es, with the same noble regrets at
first, merging gradually into bitter alienation afterwards. "If there
could be an expedient found to solve the punctilio of honor, I would not
be hero an hour," wrote Lord Robert Spencer to his wife, from the
camp of the Cavaliers. Sir Edmund Verney, the King's standard-bearer,
disapproved of the royal cause, and adhered to it only because he "had
eaten the King's bread." Lord Falkland, Charles's Secretary of State,
"sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent
sighs, would, with a shriek and sad accent, ingeminate the words, Peace!
Peace!" and would prophesy for himself that death which soon came. And
these words show close approximation to the positions of men honored
among the Puritans, as when Sir William Waller wrote from his camp to
his chivalrous opponent, Sir Ralph Hopton,--"The great God, who is
the searcher of my heart, knows with what reluctance I go upon this
service."

As time passed on, the hostility between the two parties exceeded all
bounds of courteous intercourse. The social distinction was constantly
widening, and so was the religious antagonism. Waller could be allowed
to joke with Goring and sentimentalize with Hopton,--for Waller was a
gentleman, though a rebel; but it was a different thing when the Puritan
gentlemen were seen to be gradually superseded by Puritan clowns.
Strafford had early complained of "your Prynnes, Pims, and Bens, with
the rest of that generation of odd names and natures." But what were
these to the later brood, whose plebeian quality Mr. Buckle has so
laboriously explored,--Goffe the grocer and Whalley the tailor, Pride
the drayman and Venner the cooper, culminating at last in Noll Cromwell
the brewer? The formidable force of these upstarts only embittered
the aversion. If odious when vanquished, what must they have been as
victors? For if it be disagreeable to find a foeman unworthy of your
steel, it is much more unpleasant when your steel turns out unworthy of
the foeman; and if sad-colored Puritan raiment looked absurd upon the
persons of fugitives, it must have been very particularly unbecoming
when worn by conquerors.

And the growing division was constantly aggravated by very acid satire.
The Court, it must be remembered, was more than half French in its
general character and tone, and every Frenchman of that day habitually
sneered at every Englishman as dull and inelegant. The dazzling wit that
flashed for bo