Chapter VII: Part 7

But the want of industry, though a serious delinquency in a historian, is almost venial when compared with a want of impartiality, and the deficiency of Hume in this last quality has been often and largely exposed. The extent in which the historian was conscious of his own habit of unfairness, it is not in our power to determine; but there is hardly a conceivable form of disingenuousness, of which his volumes might not be shown to afford numerous and striking examples. The volume embracing the reigns of James and Charles was first published, and we have seen that the reception it met with only taught the author to resolve, with a more fixed purpose, as to the complexion of those which were to follow. In instances where his integrity is in the main preserved, his eloquence is often so far misdirected that the truth becomes discoloured, and makes the impression of falsehood. In his hands the faults of his favourites lose much of their magnitude and grossness, while their merits are raised much above their proper level, and with regard to their opponents, the inverse process is adopted. Disagreeable facts are passed over, or but partially and very artfully developed; while others, of an opposite nature, have all prominence, and all imaginable force assigned them. Incidents of very rare occurrence, and existing only as exceptions, are culled with the greatest care, and presented as the rule, and as no more than samples of the abundance that might be adduced. And in describing the reasonings and the motives by which the contending parties from time to time were influenced, it is the fixed usage of this writer to consult his own prejudices or imagination much more than the lights afforded by the documents of the times. These summaries, as they are called, are inserted by Hume, in the place of the speeches which the ancient historians were wont to put into the mouth of their leading men; and, interesting as they are, deserve no more credit, considered as the character of parties, or as accounts of what was really said, than it is usual to bestow on those elaborate harangues. There is much reason to believe that the historian began the reigns of the two first Stuarts with a sincere conviction that sufficient allowance had not been made for the peculiar situation of those princes. But his delinquencies are such, that this excuse must be of small avail in his defence. The majority of more than one generation in this country have derived their notions of English history almost exclusively from the pages of Hume; but so low has he fallen as a historical authority, that the persons who have read scarcely anything else, rarely show courage, or rather weakness, enough to make any appeal to him.

_Engraved by E. Scriven._

DE WITT.

_From a Picture by Netscher, in the possession of M^r. Lenoir, at
Paris._

Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]

DE WITT.

The father of this wise and honest statesman was burgomaster of the town of Dort, or Dordrecht, and one of its representatives in the Assembly of the States of Holland, a man of patriotism, courage, and integrity, who apprehended danger to the liberties of the United Provinces from the hereditary power of the House of Orange, and used his best exertions to counteract it. His sons, Cornelius and John De Witt, born at Dort, the former June 25, 1623, the latter September 25, 1625, inherited his principles and his integrity; and rendered his name illustrious by greater talents exerted in a higher sphere of action. Of these brothers, united in their counsels, their lives, and their deaths, it is the younger, John, the original of our portrait, who rendered the name of De Witt most illustrious, by the ability and virtue with which, during eighteen years, he directed the government of his country.

Cornelius De Witt served in the navy during several years, and distinguished himself in the bloody wars of England and Holland; he also studied jurisprudence in his youth, and displayed talents for civil and military business not unnoticed by his fellow-citizens, who bestowed several municipal offices on him at an early age. The youth of John De Witt appears to have been less occupied by active employments; though he possessed great knowledge and practical skill in maritime affairs, and was esteemed one of the best pilots of his time. The early development of his political talents, aided probably by family connexion, and the respect due to his father’s services, soon introduced him to high civil employment. In 1650 he was appointed Pensionary of his native town, and in 1652, Grand Pensionary of Holland, an office which gave him a commanding influence over the deliberations of the whole Union. It was granted nominally only for five years, but in effect was permanent, since at the end of each period it was customary to re-appoint the holder.

