XCII.-DEATH AND CHARACTER OF JOHN HAMPDEN. MACAULAY.

[THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, one of the most brilliant and popular of the living writers of England, was born about the beginning of the present century, and was called to the English bar in 1826. In the same year appeared his essay on Milton, in the Edinburgh Review, which attracted great attention by its lavish power and fervid rhetoric. Since then he has been a frequent contributor to that journal; and his contributions have been collected and published separately, and received with great favor both in England and America. His subjects are mostly drawn from English history and literature. These essays are remarkable for their brilliant rhetorical power, their splendid tone of coloring, and their affluence of illustration. With a wide range of reading, and the most docile and retentive memory, he pours over his theme all the treasures of a richly-stored mind, and sheds light upon it from all quarters. He excels in the delineation of historical characters, and in the art of carrying his reader into a distant period, and reproducing the past with the distinctness of the present. He is also an admirable literary critic, though sometimes his praise and censure might be distributed with somewhat more of discrimination and qualification. And the obvious criticism which his writings call forth is founded upon their exuberance of power and their too uniform splendor of style. The mind would sometimes be refreshed if passages of a calmer, soberer tone were here and there interspersed, on which the highly-wrought powers of attention might repose themselves. Nor does he always resist the temptation to produce effect by a slight touch of caricature.

Mr. Macaulay has also written Lays of Ancient Rome, and some ballads, in the same style, upon modern subjects, which are full of animation and energy, and have the true trumpet ring which stirs the soul and kindles the blood.

He has also had a distinguished political career. He has been, during many years, a member of Parliament; and his speeches (which have been collected and published) have the same brilliant rhetorical energy as his writings. He also resided four years in India, as a member of the Supreme Council in Calcutta.

For many years past, Mr. Macaulay has been engaged in writing a History of England, two volumes of which were published in 1849, and two more are announced as about to appear in England. The volumes published are written in a most animated and attractive style, and abound with brilliant pictures. They also embody the results of very thorough research, and their tone and spirit are generous and liberal.

The following account of the death and character of John Hampden, the great English patriot, is taken from a review of Lord Nugent's Memorials of Hampden, published in the Edinburgh Review, in 1831.]

In the early part of 1643, the shires lying in the neighborhood of London, which were devoted to the cause of the parliament, were incessantly annoyed by Rupert* and his cavalry. Essex had extended his lines so far that almost every point was vulnerable. The young prince, who, though not a great general, was an active and enterprising partisan, frequently

* Prince Rupert, nephew of Charles I., and a general in his service.

surprised posts, burned villages, swept away cattle, and was again at Oxford before a force sufficient to encounter him could be assembled.

The languid proceedings of Essex were loudly condemned by the troops. All the ardent and daring spirits in the parliamentary party were eager to have Hampden at their head. Had his life been prolonged, there is every reason to believe that the supreme command would have been intrusted to him. But it was decreed that at this conjuncture England should lose the only man who united perfect disinterestedness to eminent talents the only man who, being capable of gaining the victory for her, was incapable of abusing that victory when gained.

In the evening of the 17th of June, Rupert darted out of Oxford with his cavalry on a predatory expedition. At three in the morning of the following day, he attacked and dispersed a few parliamentary soldiers who lay at Postcombe. He then flew to Chinnor, burned the village, killed or took all the troops who were quartered there, and prepared to hurry back with his booty and his prisoners to Oxford.

Hampden had, on the preceding day, strongly represented to Essex the danger to which this part of the line was exposed. As soon as he received intelligence of Rupert's incursion, he sent off a horseman with a message to the general. In the mean time, he resolved to set out with all the cavalry he could muster, for the purpose of impeding the march of the enemy, till Essex could take measures for cutting off their retreat. A considerable body of horse and dragoons volunteered to follow him. He was not their commander. He did not even belong to their branch of the service. "But he was," says Lord Clarendon, "second to none but the general himself in the observance and application of all men.' On the field of Chalgrove he came up with Rupert. A fierce skirmish ensued. In the first charge Hampden was struck in the shoulder by two bullets, which

The Earl of Essex was the parliamentary commander-in-chief

broke the bone and lodged in his body. The troops of the parliament lost heart and gave way. Rupert, after pursuing them for a short time, hastened to cross the bridge, and made his retreat unmolested to Oxford.

