extend to 1672.

The interest of the latter years is of

course mainly personal. The style is clear and unadorned. The following passage is a good example of the writer's power of conveying antipathy by sarcasm:

'Different were the effects that the death of Cromwell produced in the nation: those men who had been sharers with him in the usurped authority were exceedingly troubled, whilst all other parties rejoiced at it: each of them hoping that this alteration would prove advantageous to their affairs. The Commonwealthsmen were so charitable to believe that the soldiery being delivered from their servitude to the General, to which they were willing to attribute their former compliance, would now open their eyes and join with them, as the only means left to preserve themselves and the people. Neither were the Cavaliers without great hopes that new divisions might arise, and give them an opportunity of advancing their minion, who had been long endeavouring to unite all the corrupt interests of the nation to his party. But neither the sense of their duty, nor the care of their own safety, nor the just apprehensions of being overcome by their irreconcilable enemy, could prevail with the army to return to their proper station. So that having tasted of sovereignty under the shadow of their late master, they resolved against the restitution of the Parliament. And in order to this it was agreed to proclaim Richard Cromwell, eldest son of Oliver, Protector of the Commonwealth, in hopes that he, who by following his pleasures had rendered himself unfit for public business, would not fail to place the administration of the government in the hands of those who were most powerful in the army. Accordingly the proclamation was published in Westminster, at Temple-Bar, and at the Old Exchange, with as few expressions of joy as had ever been observed on the like occasion. This being done, the Council issued out orders to the officers of civil justice to act by virtue of their old commissions till new ones could be sent to them: and that nothing might be omitted to fortify the new government, various means were used to procure addresses from all parts, which were brought in great numbers from the several counties in England, Scotland, and Ireland, as also from divers regiments of the army. One of the first acts of the new government was, to

order the funeral of the late usurper; and the Council having resolved that it should be very magnificent, the care of it was referred to a committee of them, who sending for Mr. Kinnersley, master of the wardrobe, desired him to find out some precedent, by which they might govern themselves in this important affair. After examination of his books and papers, Mr. Kinnersley, who was suspected to be inclined to popery, recommended to them the solemnities used upon the like occasion for Philip the Second, king of Spain, who had been represented to be in purgatory for about two months. In the like manner was the body of this great reformer laid in Somerset House: the apartment was hung with black, the daylight was excluded, and no other but that of wax tapers to be seen. This scene of purgatory continued till the first of November, which being the day preceding that commonly called All Souls, he was removed into the great hall of the said house, and represented in effigy, standing on a bed of crimson velvet covered with a gown of the like coloured velvet, a sceptre in his hand, and a crown on his head. That part of the hall wherein the bed stood was railed in, and the rails and ground within them covered with crimson velvet. Four or five hundred candles set in flat shining candlesticks were so placed round near the roof of the hall, that the light they gave seemed like the rays of the sun by all which he was represented to be now in a state of glory. This folly and profusion so far provoked the people, that they threw dirt in the night on his escutcheon that was placed over the great gate of Somerset House. I purposely omit the rest of the pageantry, the great number of persons that attended on the body, the procession to Westminster, the vast expense in mourning, the state and magnificence of the monument erected for him, with many other things that I care not to remember.'

William Lilly, the astrologer (1602-1682), to be discussed more fully among the writers of personal memoirs, claims a few words here as the author of an account of Charles I. whose justice and liveliness would have met more general recognition, but for the author's character as a fortune-teller, and if it had not been mingled with the apparently serious exposition of idle prophecies

respecting the White King. So long as he keeps clear of the occult, Lilly is a shrewd and discriminating, as well as a highly entertaining writer. His enumeration of individual traits in Charles's character is correct and instructive, and free from any misleading bias. He was in fact a time-server, whose main purpose was to stand well with the powers that were, and whose sketch of Charles would have worn another aspect if he had written after the Restoration; but this frame of mind, at all events, exempts him from political passion, nor does his complacency carry him to the length of misrepresentation, much less calumny. He is destitute of the literary power which would have enabled him to fuse single traits into an harmonious character; but he has supplied others with very valuable material towards such an undertaking. One merit the book certainly possesses in an eminent measure, it is one of the most readable in the language. The following passage indicates the author's real insight into Charles's attractive, but infirm character; and, adversary as he is, his remarkable agreement with Clarendon, of whose work he had no knowledge:

