discharged a piece of ordnance, but, no enemy appearing, he marched towards Reading."

The battle of Newbury, like that of Edge-hill, was followed by no decided results. It was fought, says Clarendon, all day, without any such notable turn, as that either party could think they had much the better: the night parted them, when nothing else could. The parliamentarians, indeed, loudly claimed the victory; and not without reason, since the king's army suffered them, with the morning light, to take quiet possession of the town, and to march forward, unmolested, towards London. Technically considered, it appears, there were errors and oversights on both sides in the conduct of this great encounter; but it was marked throughout by those nobler characteristics than mere calculating skill, which distinguished the whole course of this fatal war-undaunted bravery and inflexible resolution. Rupert's charges were never more fierce or frequent, -never had they been so admirably sustained. Upon the immovable rampart presented by the pikes of the London trained-bands, again and again the stormy valour of his choicest cavaliers broke in vain. Those regiments, "of whose inexperience of danger, or any kind of service beyond the easy practice of their postures in the Artillery Garden, men had till then too cheap an estimation, behaved themselves to wonder; and were, in truth, the preservation of the army of the parliament that day."

In this sanguinary field, "according to the unequal fate that attended all conflicts with such an adversary," the loss of known and distinguished individuals was chiefly on the king's side; "for whilst some obscure, unheard-of colonel or officer was missing from the ranks of the parliament, and some citizen's wife bewailed the death of her husband, there were, on the king's side, above twenty field-officers, and persons of rank and public name, slain upon the spot, and more of the same quality wounded."

Three noblemen of high rank and estimable character were of the number. The young Earl of Sunderland was struck down by a cannon-bullet. The brave and enlightened Earl of Carnarvon, on his return from a victorious charge of a body of the enemy's horse, passing carelessly among some of the scattered troopers, was, by one of them, who recognized him, run through the body. But the loss most deeply and generally deplored was that of Lord Falkland,-" a loss which no time will suffer to be forgotten, and no success of good fortune could repair." So wrote the affectionate and eloquent Clarendon, in the commencement of that eulogium, which will be read with delight as long as friendship exists, and excellence excites admiration. He was "a person," continues the noble historian, "of such prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odions and accursed civil war than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity. 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. . . 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 of anything, yet such an excessive humility, as if he had known nothing; that they frequently resorted and dwelt with him, in a college situated in a purer air: so that his house was a university in a less volume, whither they came not so much to repose as study, and to examine and refine those grosser propositions which laziness and content made current in vulgar conversation. He was guilty of no other ambition than of knowledge, and to be reputed a lover of all good men. 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 if anything but not doing his duty could have kept him from receiving a testimony of the king's grace, he had not been called to his council. Not that he was, in truth, averse from public employment; for he had a great devotion to the king's person; but he abhorred that an imagination or doubt should sink into the thoughts of any man, that in the discharge of his trust and duty in parliament he had any bias to the court, or that the king himself should apprehend that he looked for a reward for being honest... For as he had a full appetite of fame by just and generous actions, so he had an equal contempt of it by any servile expedients. For these reasons he submitted to the king's command, and became his secretary, with as humble and devoted an acknowledgment of the greatness of the obligation, as could be expressed, and as true a sense of it in his heart. . . He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper; and therefore upon any occasion of action, he always engaged his person in those troops which he thought, by the forwardness of the commanders, to be most likely 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, where 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; so that a man might think he came into the field chiefly out of curiosity to see the face of danger, and charity to prevent the shedding of blood. Yet in his natural inclination he was addicted to the profession of a soldier.

"From the first entrance into this unnatural war, his natural cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him, which he had never been used to; yet being one of those who believed that one battle would end all differences, and that there would be so great a victory on one side, that the other would be compelled to submit to any conditions from the victor, he resisted those indispositions. But after the king's return from Brentford, and the furious resolution of the two houses, not to admit any treaty for peace, those indispositions, which had before touched him, grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he, who had been so exactly easy and affable to all men, and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness of visage a kind of rudeness and incivility, became on a sudden less communicable; and thence very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected with spleen. When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would be more erect 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 shrill and sad accent, ingeminate the word 'Peace! Peace!' and would passionately profess, that the view of the calamities and desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart. This made some think, or pretend to think, that he was so much enamoured of peace, that he would have been glad the king should have bought it at any price; which was a most unreasonable calumny: as if a man that was himself the most punctual and precise in every circumstance that might reflect upon conscience or honour, could have wished the king to have committed a trespass against either. And yet this scandal made some impression upon him, or at least he used it for an excuse of the daringness of his spirit. For, at the leaguer before Gloucester, when his friends passionately reprehended him for exposing his person unnecessarily to danger (for he delighted to visit the trenches and nearest approaches, to discover what the enemy did,) as being so much beside the duty of his place, that it might be understood rather to be against it, he would say merrily, that his office could not take away the privilege of his age; and that a secretary in war might be present at the greatest secret of danger; but withal alleged seriously, that it concerned him to be more active in enterprises of hazard than other men; that all might see that his impatience for peace proceeded not from pusillanimity, or fear to adventure his own person."