It was the leading object of De Witt’s policy to diminish the influence which the princes of the House of Orange had acquired, as much by their services and high personal qualities, as by their power and territorial possessions, and to strengthen the republican institutions of his country, which he saw to be endangered, as it was ultimately destroyed, by their hereditary tenure of the office of Stadtholder. “The chief direction of the affairs of Holland, for eighteen years, continued in the hands of their Pensionary De Witt, a minister of the greatest authority and sufficiency, the greatest application and industry, ever known in their state. In the course of his ministry he and his party reduced, not only all the civil charges of the government in this province, but in a manner all the military commands of the army, out of the hands of persons affectionate to the Prince of Orange, into those esteemed more sure and fast to the interests of their more popular state. And all this was attended for so long a course of years with the perpetual success of their affairs, by the growth of their trade, power and riches at home, and the consideration of their neighbours abroad.” Such is the testimony of Sir William Temple, (Essay on the Origin and Nature of Government,) to the policy, success, and merits of a friend whom he loved and venerated. The position of affairs, when De Witt attained to the direction of the state, favoured the development of his republican views. William II., Prince of Orange, had died in 1650, and his posthumous son and heir, afterwards William III. of England, was an infant. Had the representative of that house been of mature age, we may conclude that gratitude for the eminent services of his predecessors, and the natural inclination of the people towards the form of government to which they had been accustomed, would have led again to the appointment of a Stadtholder in his person. But the office was of a nature which could not be well exercised by a regent, or committed to an infant, without acknowledging a species of hereditary right, scarcely differing from the claims of royalty: and accordingly in some provinces another prince of the Nassau family was appointed Stadtholder, in others, of which Holland was one, the office continued in abeyance, and De Witt, thwarted by no superior, was able to direct his best efforts to counteract the workings of the Orange party, and to effect those changes in the civil and military organization of the state, which are mentioned in the above quotation from Sir W. Temple. The same leading principle guided his foreign policy. When he was appointed Grand Pensionary, the Provinces were engaged in war with England; an unequal contest while her government was directed by Cromwell. But the true interest of both parties lay in their amity, and peace was concluded in 1654. While Cromwell lived, the republican party was upheld by his influence. He endeavoured to obtain from the States General, in the treaty of 1654, the perpetual exclusion of the Prince of Orange from the Stadtholdership: but not being able to obtain their consent to this, contented himself with the assent of the States of Holland, as far as regarded their own province, which was accorded by a secret article. After the Restoration it was to be expected that Charles II. would support the interests of his nephew the Prince of Orange; and De Witt thenceforward cultivated the alliance of France in preference to that of England. This, and the jealousy of the English nation at the commercial prosperity of the Dutch, led to the breaking out of a bloody war in 1665, in which the preponderance of success was on the side of England. The spirit, energy, and ability of De Witt was the main stay of his countrymen under the reverses which they sustained in this contest: their disasters were promptly repaired, their defeated armaments refitted, their credit sustained; and Charles II. becoming weary of a war which brought no advantages to compensate for the drain which it occasioned on the treasury, condescended to open negotiations for peace in 1667. These, however, proceeded but slowly: and while they were yet pending, De Witt planned that memorable expedition which surprised our ill-guarded shores, burnt our ships in the Thames, and threw the metropolis into the utmost alarm. The course of diplomacy being quickened by this event, the treaty of Breda was soon after concluded, on terms not disadvantageous to Holland.

In the following year a closer union, called the Triple League, was formed, chiefly by the agency of De Witt and Sir William Temple, between these two powers, in conjunction with Sweden. It was intended to restrain the ambition of Louis XIV., which had manifested itself in such encroachments upon the Spanish Netherlands as gave just cause of anxiety to the United Provinces. De Witt saw that a new danger threatened the independence of his country from abroad, and sacrificed to the emergency his own political prepossessions and his jealousy of everything which could restore the House of Orange to power. So great was his earnestness, that he violated a fundamental principle of the Union, by inducing the States General to ratify the treaty at once, instead of referring it, as was prescribed by the constitution, to the acceptance of the several provinces: an act by which, had it proved unpalatable to the nation, the lives of all who were concerned in it were endangered, and which is only to be excused on the plea of necessity, and by the certainty that the measure, which its framers regarded as essential to the welfare of the whole confederacy, would have been frustrated by the influence of France over some or other of its least important members. In 1670 De Witt concluded another treaty with the emperor of Germany and the King of Spain, with the same object of maintaining the power of Spain in the Netherlands, as a barrier against the encroachments of France.

All these precautions were rendered vain by the weak and corrupt conduct of the English Court. The ministers were bribed, and the King cajoled by a French mistress, sent over in the train of his sister the Duchess of Orleans, to renounce the Triple League and to declare war against the United Provinces, in 1672, on the most frivolous pretences. At the same time the king of France in person led against them a numerous, well appointed, and well officered army. It is probable that De Witt had relied with confidence on the sincerity of England in promoting the objects of the Triple League, and that though well aware of the disposition of Louis, he had not thought the danger so near at hand. At all events he had made no sufficient preparation to meet it; and the consequences of this omission were most disastrous. The troops of the Provinces, composed in a great measure of new levies, could make no head; the frontier fortresses yielded almost without resistance; the Rhine was passed, an event remarkable only by the flatteries for which it gave a subject to the French poets; and Louis held his court at Utrecht, while his troops advanced within a few miles of Amsterdam. A loud clamour was now raised against De Witt, who was roundly accused of having disbanded the veteran troops of the Republic, dismantled the fortresses, and exhausted the treasury, that his country might fall an easier prey to the French connexion. This calumny, even at the time, probably, was hardly believed: but too great neglect of the military establishment seems justly chargeable as a fault on his administration. For this, however, some excuse may be found in the necessity of economy, the inconsistency of a mercenary army of foreigners with republican principles, and the readiness of the Orange party to misrepresent this policy of the Pensionary, as tending to concentrate in himself the powers of Stadtholder, a name and office which he had been so eager to abolish. By the machinations of that party the embarrassments of the government were increased, and discontent was fomented; and their sufferings and danger led the people to think more and more favourably of the claims of William of Orange. The natural high qualities of that prince had received most careful cultivation under the superintendence of De Witt, who was resolved, he said, to render him capable of serving his country, if any change should throw the administration into his hands. Already, February 25, he had been declared captain-general and admiral of the Provinces. Shortly after, De Witt’s life was attempted by four assassins, who left him for dead, as he was returning home at night, unattended, with his usual simplicity of demeanour. While he lay ill of his wounds, the repeal of the Perpetual Edict passed in 1667, by which the office of Stadtholder was abolished for ever in the province of Holland, was demanded by the populace, with much violence and sedition. That State yielded to the clamour, and the Prince was thus reinstated in the full power enjoyed by his predecessors.

