red; so that you will believe it will make mad
work among friends and foes, if it were published; but out
of it enough may be chosen to make a perfect story, and the
original kept for their perusal, who may be the wiser for
knowing the most secret truths; and you know it will be an
easier matter to blot out two sheets, than to write half an
one. If I live to finish it (as on my conscience I shall, for
I write apace), I intend to seal it up, and have it always
with me. If I die, I appoint it to be delivered to you, to
whose care (with a couple of good fellows more) I shall leave
it; that either of you dying, you may so preserve it, that
in due time somewhat by your care may be published, and the
original be delivered to the King, who will not find himself
flattered in it, nor irreverently handled: though, the truth
will better suit a dead than a living man. Three hours a
day I assign to this writing task; the rest to other study
and books; so I doubt not after seven years time in this
retirement, you will find me a pretty fellow.[5]

From this, as from other passages in his letters, Clarendon's
first intentions are clear. The _History_ was to be a repository of
authentic information on 'this most lovely Rebellion', constructed
with the specifically didactic purpose of showing the King and his
advisers what lessons were to be learned from their errors; they would
be 'the wiser for knowing the most secret truths'. At first he looked
on his work as containing the materials of a 'perfect story', but as
he proceeded his ambitions grew. He had begun to introduce characters;
and when in the spring of 1647 he was about to write his first
character of Lord Falkland, he had come to the view that 'the
preservation of the fame and merit of persons, and deriving the same
to posterity, is no less the business of history than the truth of
things'.[6] He gave much thought to the character of Falkland, 'whom
the next age shall be taught', he was determined, 'to value more than
the present did.'[7] Concurrently with the introduction of characters
he paid more attention to the literary, as distinct from the
didactic, merits of his work. We find him comparing himself with other
historians, and considering what Livy and Tacitus would have done
in like circumstances. By the spring of 1648 he had brought down his
narrative to the opening of the campaign of 1644. Earlier in th