'He had much of self-ends in all that he did, and a most difficult thing it was to hold him close to his own promise or word: he was apt to recede, unless something therein appeared compliable, either unto his own will, profit, or judgment; so that some foreign princes bestowed on him the character of a most false prince, and one that never kept his word, unless for his own advantage. Had his judgment been as sound, as his conception was quick and nimble, he had been a most accomplished gentleman and though in most dangerous results, and extraordinary serious consultations, and very material, either for state or commonwealth, he would himself give the most solid advice, and sound reasons, why such or such a thing should be so, or not so; yet was he most easily withdrawn from his own most wholesome and sound advice or resolutions; and with as much facility drawn

on, inclined, to embrace a far more unsafe, and nothing so wholesome a counsel. He would argue logically, and frame his arguments artificially; yet never almost had the happiness to conclude or drive on a design in his own sense, but was ever baffled with meaner capacities. He feared nothing in this world, or disdained any thing more than the convention of a Parliament; the very name was a bugbear unto him. He was ever refractory against the summoning of a Parliament, and as willingly would embrace an opportunity to break it off. This his averseness being well known to some grave members, they contrived at last by wit, and the necessity of the times, that his hands were fast tied up in granting a triennial sitting, or a perpetuity as it were unto this present Parliament, a thing he often blamed himself for subscribing unto, and as often those who importuned him thereunto.'

Bulstrode Whitelocke (1605-1676) has few pretensions to rank as a man of letters; but his Memorials are far too valuable a source of historical information to be omitted from a survey of the literature of the period. The author, a barrister and a Templar, was elected to the Long Parliament in 1641, and appointed chairman of the committee for drawing up the charges against Strafford. He held various offices under the Parliament, and was employed in negotiations with Charles, of whose execution he disapproved. He was subsequently a member of the Council of State, and one of the commissioners of the Great Seal. In 1653 he was sent on an embassy to Sweden, which he has described in a valuable work. During the confused period between the death of Cromwell and the Restoration he was successively a commissioner of the Great Seal and a member of the Council of State. He had some difficulty in obtaining pardon at the Restoration; but ultimately Charles II. admitted him to his presence, and received him graciously, with a speech which Whitelocke's biographer thinks extraordinary, but which appears very sensible: Mr. Whitelocke, go into the country; don't trouble

yourself any more about state affairs; and take care of your wife and your sixteen children.' Whitelocke profited by the royal admonition, and died at a good old age. His Memorials extend from 1625 to 1659, and are a valuable body of material, being for most of the time a diurnal record of all occurrences of importance. They are the student of history's indispensable companion for the period, but aim at no more exalted position in literature than that of a matter-of-fact register.

Another diarist of a similar description to Whitelocke, but not, like him, a busy actor in the scenes which he describes, is Narcissus Luttrell (1657-1732), a scion of the well-known family of Luttrell of Dunster, Somersetshire. Luttrell, who was a man of literary and antiquarian tastes, and the collector of the Luttrell Ballads, now in the British Museum, kept a diary from 1675 to 1714, which attracted little attention until Macaulay's frequent references to the MS. induced the University of Oxford to publish it in 1857.

Leaving diarists out of account, the most important writer of historical memoirs after Ludlow is Sir William Temple (1628-1699), whose memoirs treat of his own political career from 1672 to 1680. Temple, the son of an Irish judge, entered the diplomatic service after the Restoration under the auspices of Arlington, and soon found himself minister at Brussels. While occupying that post it was his good fortune to perform one of the most creditable diplomatic achievements on record, the negotiation of the triple alliance between England, Holland, and Sweden, which checked the conquests of Louis XIV., and, but for the venality and faithlessness of Charles II., would have long secured peace to Europe. When Temple's work was undone he retired into private life, but the failure of Charles's disgraceful policy brought him again into diplo