§ VII. LORD FALKLAND.

land's

THE fudden and impetuous break-off from Beliefs as the party with whom he had acted fo zealously to Falkin matters requiring no common nerve and character. refolution, characteristic as it was of the real Falkland, jars with the popular impreffions that arise at mention of his name. But merely to compare it with the courfe we have seen him adopt upon fuch questions as Strafford's Attainder, may well fuggeft fome doubt as to the entire correctness of the estimates ordinarily formed of the political character and opinions of this celebrated man. He is generally affumed to have been the incarnation of moderate and temperate counfels. It is but a few years Suppofed fince his example was publicly pleaded by a firft type of minister of the Crown to justify the fincerity tion. with which he might be profecuting a war in' the midst of continual proteftations of a defire for

peace. We were asked to remember that the moft virtuous and self-restrained character in our great rebellion, and the man most devoted to the Royalist cause, ftill murmured and "ingeminated" peace, peace, even whilft arming for the combat. But the allufion was unfortunate in turning wholly on that alleged circumstance in Falkland's career which is moft capable of clear difproof. He was by no means devoted to the cause he fought for; and he cried out peace, peace, folely because he detefted the war.

modera

No doubt, however, he is the man of all Errors and others of our civil conflict who is most misjudggene- ments. rally supposed to have reprefented therein the

monarchical principle; and upon
this ground
his ftatue was among thofe voted earliest for
the hiftorical adornment of the new Palace at
Westminster. But the real truth is, that

Falkland was far more of an apoftate than Strafford, for his heart was really with the Parliament from the firft, which Strafford's never was; and never, to the very end, did he fincerely embrace the caufe with which his zealous for gallant and mournful death at the age of the King thirty-four has eternally connected him. I

Never

Tribute by Hyde.

*

have no wish to say anything to unfettle the admiring thoughts which must always cluster round the memory of one whom Lord Clarendon has celebrated not fimply as a statesman and foldier, but as a patriot, poet,† and philofo

"Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four“and-thirtieth year of his age, having fo much dispatched "the business of life, that the oldest rarely attain to that "immenfe knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the "world with more innocence. Whofoever leads fuch a life, "need not care upon how fhort a warning it be taken from "him." Hift. iv. 257. For "need not care" the first

editors had fubftituted "needs be the lefs anxious."

Gratitude To the gratitude of the poets themselves, to the eternal of the remembrance with which fuch men as Ben Jonfon, Suckling, Poets to Waller, and Cowley, can pay richly back in their loving verse Falkland, all kinds and degrees of loving fervice,-Falkland rather owes his title than to any achievements of his own. But there are yet a fufficient number of good lines in his occafional poetical pieces to justify Suckling's having placed him in his Seffion of the Poets." There are many manly verses in his Eclogue

His
Eclogue

on

Jonfon's death.

on Jonfon's death.

"Alas! that bard, that glorious bard is dead,
Who, when I whilome cities vifited,

Hath made them feem but hours which were full days,
Whilft he vouchfaft me his harmonious lays;

And when I lived, I thought the country then

A torture; and no manfion, but a den."

Falkland puts this into the mouth of Hylas, and it may

pher, in fentences that will be immortal. But it is impoffible to become familiar with the details of this period of our history, and with

remind us of what Clarendon fays of the writer's own paf-
fionate fondness. for London. Melybous rejoins:

"Jonfon you mean, unless I much do err
I know the perfon by the character.”

The fame speaker continues:

"His learning fuch, no author, old or new,
Efcaped his reading that deferv'd his view,
And fuch his judgment, so exact his test
Of what was best in books, as what books beft,
That, had he joined thofe notes his labours took
From each moft praised and praife-deferving book,
And could the world of that choice treasure boast,
It need not care though all the rest were lost."

On Jonfon's learning.

Of his great art he then speaks, so that what he pleased to His

write

"Gave the wife wonder and the crowd delight.

