whose snowy skin has been stained
by many a blood-drop in the desperate forays of his master, but who has
thus far escaped so safely that the Puritans believe him a familiar
spirit, and try to destroy him "by poyson and extempore prayer, which
yet hurt him no more than the plague plaster did Mr. Pym." Failing in
this, they pronounce the pretty creature to be "a divell, not a very
downright divell, but some Lapland ladye, once by nature a handsome
white ladye, now by art a handsome white dogge."

The Civil War is begun. The King has made his desperate attempt to
arrest the five members of Parliament, and been checkmated by Lucy
Carlisle. So the fatal standard was reared, ten months ago, on that
dismal day at Nottingham,--the King's arms, quartered with a bloody
hand pointing to the crown, and the red battle-flag above;--blown down
disastrously at night, replaced sadly in the morning, to wave while the
Cavaliers rallied, slowly, beneath its folds. During those long months,
the King's fortunes have had constant and increasing success,--a success
always greatest when Rupert has been nearest. And now this night-march
is made to avenge a late attack, of unaccustomed audacity, from Essex,
and to redeem the threat of Rupert to pass in one night through the
whole country held by the enemy, and beat up the most distant quarters
of the Roundheads.

II.

THE CONDITION OF THE TIMES.

It is no easy thing to paint, with any accurate shadings, this opening
period of the English Revolution. Looking habitually, as we do, at the
maturer condition of the two great parties, we do not remember how
gradual was their formation. The characters of Cavalier and Roundhead
were not more the cause than the consequence of civil strife. There is
no such chemical solvent as war; where it finds a mingling of two
alien elements, it leaves them permanently severed. At the opening
of hostilities, the two parties were scarcely distinguishable, in
externals, from each other. Arms, costume, features, phrases, manners,
were as yet common to both sides. On the battlefield, spies could pass
undetected from one army to the other. At Edgehill, Chalgrove, and
even Naseby, men and standards were captured and rescued, through the
impossibility of distinguishing between the forces. An orange scarf, or
a piece of white paper, was the most reliable designation. True, there
was nothing in the Parliamentary army so gorgeous as Sir John Suckling's
troop in Scotla