born at the close of the Queen's
reign; the dissipations of youth were cut short by an early marriage at
twenty-five to a wife he loved; and the young squire settled down to a
life of study and religion. His wealth and lineage opened to him a
career such as other men were choosing at the Stuart court. Few English
commoners had wider possessions; and under James it was easy to purchase
a peerage by servility and hard cash. "If my son will seek for his
honour," wrote his mother from the court, "tell him now to come, for
here are multitudes of lords a-making!" But Hampden had nobler aims than
a peerage. From the first his choice was made to stand by the side of
those who were struggling for English freedom; and at the age of
twenty-six he took his seat in the memorable Parliament of 1621. Young
as he was, his ability at once carried him to the front; he was employed
in "managing conferences with the Lords" and other weighty business, and
became the friend of Eliot and of Pym. He was again returned to the two
first Parliaments of Charles; and his firm refusal to contribute to
forced loans at the close of the second marked the quiet firmness of his
temper. "I could be content to lend," he replied to the demand of the
Council, "but for fear to draw on myself that curse in Magna Charta
which should be read twice a year against those that do infringe it." He
was rewarded with so close an imprisonment in the Tower, "that he never
afterwards did look the same man he was before." But a prison had no
force to bend the steady patriotism of John Hampden, and he again took a
prominent part in the Parliament of 1628, especially on the religious
questions which came under debate.

With the dissolution of this Parliament Hampden again withdrew to his
home, the home that, however disguised by tasteless changes without,
still stands unaltered within on a rise of the Chilterns, its
Elizabethan hall girt round with galleries and stately staircases
winding up beneath shadowy portraits in ruffs and farthingales. Around
are the quiet undulations of the chalk-country, billowy heavings and
sinkings as of some primaeval sea suddenly hushed into motionlessness,
soft slopes of grey grass or brown-red corn falling gently to dry
bottoms, woodland flung here and there in masses over the hills. A
country of fine and lucid air, of far shadowy distances, of hollows
tenderly veiled by mist, graceful everywhere with a flowing
unaccentuated grace, as though