Hampden, with his head drooping, and his hands leaning on his horse's neck, moved feebly out of the battle. The mansion which had been inhabited by his father-in-law, and from which, in his youth, he had carried home his bride Elizabeth, was in sight. There still remains an affecting tradition that he looked for a moment towards that beloved house, and made an effort to go thither and die. But the enemy lay in that direction. He turned his horse towards Thame, where he arrived almost fainting with agony. The surgeons dressed his wounds. But there was no hope. The pain which he suffered was most excruciating. But he endured it with admirable firmness and resignation. His first care was for his country. He wrote from his bed several letters to London, concerning public affairs, and sent a last pressing message to the head quarters, recommending that the dispersed forces should be concentrated. When his public duties were performed, he calmly prepared himself to die. He was attended by a clergyman of the church of England, with whom he had lived in habits of intimacy, and by the chaplain of the Buckinghamshire Greencoats, Dr. Spurton, whom Baxter describes as a famous and excellent divine.

A short time before his death, the sacrament was administered to him. He declared that although he disliked the government of the church of England, he yet agreed with that church as to all essential matters of doctrine. His intellect remained unclouded. When all was nearly over, he lay murmuring faint prayers for himself, and for the cause in which he died. "Lord Jesus," he exclaimed in the moment

of the last agony, "receive my soul. O Lord, save my

country. O Lord, be merciful to

In that broken

ejaculation passed away his noble and fearless spirit.

He was buried in the parish church of Hampden. His

soldiers, bareheaded, with reversed arms and muffled drums and colors, escorted his body to the grave, singing, as they marched, that lofty and melancholy psalm in which the fragility of human life is contrasted with the immutability of Him to whom a thousand years are as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch in the night.

The news of Hampden's death produced as great a consternation in his party, according to Clarendon, as if their whole army had been cut off. The journals of the time amply prove that the parliament and all its friends were filled with grief and dismay. Lord Nugent has quoted a remarkable passage from the next Weekly Intelligencer: "The loss of Colonel Hampden goeth near the heart of every man that loves the good of his king and country, and makes some conceive little content to be at the army, now that he is gone. The memory of this deceased colonel is such, that in no age to come but it will more and more be had in honor and esteem; a man so religious, and of that prudence, judgment, temper, valor, and integrity, that he hath left few his like behind." He had indeed left none his like behind him. There still remained, indeed, in his party many acute intellects, many eloquent tongues, many brave and honest hearts. There still remained a rugged and clownish soldier, half fanatic, half buffoon,* whose talents, discerned as yet only by one penetrating eye, were equal to all the highest duties of the soldier and the prince. But in Hampden, and in Hampden alone, were united all the qualities which at such a crisis were necessary to save the state - the valor and energy of Cromwell, the discernment and eloquence of Vane, the humanity and moderation of Manchester, the stern integrity of Hale, the ardent public spirit of Sydney. Oth ers might possess the qualities which were necessary to save the popular party in the crisis of danger; he alone had both the power and the inclination to restrain its excesses in the hour of triumph. Others could conquer; he alone could reconcile, A heart as bold as his brought up the cuirassiers who turned

* Cromwell.

A. tide of battle on Marston Moor. As skilful an eye as his watched the Scotch army descending from the heights over Dunbar. But it was when, to the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles had succeeded the fierce conflict of sects and factions, ambitious of ascendency and burning for revenge,it was when the vices and ignorance which the old tyranny had generated threatened the new freedom with destruction, that England missed the sobriety, the self-command, the perfect soundness of judgment, the perfect rectitude of intention, to which the history of revolutions furnishes no parallel, or furnishes a parallel in Washington alone.

XCIII.

CHARACTER OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM.

LORD MAHON.*

[This sketch of the great Earl of Chatham is taken from a History of England from the Peace of Utrecht (1713) to the Peace of Versailles, (1783,) by LORD MAHON. The author is a living English noblema, who adorns a high rank with the tastes and habits of a scholar. His history a well-written work, showing a careful examination of original authorities, and marked by a sound and discriminating judgment. Though the author's politics are those of the tory party, he is candid to those who hold different views. His strong sense of the greatness of Washington is, especially, most honorable to him.

Lord Mahon is also the author of a Life of Belisarius, a Life of Condé, a History of the War of the Succession in Spain, of the Rebellion of Forty-five, and of various historical essays contributed to the Quarterly Review.]

LET us now endeavor closely to view and calmly to judge that extraordinary man who at his outset was pitied for losing

* Lord Mahon, during the present year, (1855,) has become Earl Stanhope by the death of his father; but the name under which his literary reputation was earned is retained. There are five degrees of British nobility-dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons. The eldest sons of dukes, marquises, and earls take, during the lives of their fathers, their second titles. Thus the Duke of Bedford is also Marquis of Tavistock; and his eldest son, during his father's life, is called Marquis of Tavistock. But this is a mere title of courtesy; all the sons of peers being commoners in the eye of the law. When the father dies, the son takes his father's na.ne. Lord Morpeth, for instance, who visited our country some years sirce, is now the Earl of Carlisle; his father, who was then alive, having since died