Cornelius De Witt was induced, with great difficulty, to sign the revocation of the Edict. Soon after, he was accused of being concerned in a plot to murder the Prince of Orange. The informer and only witness, one Tichelaer, was a person of infamous character: yet on his evidence this brave and well-deserving citizen was thrown into prison at the Hague, and cruelly tortured to extort confession of a plot, the very existence of which, without that confession, could not be proved. He bore the trial with unshaken constancy, protesting that if they cut him to pieces, they should not make him confess a thing which he had never thought of. Without it, he could not be convicted: but he was stripped of his employments and banished from Holland; and such was the madness of the time, that even this iniquitous decree gave great offence, by its leniency, to the people, who were fully persuaded of Cornelius De Witt’s guilt. John De Witt meanwhile had recovered from his wounds; and finding that in the existing state of public feeling his continuance at the head of affairs was both undesirable for himself and unpleasing to the country, he resigned his office. After the promulgation of his brother’s sentence, he went to receive him upon his delivery from prison; and probably to do him more honour, and testify his own sense of the malice of the charge, and the unworthiness of the treatment which he had received, repaired to the Hague in his coach and four, a sort of display which he was not wont to affect. This bravado proved still more unfortunate than ill-judged. The people, collected by the unusual spectacle, began to murmur at the presumption of one suspected traitor coming in state to insult the laws, and triumph in the escape of a traitor-brother from a deserved death. De Witt went to the prison, to convey his brother to his own house; but Cornelius replied, that having suffered so much, being innocent, he would not leave the prison as a culprit, but remain, and appeal against the sentence; a resolution which John De Witt strove in vain to shake. Meanwhile Tichelaer, the informer, was busily engaged in stirring up the populace to riot. Apprehending some disturbance, the States of Holland, which were then sitting at the Hague, requested the Prince of Orange to repair thither with a military force. Meanwhile the tumult spread from the lowest people to the burghers, and a furious mob collected round the gates of the prison where the brothers still remained. The military force which had been sent for did not arrive, and that which was in the city was drawn off, by written order from one or more of the magistrates, upon a false report, that a body of peasants was advancing to pillage the Hague. Actuated by fear, or some worse motive, the gaoler opened the gates, the leaders of the mob rushed in, the brothers were violently dragged from their chamber, and massacred as soon as they reached the street, with circumstances of brutality too revolting to be narrated in detail. Their corpses were dragged to the gibbet, and publicly suspended with the heads downwards; and the mangled limbs of these upright magistrates and patriotic citizens were offered for sale, and bought at prices of fifteen, twenty, and thirty sols.

There is another account, different in some particulars, which intimates that this atrocious murder was preconcerted, and that a train was laid for it, if not by the Prince of Orange himself, at least by the leaders of his party. Such charges are often lightly made; and we are not aware that there is any direct evidence to fix this guilt on any one, certainly not personally on that distinguished monarch. But that there was culpable neglect, even acquitting those in power of wilful connivance, seems certain; and the proceedings of the court which sentenced Cornelius, show that the government was not delicate in finding means to remove those whom it disliked. And William’s subsequent conduct may almost be said to have merited the imputation which he incurred; for though the States of Holland voted the murder detestable in their eyes and the eyes of all the world, and requested the Stadtholder to take proper measures to avenge it, none of the murderers were ever brought to justice. The flimsy pretext for this neglect was, that it would be dangerous to inquire into a deed in which the principal burghers of the Hague were concerned.

Mr. Fox, in his History of James II., has made the following reflections on this event. “The catastrophe of De Witt, the wisest, best, and most truly patriotic minister that ever appeared upon the public stage, as it was an act of the most crying injustice and ingratitude, so likewise it is the most completely dis-encouraging example that history affords to the lovers of liberty. If Aristides was banished, he was also recalled: if Dion was repaid for his service to the Syracusans by ingratitude, that ingratitude was more than once repented of: if Sidney and Russell died upon the scaffold, they had not the cruel mortification of falling by the hands of the people; ample justice was done to their memory, and the very sound of their names is still animating to every Englishman attached to their glorious cause. But with De Witt fell also his cause and his party; and although a name so respected by all who revere virtue and wisdom when employed in their noblest sphere, the political service of the public, yet I do not know that even to this day any public honours have been paid by them to his memory.”

