ommonwealth
appear--he must rank foremost. It is difficult to avoid exaggeration in
speaking of these men,--men whose deeds vindicate their words, and whose
words are unsurpassed by Greek or Roman fame,--men whom even Hume can
only criticize for a "mysterious jargon" which most of them did not use,
and for a "vulgar hypocrisy" which few of them practised. Let us not
underrate the self-forgetting loyalty of the Royalists,--the Duke of
Newcastle laying at the King's feet seven hundred thousand pounds,
and the Marquis of Worcester a million; but the sublimer poverty and
abstinence of the Parliamentary party deserve a yet loftier meed,--Vane
surrendering an office of thirty thousand pounds a year to promote
public economy,--Hutchinson refusing a peerage and a fortune as a bribe
to hold Nottingham Castle a little while for the King,--Eliot and Pym
bequeathing their families to the nation's justice, having spent their
all for the good cause. And rising to yet higher attributes, as they
pass before us in the brilliant paragraphs of the courtly Clarendon, or
the juster modern estimates of Forster, it seems like a procession of
born sovereigns; while the more pungent epithets of contemporary wit
only familiarize, but do not mar, the fame of Cromwell, (Cleaveland's
"Caesar in a Clown,")--"William the Conqueror" Waller,--"young Harry"
Vane,--"fiery Tom" Fairfax,--and "King Pym." But among all these there
is no peer of Hampden, of him who came not from courts or camps, but
from the tranquil study of his Davila, from that thoughtful retirement
which was for him, as for his model, Coligny, the school of all noble
virtues,--came to find himself at once a statesman and a soldier,
receiving from his contemporary, Clarendon, no affectionate critic, the
triple crown of historic praise, as being "the most able, resolute, and
popular person in the kingdom." Who can tell how changed the destiny of
England, had the Earl of Bedford's first compromise with the country
party succeeded, and Hampden become the tutor of Prince Charles,--or
could this fight at Chalgrove Field issue differently, and Hampden
survive to be general instead of Essex, and Protector in place of
Cromwell?

But that may not be. Had Hampden's earlier counsels prevailed, Rupert
never would have ventured on his night foray; had his next suggestions
been followed, Rupert never would have returned from it. Those
failing, Hampden has come, gladly followed by Gunter and his dragoon