nd Times of the son of the first Stuart arose from the
same impulse. He had deeply studied our history during the first moiety
of the seventeenth century; he looked upon it as a famous age; he was
familiar with the works of its great writers, and there was scarcely one
of its almost innumerable pamphlets with which he was not acquainted.
During the thoughtful investigations of many years, he had arrived at
results which were not adapted to please the passing multitude, but
which, because he held them to be authentic, he was uneasy lest he
should die without recording. Yet strong as were his convictions,
although, notwithstanding his education in the revolutionary philosophy
of the eighteenth century, his nature and his studies had made him a
votary of loyalty and reverence, his pen was always prompt to do justice
to those who might be looked upon as the adversaries of his own cause:
and this was because his cause was really truth. If he has upheld Laud
under unjust aspersions, the last labour of his literary life was to
vindicate the character of Hugh Peters. If, from the recollection of the
sufferings of his race, and from profound reflection on the principles
of the Institution, he was hostile to the Papacy, no writer in our
literature has done more complete justice to the conduct of the English
Romanists. Who can read his history of Chidiock Titchbourne unmoved? or
can refuse to sympathise with his account of the painful difficulties of
the English Monarchs with their loyal subjects of the old faith? If in
a parliamentary country he has dared to criticise the conduct of
Parliaments, it was only because an impartial judgment had taught him,
as he himself expresses it, that "Parliaments have their passions as
well as individuals."

He was five years in the composition of his work on the "Life and Reign
of Charles the First," and the five volumes appeared at intervals
between 1828 and 1831. It was feared by his publisher, that the
distracted epoch at which this work was issued, and the tendency of the
times, apparently so adverse to his own views, might prove very
injurious to its reception. But the effect of these circumstances was
the reverse. The minds of men were inclined to the grave and national
considerations that were involved in these investigations. The
principles of political institutions, the rival claims of the two Houses
of Parliament, the authority of the Established Church, the demands of
religious sects