After De Witt’s death, all his papers were submitted to the most rigorous examination, in hope of discovering something which should confirm the popular notion of his being traitorously in league with France. One of the persons appointed to perform this service being asked what had been found in De Witt’s papers, replied, “What could we have found? Nothing but probity.” To the moral qualities of integrity, intrepidity, and patience, he added intellectual endowments of the highest order: his perception was acute, his judgment solid; he possessed great skill and readiness in transacting business, and that persuasive influence over those who came in contact with him, which is perhaps the most serviceable gift of a statesman. His manners, we are told by Sir William Temple, (Observations on the United Provinces, c. 11), were such as befitted his station and his principles. “His habit was grave, plain and popular; his table, what only served turn for his family or a friend; his train was only one man, who performed all the menial service of his house at home, and upon his visits of ceremony, putting on a plain livery cloak, attended his coach abroad; for upon other occasions he was seen usually in the streets on foot and alone, like the commonest burgher of the town. Nor was this manner of life affected; but was the general fashion and mode among all the magistrates of the state.”

De Witt cultivated mathematics, and published a Treatise on Curves. Burnet says, “Perhaps no man ever applied algebra to all matters of trade so nicely as he did. He made himself so entirely master of the state of Holland, that he understood exactly all the concerns of their revenue, and what sums, and in what manner, could be raised upon any emergent of state. For this he had a pocket book full of tables, and was ever ready to show how they could be furnished with money.” The most remarkable of his works are his Memoirs, published during his life in 1667, in which, after examining the principles which govern the prosperity and decline of states, he proceeds to apply them to Holland, and to review the condition and prospects of the country. They have been translated into French by Mad. Zoutelandt, who has also written a life of the two brothers. De Witt’s correspondence with the plenipotentiaries of France, England, Sweden, Denmark, and Poland, has also been published, and translated into French.

]

_Engraved by J. Posselwhite._

HAMPDEN.

_From a Print by J. Houbraken 1740._

Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]

HAMPDEN.

John Hampden was the head and representative of an ancient and opulent family, which had received the lands of Hampden in Buckinghamshire from Edward the Confessor, and boasted to have transmitted its wealth, honours, and influence, unimpaired and increasing, in direct male succession, down to this the most illustrious of the house. The date of his birth is 1594; the place of it is generally believed to have been London. Under four years of age, he came, by the death of his father, into possession of the family estates, which, besides the ancient seat and extensive domain in Buckinghamshire, comprehended large possessions in Essex, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire. Our knowledge of his early life may be summed in a few facts and dates. He was brought up at the free-school of Thame, in Oxfordshire; entered as a commoner at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1609; and was admitted student of the Inner Temple in 1613, where he made considerable progress in the knowledge of common law. His classical attainments also seem to have been respectable, since he was associated, oddly enough, with Laud, then Master of St. John’s, in writing the Oxford gratulatory poems on the marriage of the Elector Palatine and the Princess Elizabeth; from which sprung Prince Rupert, who led the Royalist troops when Hampden received his death-wound. In 1619, he married his first wife Elizabeth Symeon. Inheriting a noble property, he devoted himself, without suffering his literary habits to fall into desuetude, principally to the business and amusements of a country life, having, says Lord Clarendon, “on a sudden retired from a life of great pleasure and licence, to extraordinary sobriety and strictness, and yet retained his usual cheerfulness and affability.” His first entrance into public life was in January, 1620–1, when he took his seat in the Parliament then convened, for Grampound, at that time a borough of wealth and importance: a prevalent error, that he sat for the first time in the first Parliament summoned by Charles I. in 1625, is corrected by Lord Nugent, who in his Memorials of Hampden has shown that he sat in the Parliaments of 1621 and 1624; that he was active and diligent in his attendance, and intimately connected himself with Selden, Pym, St. John, and other leaders of the popular party; and that, though he seldom spoke, his capacity for business was known and respected, as appears from the employments in committees and conferences, imposed on him by the House.

In the first Parliament of Charles I., Hampden sat for Wendover, an ancient borough of Buckinghamshire, which with two others had lately regained their dormant privilege of returning members, chiefly by his exertions, and at his expense. In this and in the following Parliament, summoned in February, 1627, Hampden still appears to have taken no leading part. After the dissolution of the latter, he was called upon to contribute to a general loan, which he refused, and was in consequence imprisoned for a time in the Gate House, and then sent still under restraint to reside in Hampshire. The order for his release, with many others, is dated March, 1627–8. On this occasion, he made the remarkable reply to the demand, why he would not contribute to the king’s necessities, that “he could be content to lend as well as others, but feared to draw upon himself that curse in Magna Charta, which should be read twice a year against those who infringe it.”

In the new Parliament which met in March, 1628, Hampden again sat for Wendover, and having become more generally known by the part which he had taken in resisting the demands of the crown, from this time forward, says Lord Nugent, “scarcely was a bill prepared, or an inquiry begun, upon any subject, however remotely affecting any one of the three great matters at issue—privilege, religion, or the supplies—but he was thought fit to be associated with St. John, Selden, Coke and Pym, on the committee.”

