single explanatory word in the margin would obviate the evil.

If we have cause, as we undoubtedly have, to lament the darkness through which we are obliged to pervade in the Greek and Roman story, how much more have we to regret the want of light in the annals of our own nation? History wants every assistance, be it ever so small, that can be afforded to it. Our posterity indeed will have an advantage which our ancestors wanted, by the constant unwearied publication of a set of papers, despicable in themselves, but very useful in their consequences. I would be understood to mean, the magazines, chronicles, registers, reviews, and every diffusive catalogue of that kind. These periodical productions, mixed as they are with abuse, nonsense, and gallimatias of every sort, will have the honour to be the corner-stones of those historical edifices which may be built hereafter; purely because they are at present the surest repositories of dates and names.

The Earl of Monmouth is extremely defective in his dates. In his account of the death of Queen Elizabeth, and his own immediate journey into Scotland, he gives us barely the days of the week, without mentioning either the month or year; and after the accession of King James, he gives us no dates of any kind, unless once or twice from his own age, having first omitted to tell us the year in which he was born.

That æra is to be guessed at; and I know no properer clue to direct us than by ascertaining the period of the famous wild Buckingham-journey undertaken by the Prince of Wales into Spain. His Royal Highness set out from Theobalds, February 17th, 1623; the Earl of Monmouth was sent after him in a month's time, and recalled in two or three months more; he says he was then near sixty-three years of age, so that the time of his birth must either be 1559, or 1560,

He had three children, two sons and a daughter. His eldest son, Henry, Lord Leppington, was married in his father's lifetime to Lady Martha Cranfield, the eldest daughter of Lionel, Earl of Middlesex, Lord Treasurer, and elder sister of Lady Frances Cranfield, who married the Earl of Dorset, * and was great-grandmother to the author of this preface.

The second son, Thomas, died, I believe, unmarried; at least neither of the sons left male issue. Lord Leppington had two sons, who died before him. †

*The witty Earl of Dorset, distinguished at the gay court of Charles II., and honoured as the steady protector of Dryden. The Earl of Corke and Orrery did not resemble his ancestor so much in his talents, as in his disposition towards literature. E.

+ Thomas Cary left two daughters; Elizabeth, who married John Mordaunt, Lord Avalon, second son of the first Earl of Peterborough; and Philadelphia, who married Sir Henry Littleton, and died at Tunbridge, in 1663. E.

Lord Leppington succeeded his father in the Earldom of Monmouth, which became extinct on his death without issue-male. Mary, his daughter, (and called by

We know in whom and in what manner the male line of the daughter ended. Lady Philadelphia married the son and heir of Lord Wharton, and was great great grandmother of the late extraordinary and eccentric Duke of that title.

The Memoirs themselves are characteristics sufficient of their author. They are true records of facts, which are either not mentioned, or are misrepresented by other historians. They are written in an unaffected, simple, intelligent style. Veracity is their only ornament; but it is an ornament far beyond all others in historical anecdotes. They begin about the year 1577, when Don John of Austria came into the Low Countries; Mr Robert Cary was, at that time, only seventeen years old. Few political observations could be made by so young a man: and although he had an opportunity to be personally introduced to

Collins his co-heir,) was the second wife of William, third Earl of Denbigh. E.

two eminent princes, Don John of Austria, and Francis, Duke of Anjou, he only mentions their names, and shews his juvenile thoughts to be more turned to tilts and tournaments, than to politics and affairs of

state.

When, afterwards, Mr Cary became attached to the Earl of Essex, and followed his Lordship into France, we see something of the soldierly character of that Earl, but much more of the partial inclinations which Queen Elizabeth entertained for so distinguished a favourite. I have put such notes upon those particular passages, as leave the less room to speak of them here.

The Queen was intuitively a sagacious Princess; and if she had some foibles, they neither interrupted the interest of her own country, nor broke in upon those measures which she so steadily maintained for the good of Europe in general. She had a wonderful method of keeping up her dignity both at home and abroad. At home she threatened particular persons, and they