-to make it another York-which, he said, "would not suffer him to enter shire or Norfolk. Thinly peopled as Ireland then was, this end was not unattainable; and there is every reason to believe that if his policy had been followed during fifty years this end would have been attained. Instead of an emigration, such as we now see from Ireland to England, there was, under his government, a constant and large emigration from England to Ireland. This tide of population ran almost as strongly as that which now runs from Mas- In 1660 he made his first appearance in pub sachusetts and Connecticut to the states behind lic life. He sat in the Convention which, in the Ohio. The native race was driven back the midst of the general confusion that prebefore the advancing van of the Anglo-Saxon | ceded the Restoration, was summoned by the population, as the American Indians or the chiefs of the army of Ireland to meet in Dubtribes of Southern Africa are now driven back lin. After the king's return, an Irish Parlia before the white settlers. Those fearful phe-ment was regularly convoked, in which Temnomena which have almost invariably attended the planting of civilized colonies in uncivilized countries, and which had been known to the nations of Europe only by distant and questionable rumour, were now publicly exhibited in their sight. The words, "extirpation," "eradication," were often in the mouths of the English back-settlers of Leinster and Munster -cruel words-yet, in their cruelty, containing more mercy than much softer expressions which have since been sanctioned by universi- In May, 1663, the Irish Parliament was proties, and cheered by Parliaments. For it is in rogued, and Temple repaired to England with truth more merciful to extirpate a hundred his wife. His income amounted to about five thousand people at once, and to fill the void | hundred pounds a year, a sum which was then with a well-governed population, than to mis-sufficient for the wants of a family mixing in govern millions through a long succession of generations. We can much more easily pardon tremendous severities inflicted for a great object, than an endless series of paltry vexations and oppressions inflicted for no rational object at all. ple represented the county of Carlow. The details of his conduct in this situation are not known to us. But we are told in general terms, and can easily believe, that he showed great moderation and great aptitude for business. It is probable that he also distinguished himself in debate; for many years afterwards he remarked, that "his friends in Ireland used to think that, if he had any talent at all, it lay in that way." fashionable circles. He passed two years in London, where he seems to have led that easy, lounging life which was best suited to his temper. He was not, however, unmindful of his interest. He had brought with him letters of Ireland was fast becoming English. Civili- introduction from the Duke of Ormond, the zation and wealth were making rapid progress | Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, to Clarendon, and in almost every part of the island. The effects to Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, who was of that iron despotism are described to us by a Secretary of State. Clarendon was at the head hostile witness in very remarkable language. of affairs. But his power was visibly declin "Which is more wonderful," says Lord Cla-ing, and was certain to decline more and more rendon, "all this was done and settled within little more than two years, to that degree of perfection that there were many buildings raised for beauty as well as use, orderly and regular plai tations of trees, and fences and every day. An observer much less discerning than Temple might easily perceive that the Chancellor was a man who belonged to a by gone world;-a representative of a past age, of obsolete modes of thinking, of unfashion able vices, and of more unfashionable virtues. His long exile had made him a stranger in the country of his birth. His mind, heated by conflict and by personal suffering, was far more set against popular and tolerant courses than it had been at the time of the breaking out of the Civil War. He pined for the decorous tyranny of the Old Whitehall; for the days of that sainted king who deprived the people of their money and their ears, but let their wives and their daughters alone; and could scarcely reconcile himself to a court with a mistress and without a Star-Chamber. By taking this course he made himself every day more odious, both to the sovereign, who loved pleasure much more than prerogative, and to the people, who dreaded royal prerogative much more than royal pleasures; and was at last more detested by the court than any chief of the Opposition, and more detested by the Parliament than any pander of the court. one for Charles, who thought that the greatest service which could be rendered to a prince was to amuse him. Yet both these were masks, which he laid aside when they had served their turn. Long after, when he had retired to his deer-park and fish-ponds