That Parliament, after framing the Petition of Right, voting supplies, and taking resolute steps towards procuring a redress of grievances, was hastily and angrily dissolved in May, 1629. Previous to this, Hampden, “although retaining his seat for Wendover, had retired to his estate in Buckinghamshire, to live in entire privacy, without display, but not inactive; contemplating from a distance, the madness of the Government, the luxury and insolence of the courtiers, and the portentous apathy of the people, who, amazed by the late measures, and by the prospect of uninterruptedly increasing violence, saw no hope from petition or complaint, and watched, in confusion and silence, the inevitable advance of an open rupture between the King and the Parliament. The literary acquirements of his youth he now carefully improved; increasing that stock of general knowledge which had already gained him the reputation of being one of the most learned and accomplished men of his age: and directing his attention chiefly to writers on history and politics. Davila’s History of the Civil Wars of France became his favourite study, his vade mecum, as Sir Philip Warwick styles it; as if forecasting from afar the course of the storm which hung over his own country, he already saw the sad parallel it was likely to afford to the story of that work. In his retirement, he bent the whole force of his capacious mind to the most effectual means by which the abuses of ecclesiastical authority were to be corrected, and the tide of headlong prerogative checked, whenever the slumbering spirit of the country should be roused to deal with those duties to which he was preparing to devote himself.” (Memorials of Hampden, p. 175.) It may here be added that Hampden’s religious opinions were those of the Independent party, who were honourably distinguished, no less from the Presbyterians than the Episcopalians, by granting to all persons that freedom of conscience and full toleration which they claimed for themselves. While thus awaiting, with study and patient observation, the time when the active service of a real patriot might benefit his country, his domestic happiness received a severe blow by the death of his wife, Aug. 20, 1634.

In the same autumn the scheme of raising a revenue by ship-money was devised. Confined in the first instance to seaport towns, it proved so profitable that the levy was soon extended to inland places. In 1636, the charge was laid, by order of council, upon all counties, cities, and corporate towns, and the sheriffs were required, in case of refusal or delay, to proceed by distress. Here Hampden resolved to make a stand. The sum demanded of him was but thirty-one shillings and sixpence; but the very smallness of the sum served to show that his opposition was directed against the principle of the exaction, and rested on no ground of personal inconvenience, or individual injustice. Proceedings being instituted in the Exchequer for recovery of the money, the case was solemnly argued before the twelve judges, who severally delivered their opinions, and by a majority of eight to four, determined in favour of the crown. “But the judgment,” says Lord Clarendon, “infinitely more advanced him, Mr. Hampden, than the service for which it was given. He was rather of reputation in his own country, than of public discourse, or fame in the kingdom, before the business of ship-money: but then he grew the argument of all tongues, every man inquiring who or what he was, that durst, at his own charge, support the liberty and property of the country, as he thought, from being made a prey to the court. His carriage, throughout this 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.”

These measures, which placed at the king’s disposal the property, were accompanied by equally stringent attacks on the liberties of the country. Tutored by the lofty spirit of Wentworth, Charles resolved, and seemed likely to succeed, to rule independently of Parliaments: and in the sycophancy of the judges, and the unlimited and illegal severities of the courts of the Star-Chamber and High Commission, he had ample means of suppressing murmur, and punishing the refractory. We need not dwell upon the state to which the country was reduced, during the eleven years which elapsed without the meeting of a Parliament: so unpromising did it appear, that even the most resolute of that party comprehended by the Royalists under the general name of Puritans, meditated a withdrawal from the tyranny which they had almost ceased to hope to restrain. Even this however was denied to them by the infatuated jealousy of popular principles entertained by the king and his advisers, who issued an order, April 6, 1638, by which masters of ships were prohibited to carry passengers to America, without special licence. It has often been dwelt on as a very remarkable circumstance, that Hampden, and his cousin Oliver Cromwell, were at this time actually embarked for New England on board one of eight ships then lying in the river and freighted with emigrants, and that these eight ships were specially ordered to be detained.

A dawn of better times appeared, when in consequence of the king’s rash attempt to impose the English ritual upon Scotland, and restore Episcopacy, that country rose in rebellion. The expenses of the war rendered it imperative to obtain supplies; and Charles, fearing at this juncture to resort to fresh impositions, saw no resource except in summoning that which is commonly called the Short Parliament, which met in April, 1640. Hampden was returned for Buckinghamshire. About this time he had married his second wife, Letitia Vachell, but the quiet happiness of his home was henceforth entirely broken up by the disturbances of the times, and he never returned to any settled residence at his paternal mansion. In the short and energetic session of this spring he displayed his usual diligence and activity; and his influence was much increased in consequence of his resistance to the demand of ship-money, which had attracted such notice, that Clarendon, in speaking of the opening of the Long Parliament in November following, observes, “the eyes of all men were fixed upon him as their Pater Patriæ, and the pilot that must steer the vessel through the tempests and rocks which threatened it. And I am persuaded his power and interest, at that time, was greater to do good or hurt, than any man in the kingdom, or than any man of his rank hath held in any time: for his reputation of honesty was universal, and his affections seemed so publicly guided, that no corrupt or private ends could bias them.”

