CLARENDON AND HIS FRIENDS.

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LORD CHANCELLOR CLARENDON AND HIS FRIENDS.* *

DURING the few years that intervened between the return of Charles the Second and the banishment of his great Chancellor it was the delight and constant occupation of the latter to collect under his splendid roof the portraits of the many famous men with whom he had come in contact during his agitated life, or who had taken part, at least, whether with him or against him, in the singular vicissitudes of that unhappy time. It has been hinted that the eager collector was more solicitous for the effigies than scrupulous as to the method of acquiring them. Indeed, one accusation is on record which openly charges Lord Clarendon with having received his pictures directly as bribes from the Puritans, who had themselves obtained many of the portraits by violent seizure during the civil wars, for promotion and advancement when Puritan principles were no longer in the ascendant. The accusation, it is true, rests solely upon the credibility of a man of whom Mr. Hallam asserts that "his splenetic humour makes him no good witness against any one;" but there is nothing, either in the temper of the times or in the

* Lives of Friends and Contemporaries of Lord Chancellor Clarendon. Illustrative of Portraits in his Gallery. By Lady Theresa Lewis. In thres volumes. London: Murray. 1852.

character and fate of the noble collector himself, to render the suspicion wholly unworthy of belief. Another modern historian tells us that it is chiefly to the general profligacy of the times that Clarendon owes his high reputation; but he by no means wishes us to conclude that the Chancellor himself altogether escaped contamination. We know, even from his own utterance, that he did not, and it is certain that the bitter animosity created in the minds of the Royal party by the preference so frequently shown to Puritan applicants for place led as much as any other cause to the downfall which released Lord Clarendon from the temptations and responsibilities of office, and enabled him to devote his extraordinary powers to the literary works that have secured his renown.

Whether, however, Lord Clarendon obtained his paintings by honest payment or by dishonest patronage, two circumstances in connexion with the gallery are worthy of remembrance. The accomplished Evelyn helped Lord Clarendon to the collection, and the immortal Pepys was fired by the example to make a collection of his own equally magnificent. Poor Pepys would inevitably have ruined his family but for the sagacious counsel of Evelyn, who recommended the little man to content his ambitious soul with a collection of engravings; and Lord Clarendon would, no doubt, have vastly improved his gallery had he continued long enough in power to avail himself of all the suggestions of the same competent adviser. On the 18th of March, 1667, Evelyn sent to Lord Clarendon a list of worthies whose portraits the collector would do well to add to his treasures. On the 30th of Novem

ber in the same year the great earl himself was crawling to France unperceived by the men who were plotting his overthrow.

Lady Theresa Lewis, the sister of the present Earl of Clarendon-the owner of at least a portion of the great collection-has undertaken the task of giving life to the canvas that adorns her brother's walls. The three volumes before us contain the memoirs of three men who were partakers with the great earl of the anxieties and varied fortunes of the civil wars, whose deeds formed the subject of his own vigorous and minute pen, and whose portraits were among the memorials he had gathered for his consolation when he vainly deemed his hour of conflict to have ended. There is a singular appropriateness in the selection made. Lord Hertford, Lord Capell, and Lord Falkland are representatives of an heroic class. In treating of the civil wars which tore this kingdom asunder, and defiled the soil with native blood, it has been too much the custom to divide the combatants into two contending parties-the one allied to Royalty and despotism, the other sworn to maintain the just or unjust claims of the people against the divine rights of the Monarch and the priest. In modern times, especially, we have taken our cue from the novelist, and pictured Cavaliers and Roundheads in the forms bequeathed to us by the cunning and everwelcome pen of genius. Generation upon generation has preferred the volumes of Shakspeare to the drier and less fascinating chronicle of the historian; and our children will as certainly have recourse to the free painting of Scott when they desire to judge of the characters and events round which the magician has left ៦*

his imperishable halo. It is perilous, however, to rely solely upon such seductive teaching. It is very certain that, between the two classes which represent to us the opposing parties in the civil war, there rose up a third division, much more enlightened than either, though far less calculated to stamp its features on the agitated time, or to settle the lamentable conflict whose issue was to be found only in one of two extremes. The period of the war was one of great constitutional change. It formed a mighty epoch in the history of our people. Up to that time the country had been governed, professedly, by King and Council, actually, by the Monarch alone. The people were now about to govern themselves. Charles I., with antiquated notions of prerogative, suddenly found himself face to face with a nation inoculated with the most advanced ideas of popular freedom. King and Parliament were both to blame in the struggle that ensued for pre-eminence; for both demanded as their inalienable right infinitely more than either had the slightest title to assume. The middle party that sprang up, intent only upon doing justice by both combatants, and spurning the unauthorized pretensions of either, were the true constitutionalists of the time, and might have steered the State vessel, without accident or mutiny, through the terrible sea in which it laboured for so many years, had the King been honest, or the multitude free from the influence of ambitious counsel and malignant passion. Failing in their patriotic and noble endeavour, they became the victims rather than the heroes of the hour, and their humble efforts are still suffered to look pale at the side of the fiery but ferocious achievements of a Rupert, or

the successful usurpation of a Cromwell. We may surely search long and industriously through the histories of the world before we come to a counterpart of that character which has rendered the name of Falkland immortal on the soil that gave him birth. Poet, philosopher, statesman, patriot, soldier he seems to have combined in his own person all the noble qualities which distinguished every one of the contending parties of his day. He fell fighting at the age of thirtyfour, but long before that miserable moment he had endeared himself to his country by the highest virtues that elevate humanity. He followed his King with a steadiness and fidelity that knew no flaw, but he followed as much to counsel and instruct as to battle for and protect. In the House of Commons, he had never ceased to upbraid Episcopal aggressions and Regal usurpations; and when forced at last to defend the monarch against the ambitious spirits that struggled, as he thought, to build their own eminence upon the ruins of the throne, and cared not by what means the personal object was acquired, he still reminded his master that his soul could neither be the slave of priestcraft nor the minister to an overweening and ridiculous sense of prerogative. From the outbreak of the civil war until he fell sword in hand Falkland's heart was bent upon peace, and upon restoring the King to the confidence of his Parliament. Had he thought less of peace, he would have cared more for his own precious life, since it was always the manly fear of being suspected of wishing for a suspension of hostilities on his own. account that led him to the very thick of danger. We have ever been of opinion that Mr. Macaulay does scant