triumphant in the person of the prince. It therefore appears, by his private correspondence, that he deemed it better that the king should fall a victim to his principles than yield to his enemies. In the clash of parties he expected that the successor would be recalled unshackled; but thought that if what he supposed the best jewels of the crown were once renounced, they might never be recovered."

It was during his retirement in Jersey, that Hyde projected his two celebrated works, the History of the Rebellion,' and Memorials of his own Life.' These works have been published separately and under different titles, but they were originally intended to form one and the same book; we may speak of them therefore as one in this rapid sketch of their author. Hyde's historical writings are valuable as the testimony of one who was contemporary with the events he relates. Their style is in general lucid and flowing; and there is an air of liberality and high-mindedness infused into the whole which creates a very favourable impression for the author. Warburton declares that in the knowledge of human nature, "this great author excels all the Greek and Latin historians put together." This is large praise; but it is extravagant and untrue. There is little real political science in the work, and very little accurate analysis of the springs and workings of human conduct and the true motives of agents. "Clarendon's own idea of the genius and spirit and soul of an historian,' says an anonymous but able writer, may be gathered from one of his essays, where he speaks of those endowments as 'contracted by the knowledge and course and method of business, and by conversation and familiarity in the inside of courts, and the most active and eminent persons in the government.' Assuredly, whatever could be gained from such sources to the value of a history was combined in his; and it is difficult to resist the first impression of so dazzling and imposing an aggregate. But a closer view discovers by how very wide an interval is separated the ablest man of the world from the truly philosophical historian-how imperfectly the lore of court-intrigues and state-expedients can expound the great events of a political crisis, and how miserable a substitute for genuine candour and tolerance are the guarded phrase and tone of high society. It were vain to look to Clarendon for any thing like a rational account of the first springs of civil commotion; and his pages do not even exhibit the true interdependences and sequences of events at all more clearly than their origin. Every thing is referred to party cabals and personal influences with a truly court-like nearness and minuteness of vision; and the outward show of exemption from the passionate heats of controversy is belied by an intolerant zeal for mere names and forms, which, had it been expressed in uncouth language by uneducated men, would have been stigmatized as desperate and hopeless fanaticism. The historical merits of Clarendon have been modestly compared by his panegyrists to those of the great author of the History of Henry VII.' as his essays have in similar style been characterised by their editor as 'an appropriate companion to the little volume which contains the essays of Lord Bacon'-an instance of juxtaposition only allowable in reference to the size of the volumes— unless the circumstance of both authors having been chancellors of England be considered to complete the resemblance. However, the former parallel is at least less extravagant, from the marked inferiority

of Bacon's historical writings to the works of his earlier manhood and maturity, and receives a plausible colour from some outward points of resemblance with Clarendon's productions in the same department. Both employ a style of decoration and diffuseness-both betray a habit of minute observation of particulars apparently trifling, and both are in a certain degree obnoxious to the charge of courtly adulation and obsequiousness. But a more minute analysis of the accidental likeness, will discover the essential contrast. Bacon is diffuse from the exhaustless overflowings of a teeming mind, and ever active fancy-Clarendon from wilful amplifications and redundancies. The fund of observation in the latter is drawn chiefly from the circle of court-intrigue and personality in the former from that of internal national changes and popular interests, of which courts have for the most part little cognizance. The instances of compromise and courtly adulation in both writers might more fairly admit of comparison, if Bacon had, like Clarendon, been roused to public life by the spirit-stirring alarums of a social revolution-those, however, who read him worthily may judge for themselves whether, like Clarendon, he would have learned from the events of that struggle little else than a besotted predilection for the code of persecution and tyranny."

In May 1648, Sir Edward was invited by the queen to attend her majesty in Paris. He accepted of the invitation, and was continued by Charles II. in his office of the exchequer and his seat at the privycouncil. In November 1649, he was sent with Lord Cottington to the court of Madrid, for the purpose of engaging Spanish assistance for his master, but the mission was unsuccessful. From this period until the restoration, he resided mostly at Antwerp. Upon the return of Charles and his court to England, Hyde was rewarded for his many and valuable services with the chancellorship of the kingdom; and in November 1660, he was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Hyde of Hindon, to which were added, in April following, the titles of Viscount Cornbury in Oxfordshire, and Earl of Clarendon in Wiltshire.