in Suffolk, and had no motive to act the part either of the hidalgo or of the buffoon, Evelyn, who was neither an unpractised nor an undiscerning judge, conversed much with him, and pronounced him to be a man of singularly polished manners, and of great colloquial powers. Clarendon, proud and imperious by nature, soured by age and disease, and relying on his great talents and services, sought out no new allies. He seems to have taken a sort of morose pleasure in slighting and provoking all the rising talent of the kingdom. His connections were almost entirely confined to the small circle, every day becoming smaller, of old Cavaliers who had been friends of his youth or companions of his exile. Arlington, on the other hand, beat up everywhere for recruits. No man had a greater personal following, and no man exerted himself more to serve his adherents. It was a kind of habit with him to push up his dependants to his own level, and then to complain bitterly of their ingratitude because they did not choose to be his dependants any longer. It was thus that he quarrelled with two successive Treasurers, Clifford and Danly. To Arlington, Temple attached himself, and was not sparing of warm professior.s of affection, or even, we grieve to say, of gross and almost profane adulation. In no long time he obtained his reward. Temple, whose great maxim was to offend no party, was not likely to cling to the falling fortunes of a minister the study of whose life was to offend all parties. Arlington, whose influence was gradually rising as that of Clarendon diminished, was the most useful patron to whom a young adventurer could attach himself. This statesman, without virtue, wisdom, or strength of mind, had raised himself to greatness by superficial qualities, and was the mere creature of the time, the circumstances, and the company. The dignified reserve of manners which he had acquired during a residence in Spain provoked the ridicule of those who considered the usages of the French court as the only standard of good breeding, but England was in a very different situation, served to impress the crowd with a favourable with respect to foreign powers, from that which opinion of his sagacity and gravity. In situa- she had occupied during the splendid administions where the solemnity of the Escurial tration of the Protector. She was engaged in would have been out of place, he threw it aside war with the United Provinces, then governed without difficulty, and conversed with great with almost regal power by the Grand Penhumour and vivacity. While the multitude sionary, John De Witt; and though no war had were talking of "Bennet's grave looks,"* his ever cost the kingdom so much, none had mirth made his presence always welcome in ever been more feebly and meanly conducted. the royal closet. While in the antechamber France had espoused the interest of the StatesBuckingham was mimicking the pompous General. Denmark seemed likely to take the Castilian strut of the Secretary for the diver- same side. Spain, indignant at the close polision of Mistress Stuart, this stately Don was tical and matrimonial alliance which Charles ridiculing Clarendon's sober counsels to the had formed with the house of Braganza, was king within, till his majesty cried with laugh- not disposed to lend him any assistance. The ter and the Chancellor with vexation. There Great Plague of London had suspended trade, perhaps never was a man whose outward de- had scattered the ministers and nobles, had meanour made such different impressions on paralyzed every department of the public serdifferent people. Count Hamilton, for exam-vice, and had increased the gloomy discontent ple, describes him as a stupid formalist, who had been made Secretary solely on account of his mysterious and important looks. Clarendon, on the other hand, represents him as a man whose "best faculty was raillery," and who was, "for his pleasant and agreeable humour, acceptable unto the king." The truth seems to be that, destitute as he was of all the higher qualifications of a minister, he had a wonderful talent for becoming, in outward semblance, all things to all men. He had two aspects, a busy and serious one for the public, whom he wished to awe into respect, and a gay *“Bennet's grave looks were a pretence," is a line one of the best political poems of that age. VOL. III.-45 which misgovernment had begun to excite throughout the nation. One continental ally England possessed-the Bishop of Munster; a restless and ambitious prelate, bred a soldier, and still a soldier in all his passions. He hated the Dutch, who had interfered in the affairs of his see, and declared himself willing to risk his little dominions for the chance of revenge. He sent, accordingly, a strange kind of ambas. sador to London-a Benedictine monk, who spake bad English, and looked, says Lord Clarendon, "like a carter." This person brought a letter from the Bishop offering to make an attack by land on the Dutch territory. The English ministers eagerly caught at the pro posal, and promised a subsidy of 500,000 riz 2.2 |