The causes of the dissolution of the Short Parliament, and the history of the second Scottish war which compelled Charles I. to summon the Long Parliament, hardly form a part of our subject: it is to be observed however that during the summer and autumn, Hampden, with other leading persons of the popular party, was engaged in active correspondence with the leaders of the Scottish insurrection, in whose success, as tending to the further embarrassment of the king, they placed their best hope of obtaining security for the maintenance of the liberties and privileges of the English people. Of the first great act of that Parliament, the impeachment of Strafford, he was a zealous supporter, and a member of the committee of twelve appointed to arrange the evidence, and to conduct that memorable trial. After the Commons, for reasons which have never been satisfactorily explained, thought fit to change the method of proceeding by introducing a bill of attainder, the name of Hampden appears in none of the records: and it is probable that he abstained from taking any part in the business. It is important to keep this in mind, because the censure, which has justly been cast upon the proceedings of the House of Commons against Lord Strafford, applies solely to the attainder, not to the impeachment. To the question, why, if Hampden disapproved of the attainder, he did not as resolutely oppose it as he had supported the impeachment, the following hypothetical answer is supplied by Lord Nugent. “In a case doubtful to him only as matter of precedent; but clear to him in respect of the guilt of the accused person; in a case in which the accused person, in his estimation, deserved death, and in which all law, except that of the sceptre and the sword, was at an end if he had escaped it; when all the ordinary protection of law to the subject throughout the country was suspended, and suspended mainly by the counsels of Strafford himself, Hampden was not prepared to heroically immolate the liberties of England in order to save the life of him who would have destroyed them. Hampden probably considered the bill which took away Strafford’s life (and indeed it must in fairness be so considered) as a revolutionary act undertaken for the defence of the Commonwealth.”

He was an active supporter of two important measures which occupied the Parliament simultaneously with Strafford’s impeachment, the Triennial Bill, for securing the convocation of Parliaments, and the bill for excluding bishops from the House of Lords. After the rejection of the latter, he adopted the views of that more violent party who urged the necessity of abolishing episcopacy altogether. But, notwithstanding his recognised position as a leader of his party, and his known weight in determining the line of conduct to be pursued by it, he was not a frequent speaker, and his name therefore occurs less frequently than would be expected in the records of this eventful period. “His practice was usually to reserve himself until near the close of a debate; and then, having watched its progress, to endeavour to moderate the redundancies of his friends, to weaken the impression produced by its opponents, to confirm the timid, and to reconcile the reluctant. And this he did, according to the testimony of his opponents themselves, with a modesty, gentleness, and apparent diffidence in his own judgment, which generally brought men round to his conclusions.”—(Memorials of Hampden, ii. 47.) He was one of the five members accused of treason, and demanded personally by Charles in the House of Commons, January 6, 1642; “and from this time,” says Clarendon, “his nature and carriage seemed much fiercer than it did before.” Unquestionably that ill-advised step was not likely to conciliate those whose life was aimed at, but it is also clear that before that event, the party, with whom he acted, were preparing for a struggle more serious than that in which they were as yet engaged. A Committee of Public Safety was formed, of which Hampden was a member, the power of the sword was claimed by the Ordinance of Militia, the king on his part issued his Commission of Array, and at last raised his standard at Nottingham, August 22.

In the military events of the first year of the war, Hampden took an active, but subordinate share, as colonel of a regiment of infantry, which he himself raised in Buckinghamshire. Nor did he intermit, as the exigencies of war allowed him, to continue his attendance in Parliament, and to urge there that decisive course of action, which he knew to be necessary to the success of the cause, and laboured in vain to recommend to the Parliamentary general. At the battle of Brentford, his troops, and those of Lord Brook, in support of the London regiment under Hollis, bore the brunt of the day against superior numbers, until the army arrived from London in the evening: and on this occasion (as before at Edge Hill, where he arrived too late to take part in the fight,) he in vain urged Essex to convert, by a decisive forward movement, the doubtful issue of the day into victory. During the winter months, while the king held his court at Oxford, and a Parliamentary army lay between London and that city, Hampden’s regiment was quartered in Buckinghamshire, and his own time was divided between the seat of war and the House of Commons.

To this period also, is to be referred the association of six midland counties for the purposes of the war, Bedford, Buckingham, Hertford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, and Northampton; a step which proved of material service in giving strength and union to the Parliamentary cause, and which probably would not have been carried into operation but for Hampden’s peculiar talent of allaying jealousies, reconciling conflicting interests, and smoothing away the obstacles to any business which he undertook.