The noble historian pours out "his love and grief," at still greater length, on the death of his admired friend, both in his great work, and in the memoirs of his own life; but we can afford room only for one characteristic anecdote. "He was so ill a dissembler of his dislike and disinclination to all men," relates Clarendon, "that it was not possible for such not to discern it. There was once, in the House of Commons, such a declared acceptation of the good service an eminent member had done to them, and, as they said, to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being present, that the speaker might, in the name of the whole house, give him thanks; and then, that every member might, as a testimony of his particular acknowledgment, stir or move his hat towards him;' the which (though not ordered,) when very many did, the Lord Falkland (who believed the service itself not to be of that moment, and that an honourable and generous person could not have stooped to it for any recompense,) instead of moving his hat, stretched both his arms out, and clasped his hands together upon the crown of his hat, and held it close. down to his head; that all men might see, how odious that flattery was to him, and the very approbation of the person, though at that time most popular."

Other contemporary writers concur, though in more condensed language, in the eulogium of Falkland, and confirm Clarendon's account of the circumstances which attended his death. On the morning of the fight, we are told by Whitelocke and Rushworth, he dressed himself with a degree of nicety, which, though formerly habitual to him, had, since his period of gloom, given way to negligence; telling his friends, with an air of gaiety, that if he were slain in battle they should not find his body in foul linen. In answer to their earnest and affectionate entreaties to take no part in the fight, as not being a military man, he replied, while returning sadness again overspread his expressive

countenance, that he was weary of looking upon his country's misery, " and did believe he should be out of it ere night." He then put himself into the first rank of the Lord Byron's regiment; and, advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers, presently received a shot from a musket, and fell from his horse to the ground, where his body lay undiscovered till the next morning. "Thus," concludes Clarendon, "fell that incomparable young man, in the four-and-thirtieth year of his age; having so much despatched 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."

The Earl of Essex pursued his march towards Reading, unmolested by the king's army, until he entered an enclosed country, within a few miles of that place; when Rupert, with a strong party of horse and musketeers, fell upon his rear, and threw them into great disorder, killing many, and taking many prisoners. At Reading, a committee of the Lords and Commons met their victorious general, to congratulate him on the great service he had done the parliament, and to learn the wants of his army, with an assurance that they should be all forthwith supplied. He then moved forward towards the capital, leaving Reading to be occupied by a garrison of royalists. In London, a form of solemn thanksgiving was appointed; the day after his arrival, the earl received a visit of thanks from the speaker and the whole house of Commons; the City rang with notes of triumph; all thoughts of peace were banished; and the mutual jealousies which had long existed between his excellency and Waller were reconciled, by the politic submission of Sir William to his placable and triumphant rival. King Charles, meantime, and his nephew, retired with their army to Oxford, more dispirited than, in reality, the events of the campaign of 1643 appeared to warrant.

THOUGH the most prominent actors in that great national tragedy, the eventful progress of which we have so far sketched, were, with one exception, only statesmen and soldiers; yet the conflict which engaged their energies, was, in reality, a religious conflict. "The quarrel," observed a contemporary writer, "dependeth only and absolutely between the Papists and the Protestants (he meant, between the Church and the Puritans) for either must the gospel prevail with us, or else their idolatry will overtrample all." Hence, those measures which tended to the entire destruction of the Church of England kept pace with the growth of the parliamentary power, in the houses of Lords and Commons, and in the field.

It was no more than common gratitude, on the part of the parliament, to compliment Prynne and his compeers with an oration, and to reward them with a share of the fines imposed on the Star Chamber judges; since (if we except the indiscretions of the bishops themselves) the first serious mischief to the church came from the hands of that indefatigable libeller. Assaults, indeed, more formidable followed, from the press and the pulpit, before the loosened fabric was ready for the finishing stroke of the parliamentary levellers. "The Histrio-Mastix," and "Sion's Plea against Prelacy," were succeeded by the famous "Smectymnuus," which Calamy, one of its writers, asserted to have been the first deadly blow to episcopacy; and again, the controversy opened by "Smectymnuus" drew forth Milton, in his least admirable character, as a religious partisan, with such terrible effect, that a writer, well acquainted with the controversies of that age, avers his belief, that the "great talents, the learning, the blameless lives, the powerful arguments, of Usher and Hall, would have preserved the church, if Milton had not descended, with all his overwhelming might of learning, eloquence, and scorn, into the contest." Presently the prelates' benches were exposed, naked, to the mockery of the people; the bishops themselves, fined and imprisoned for an act of fatuity, by party exaggeration absurdly called treason, were dismissed unheeded to obscurity and want. By this time, sequestration, fine, and imprisonment, had, in like manner, cleared the pulpits of London and the other large towns, of "malignant ministers;" and had made way for preachers of a different temper, who, not alone silently submissive to the will of their patrons, were prepared on all occasions to sound, on their behalf, in the popular ear, the trumpet of alarm and agitation.

From removing those persons out of sacred offices who had obstructed the march of the new reformation, it was a natural step to proceed to sweep away also such holy things, likewise, as had been discovered to be offensive. In the month of August, 1643, the