Each fort as well as fex admir'd his wit,

The hes and fhes, the boxes and the pit;

And who lefs liked, within did rather chufe

To tax their judgments than suspect his muse.
Nor no fpectator his chafte ftage could call

The caufe of any crime of his, but all

With thoughts and wills purg'd and amended rife
From the ethick lectures of his Comedies:

Where the spectators act, and the sham'd Age

Blushes to meet her follies on the stage;

Where each man finds fome light he never fought,
And leaves behind fome vanity he brought.
Whofe Politicks no lefs the mind direct

Than those the Manners, nor with less effect,
When his majestic Tragedies relate

All the diforders of a tottering state."

...

Vogue in theatres.

It was to be remembered alfo, Melybous adds, that of all His felfthis old Ben was himfelf "fole workman and fole architect," raised as to which he concludes:

"And furely what my friend did daily tell,

If he but acted his own part as well

As he writ those of others, he may boast

The happy fields hold not a happier ghost!"

These are not only good lines, but very valuable personal notices of rare old Jonfon.

fortune.

held by

Falkland:

Opinions Falkland's fhare in what preceded the Debates on the Remonftrance, and to doubt in what fpirit alone he could have taken the part which he fubfequently played. Over and over again does Clarendon himself find it neceffary to remark of him, that he never had any veneration for the Court, but only such a loyalty to the King as the law required from him; and as often is he constrained to admit, on the Court and other hand, that he had naturally a wonderful reverence for Parliaments, as believing them moft folicitous for justice, the violation whereof, in the leaft degree, he could not forgive any mortal power.*

as to

Parlia

ment.

But the friend who has done fo much to preserve and endear his fame fince his death, had unhappily influence enough, while he Influence lived, to lead him into a pofition which made of Hyde. the exact reverfe of thofe opinions an official neceffity; and Falkland was eminently a man who, finding himself so placed, however unexpectedly, was ready to facrifice everything to the punctilio of honour. In his opinions, if not in his personal antecedents, he was like the Faith of old cavalier Sir Edmund Verney, whose doubts were expreffed to Hyde, the tempter of all thefe men. "I have eaten the King's bread,

the old Cavalier.

and ferved him near thirty years, and I will "not do so base a thing as to forfake him. I "choose rather to lofe my life (which I am “fure I fhall do) to preserve and defend those

This paffage is of courfe meant to convey, as Bishop Warburton has remarked, that Falkland thought refistance lawful, which Hyde himself did not. And the fame feeling is expreffed in other passages, as ii. 94; iv. 244, &c.

"with you,

fion.

things which are against my confcience to "preferve and defend; for, I will deal freely I have no reverence for the "bishops for whom this quarrel fubfists." There was only this important difference in Sentiment Falkland, that the bread which he had eaten, not judgand the service to which he was vowed, before ment. he made his final election, was that of the Parliament and not of the King. And it is not difficult to discern that his strongest feeling remained in this direction throughout: even when he seemed, as it will be my duty to show him in this party ftruggle of the Remonftrance, moft deeply to have committed himfelf against its leaders. His convictions never Eafy prey ceased to be with the opinions which the to Hyde's Parliament represented, though his perfonal perfuahabits, his elegant purfuits, his faftidious tastes, his thorough-going fenfe of friendship, and even his fhynefs of manner and impatient impulfiveness of temper, made him an easy prey to the perfuafive arts that feduced him to the service of the King. Nor will it be unjust to add that it is the admiration thus attracted to his perfonal character and habits, rather than any sense of his public fervices, which conftitutes the intereft of his name. It is not ' therefore in parliament, nor on the field of Falkland's battle, that they should feek for Falkland who ftrongwould cherish him most, but rather in that private home to which his love and patronage of letters lent infinite graces and enjoyments, and where the man of wit and learning found himself invariably welcomed as to "a college "fituated in a purer air."

hold.