From March 1, to April 15, a cessation of arms was agreed on in Oxfordshire and Bucks, while an attempt was made to arrange terms of pacification. The treaty having been broken off, war recommenced with an incessant and generally successful series of predatory incursions, conducted by Prince Rupert, on the Parliamentary outposts, which lay widely dispersed in the intricate country on the borders of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. In this district, with which his early habits of the chase had made him familiar, Hampden’s regiment was quartered. He had laboured incessantly, but in vain, to promote some great enterprise, which might give lustre to the seemingly declining cause, and confidence to the adherents, of the Parliament. Failing in this, he manifested no less alacrity in performing his duty than if his views and his suggestions had been adopted: indeed it would be consonant to his character to suppose, that a strict sense of what is due to military discipline, and a desire to avoid even the appearance of slighting his commanding officer, led him to still more zealous exertions. It was in a matter beyond the strict line of his duty that he received his death-wound. On the evening of the 17th of June, Rupert set out from Oxford with about 2000 men, and surprised and burnt two villages, Postcombe and Chinnor, which were occupied by the Parliamentary troops. When the alarm reached Hampden, he instantly set out at the head of a small body of cavalry, which volunteered to follow him, in hopes of being able to delay the Royalists sufficiently to enable Essex to occupy the passes of the Cherwell, and cut them off from Oxford. Strengthened by the accession of four troops of horse, he overtook Prince Rupert, who drew up to receive the attack on Chalgrove-field. Early in the action Hampden received two bullets in the shoulder, which shattered the bone, and in an agony of pain he rode off the field; “a thing,” says Clarendon, “he never used to do, and from which it was concluded he was hurt.” Two others of the chief Parliamentary officers present were killed or taken, and the Royalists made good their retreat. Hampden expired at Thame, after six days severe suffering. His last words are thus given from a contemporary publication. “O Lord God of Hosts, great is thy mercy, just and holy are thy dealings unto us sinful men. Save me, O Lord, if it be thy good will, from the jaws of death. Pardon my manifold transgressions, O Lord, save my bleeding country. Have these realms in thy especial keeping. Confound and level in the dust those who would rob the people of their liberty and lawful prerogative. Let the king see his error, and turn the hearts of his wicked counsellors from the malice and wickedness of their designs. Lord Jesu, receive my soul!” He then mournfully uttered, “O Lord, save my country—O Lord, be merciful to” ... and here his speech failed him. He fell back in the bed, and expired.

His death, according to Sir Philip Warwick, was regretted even by the king, “who looked on his interest, if he could gain his affections, as a powerful means of begetting a right understanding between him and the two Houses.” To his own party it was irreparable. It removed the fittest person for the chief command of their troops, which it is not unreasonable to suppose would, upon the removal of Essex, have been vested in him; deprived them of a leader and adviser, who, of all, was the most likely to have confined his wishes to the establishment of a secure peace, on the basis of a strictly limited monarchy; and opened way to the ambition of Cromwell, which probably would never have been developed if Hampden had lived to direct the counsels of the Parliament.

We have already given a portion of Clarendon’s character of Hampden; for the rest of that celebrated passage, we must refer to the History of the Rebellion, book vii. It describes a man of rare virtues, though the political bias of the noble author has thrown a dark colouring over the whole. The latest, and we believe the most elaborate account of this eminent patriot, is that of Lord Nugent, from which the greater part of our memoir is derived. But the memoirs and pamphlets of the time must be intimately studied by those who wish for full information concerning Hampden’s parliamentary life.

_Engraved by W. Holl._

JOHNSON.

_From a Picture by Sir J. Reynolds, in the possession of Sir Robert
Peel Bar^t._

Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge.

_London, Published by Charles Knight & C^o. Ludgate Street._
]

JOHNSON.

Samuel Johnson was born September 18, 1709, in the city of Lichfield, where his father, a man well respected for sense and learning, carried on the trade of a bookseller, and realized an independence, which he afterwards lost by an unsuccessful speculation. His mother also possessed a strong understanding. From these parents Johnson derived a powerful body, and a mind of uncommon force and compass. Unfortunately both mind and body were tainted by disease: the former by a melancholy, of which he said that it had “made him mad all his life—at least not sober;” the latter by that scrofulous disorder called the king’s evil, for which, in compliance with a popular superstition, recommended by the Jacobite principles of his family, he was _touched_ by Queen Anne. By this disease he lost the sight of one eye, and the other was considerably injured: a calamity which combined with constitutional indolence to prevent his joining in the active sports of his school-fellows. Tardy in the performance of his appointed tasks, he mastered them with rapidity at last, and he early displayed great fondness for miscellaneous reading, and a remarkably retentive memory. After passing through several country schools, and spending near two years in a sort of busy idleness at home, he went to Pembroke College, Oxford, about the age of sixteen. There he made himself more remarkable by wit and humour, and negligence of college discipline, than by his labours for University distinction: his translation of Pope’s Messiah into Latin hexameters was the only exercise on which he bestowed much pains, or by which he obtained much credit. But his high spirits, unless the recollections of his earlier years were tinctured by his habitual despondency, were but the cloak of a troubled mind. “Ah! Sir,” he said to Boswell, “I was mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mistook for frolic. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight my way by my literature and my wit, so I disregarded all power and all authority.” His poverty during this period was indeed extreme: and the scanty remittances by which he was supported, in much humiliation and inconvenience, were altogether stopped at last by his father’s insolvency. He had the mortification to be compelled to quit Oxford in the autumn of 1731, after three years’ residence, without taking a degree; and his father’s death in the December following threw him on the world, with twenty pounds in his pocket.

He first attempted to gain a livelihood in the capacity of usher to a school at Market-Bosworth, in Leicestershire. For that laborious and dreary task he was eminently unfit, except by talent and learning, and he soon quitted a situation which he ever remembered with a degree of aversion amounting to horror. After his marriage he tried the experiment of keeping a boarding-house, near Lichfield, as principal, with little better success. From Bosworth he went to Birmingham, in 1733, where he composed his first work, a translation of the Jesuit Lobo’s Voyage to Abyssinia. He gained several kind and useful acquaintance in the latter town, among whom was Mr. Porter, a mercer, whose widow he married in 1735. She was double his age, and possessed neither beauty, fortune, nor attractive manners, yet she inspired him with an affection which endured, unchilled by the trials of poverty, unchanged by her death, even to the end of his own life, as his private records fully testify. She died in 1752.