There is no doubt that till his fall, the public conduct of Clarendon was involved, and in a manner identified, with the general administration of the monarchy. Whatever was praiseworthy or obnoxious in the acts of Charles II. as king, originated, not with that dissolute monarch himself, but with his favourite and trusted minister. The declaration from Breda was certainly an extraordinary document viewed as coming from the pen of the man who had been the adviser of Charles I. on all subjects of ecclesiastical polity; that its terms should have been kept would have been still more surprising. A miserable attempt has been made to apologise for the perfidy of Charles and his minister in violating the spirit and letter of that declaration so soon after the restoration. It has been argued that the declaration only bore that until the subject should have been considered and determined by parliament, nobody should be molested on account of his religious principles; but that no pledge of constant toleration was either given or pretended to be given. It seems to us impossible that any man of common understanding or honesty should indulge in such a miserable sophistry as this. The sale of Dunkirk was another act of Clarendon's. Rapin

Westminster Review, vol. xiii. pp. 158 159.

affirms that it was the chancellor who proposed the bargain, negotiated it and concluded it. And D'Estrades, the French plenipotentiary, wrote to Louis XIV. that the chancellor had told him "that the thought of this treaty came from him, and did not conceal that the necessity of the English affairs had inspired him with it." The miserable conduct of the Dutch war was certainly in a great measure owing to the want of firmness and prudence on the part of the chancellor; but Mr Agar Ellis does not hesitate to accuse Clarendon of treachery as well as imbecility in the negotiation of public affairs. Whether," says he, "Clarendon house was erected with French or Dutch money, or with both, it is impossible for us, at this distance of time, with the slender evidence upon the subject we possess, to decide. After, however, all that has been previously brought forward with respect to the corruption of the chancellor upon the subject of Dunkirk, the question of whether he erected his house with the money so received is not of much importance in any way to either his fame or his character." Pepys, who declares that the chancellor was his 'particular kind friend on all occasions' does not scruple to represent him as an avaricious being whose soul was fixed upon scraping money together. And Lord Dartmouth has the following note on a passage in Burnet: "The earl of Clarendon, upon the restoration, made it his business to depress every body's merits to advance his own, and (the king having gratified his vanity with high titles) found it necessary towards making a fortune in proportion, to apply himself to other means than what the crown could afford; (though he had as much as the king could well grant:) and the people who had suffered most in the civil war were in no condition to purchase his favour. He therefore undertook the protection of those who had plundered and sequestered the others, which he very artfully contrived, by making the king believe it was necessary for his own ease and quiet to make his enemies his friends; upon which he brought in most of those who had been the main instruments and promoters of the late troubles, who were not wanting in their acknowledgments in the manner he expected, which produced the great house in the Piccadille, furnished chiefly with Cavaliers' goods, brought thither for peace-offerings, which the right owners durst not claim when they were in his possession. In my own remembrance Earl Paulett was an humble petitioner to his sons, for leave to take a copy of his grandfather's and grandmother's pictures (whole lengths, drawn by Vandike) that had been plundered from Hinton St George; which was obtained with great difficulty, because it was thought that copies might lessen the value of the originals. And whoever had a mind to see what great families had been plundered during the civil war, might find some remains either at Clarendon house, or at Cornbury.'

"2

To these charges Mr Ellis has added some of a still graver character: They are," his encouragement of the attempts to assassinate Cromwell; the act he passed upon the subject of the religion of Charles II.; and the blasphemous comparison he makes in his history in speaking of the execution of the first Charles. The first will tend to show how little scrupulous he was of the means he employed to compass his ends,-the second displays in full perfection the crooked policy of the thorough

Cited by Mr Agar Ellis, p. 29

paced politician,-while the third gives us some notion of the degree of respect for religion entertained by this pretended patron of the Protestant faith. We find abundant proofs in the collection of the Clarendon State Papers, published at Oxford in 1786, of the connivance of the chancellor in the bloody designs of some of the more unprincipled cavaliers to murder Cromwell. Indeed, it appears that a regular account of the proceedings of these ruffians was sent to him, and that they were incited by him to persevere in them. It is not by any means impossible that he may even have been himself the author of some of these brilliant schemes. The death, by natural means, of Oliver Cromwell, on the 3d of September, 1658, prevented the chancellor from assisting in the perpetration of the crime, which it is proved by these documents, he had concurred in meditating. The guilt of intention, however, rests with him in the clearest and most satisfactory manner."