In March, 1737, Johnson set out for the metropolis, in hopes of mending his fortunes, as a man of letters, and especially of bringing on the stage his tragedy of Irene. It was long before his desires were gratified in either respect. Irene was not performed till 1749, when his friend and former pupil, Garrick, had the management of Drury-Lane. Garrick’s zeal carried it through nine nights, so that the author, in addition to one hundred pounds from Dodsley for the copyright, had the profit of three nights’ performance, according to the mode of payment then in use. The play however, though bearing the stamp of a vigorous and elevated mind, and by no means wanting in poetical merit, was unfit for acting, through its want of pathos and dramatic effect: and Johnson perhaps perceived his deficiency in these qualities, for he never again wrote for the stage. Garrick said of his friend, that he had neither the faculty to produce, nor the sensibility to receive the impressions of tragedy: and his annotations upon Shakspeare confirm this judgment.

His first employment after his arrival in London, was as a frequent contributor to the Gentleman’s Magazine, from which, during some years, he derived his chief support. This was a period of labour, poverty, and often of urgent want. Sometimes without a lodging, sometimes without a dinner, he became acquainted with the darker phases of a London life; and among other singular characters, a similarity of fortunes made him acquainted with the notorious Richard Savage, whom he regarded with affection, and whose life is one of the most powerful productions of Johnson’s pen.

In the thoughts suggested, and the knowledge taught, by this rough collision with the world, we may conjecture his imitation of the third satire of Juvenal, entitled London, to have originated. To the majority of the nation it was recommended by its strong invectives against the then unpopular ministry of Sir Robert Walpole, as well as by the energy of thought and style, the knowledge of his subject, and the lively painting in which it abounds: it reached a second edition in the course of a week, and Boswell tells us, on contemporary authority, that “the first buz of the literary circles was, ‘here is an unknown poet, greater even than Pope.’” Yet this admired poem produced only ten guineas to its author, and appears to have done nothing towards improving his prospects, or giving a commercial value to his name: his chief employment was still furnished by the Gentleman’s Magazine; and in November, 1740, he undertook to report, or rather to write, the Parliamentary debates for that publication. At that time the privileges of Parliament were very strictly interpreted, and the avowed publication of debates would have been rigorously suppressed. Such a summary however as could be preserved in the memory, was carried away by persons employed for the purpose, and the task which Johnson undertook was to expand and adorn their imperfect hints from the stores of his own eloquence: in doing which he took care, as he afterwards acknowledged, that “the Whig dogs should not have the best of it.” The speeches of course were referred to fictitious names, and were published under the title, Debates of the Senate of Lilliput: but in February, 1743, Johnson, on finding that they were esteemed genuine, desisted from the employment, declaring that he would not be accessary to the propagation of falsehood. So scrupulous was he on this score, that forty years after, not long before his death, he expressed his regret at having been the author of fictions that had passed for realities.

For a detailed account of this early portion of Johnson’s literary history, we refer the reader to Boswell’s Life, and the list of Johnson’s works thereto prefixed, and pass on at once to those greater performances, to which he owes his eminent rank among British writers. Of these the earliest and most celebrated is his Dictionary of the English Language. How long the plan of this work had been meditated, before it was actually commenced, is uncertain: he told Boswell, that his knowledge of our language was not the effect of particular study, but had grown up insensibly in his mind. That he under-rated the time and labour requisite for such a work, is evident from his promising in his prospectus, issued in 1747, to complete it in three years: he probably had also under-rated the needful knowledge, and amount of preparatory study. In fact it was not published till 1755. He received for it 1575_l._, of which however a very considerable portion was spent in expenses. The prospectus was addressed to Lord Chesterfield; who expressed himself warmly in favour of the design, and from that time forward treated the author with neglect until the time of publication drew nigh, when he again assumed the character of a patron. Fired at this, Johnson repudiated his assistance in a dignified but sarcastic letter, which is printed by Boswell. The transaction merits notice, for it is characteristic of Johnson’s independent spirit, and excited at the time much curiosity and comment.

The Dictionary was justly esteemed a wonderful work: it established at once the author’s reputation among his contemporaries, and was long regarded as the supreme standard by which disputed points in the English language were to be tried. Johnson’s chief qualification for the task lay in the accuracy of his definitions, and the extent of his various and well-remembered reading; his chief disqualification lay in his ignorance of the cognate Teutonic languages, the stock from which the bulk and strength of our own is derived: and in proportion as the history and philosophy of the English language have been more extensively studied, has the need of a more learned and philosophical work of reference been felt. The verbose style of his definitions is rather a fruitful theme of ridicule than an important fault. Shortly before its publication he received from the University of Oxford, which through life he regarded with great affection and veneration, the honorary degree of M.A., a mark of respect by which he was highly gratified.