These are grave charges; but it seems due to Clarendon's memory to admit that there exists no positive proof of his ever having engaged in the assassination plot. As to Charles' popery, we have already noticed the fact of Clarendon's being informed of it; and there can be no doubt that he unhesitatingly sacrificed principle to policy in the measure which he adopted to conceal the real state of the king's sentiments on this point.

A perplexing and painful incident in Clarendon's life, was the marriage of his eldest daughter to the duke of York. She had been one of the maids of honour to the princess royal Henrietta, while in exile; and it was while in this situation that the duke first conceived a passion for her, and ultimately married her privately in 1659. Clarendon notices this affair, as if he had been wholly unconscious of the transaction until it blazed abroad. When he heard of his daughter's pregnancy he says that he "broke out into a very immoderate passion against her wickedness; and said, with all imaginable earnestness, that as soon as he came home he would turn her out of his house as a strumpet, to shift for herself, and would never see her again." When he heard that she was married, the case was ten times worse. "He fell"-as he himself expresses it" into new commotions, and said, if that were true, he was well prepared to advise what was to be done; that he had much rather his daughter should be the duke's whore than his wife; in the former case nobody could blame him for the resolution he had taken, for he was not obliged to keep a whore for the greatest prince alive. But if there were any reason to suspect the other, he was ready to give a positive judgment, that the king should immediately cause the woman to be sent to the Tower, and to be cast into a dungeon, under so strict a guard, that no person living should be permitted to come to her; and then, that an act of parliament should be immediately passed for the cutting off her head, to which he would not only give his consent, but would very willingly be the first man that should propose it." Something of this sort was strongly enough suggested by the situation in which Clarendon was placed: but who, besides a practised hypocrite, would have acted the part in such perfection? Or who could have acted the abject creature, so pleasing to kings, in a purcr style than he did, a short time after, when the king was prepared to sacrifice him to the public indignation, which he had richly deserved? I am

so broken under the daily insupportable instances of your majesty's terrible displeasure, that I know not what to do, hardly what to wish .... God knows I am innocent as I ought to be. But alas! your majesty's declared anger and indignation deprives me of the comfort and support even of my own innocence, and exposes me to the rage and fury of those who have some excuse for being my enemies; whom I have sometimes displeased, when (and only then), your majesty. believed them not to be your friends. I should die in peace (and truly I do heartily wish that God Almighty would free you from `further trouble by taking me to himself) if I could know or guess at the ground of your displeasure... As I have hope in heaven, I have never willingly offended your majesty in my life, and do, upon my knees, beg your pardon for any over bold or saucy expression I have ever used to you; which, being a natural disease in old servants who have received too much countenance ..... I hope your majesty believes that the sharp chastisement I have received from the best natured and most bountiful master in the world, and whose kindness alone made my condition these many years supportable, has both enough mortified me as to this world, and that I have not the presumption, or the madness to imagine, or desire, ever to be admitted to any employment or trust again." The conclusion is worthy of the rest. He prays the king that he may be allowed to spend the small remainder of his life in some parts beyond the seas, never to return, where he may pray for the king, and never suffer the least diminution in his duty or obedience. This is a most extraordinary passage, and sets the chancellor in a very despicable and ridiculous light.

The first open attack upon Lord Clarendon was made by the earl of Bristol, who, in 1663, exhibited a charge of high treason against him in the house of lords. The charge was made in a fit of personal resentment, and issued in the discomfiture of its author. Not so, the displeasure of Buckingham and Lady Castlemaine. His refusal to allow his wife to visit the latter, had given mortal offence both to Charles and his mistress; and from that moment she readily conspired with Buckingham to work his ruin. An opportunity soon presented itself. When the Dutch fleet rode victorious in the mouth of the river, Clarendon had advised the king to dissolve the parliament, and support his troops by forced contributions. This counsel was now represented as a plan to govern the kingdom by a standing army and without a parliament. The imputation fired the public mind, and the flame was nursed by insinuations of venality and ambition, artfully directed against Clarendon. At last seventeen charges were framed by a committee of the lower house, upon which Clarendon was impeached at the bar of the house of lords. The bishops and many of the peers supported him; and after several animated debates, the impeachment was dismissed. But the commons held to their point; and the king himself having resolved to get rid of him, he was compelled to yield to his fate, and secretly withdrew to France. He bore with impatience the tedium of exile, and often petitioned for leave to return home; but the king was inexorable, and allowed his devoted servant to breathe his last in a foreign land. He died at Rouen in Normandy, in 1674.

"It is not easy," says a writer to whom we have been greatly indebted in the course of this article," It is not easy to ascend from