Peace therefore, to the memories of all true English hearts, who battled valiantly—and if mistaken-honestly— in either army. I have the honor to be, Your very faithful servant, B. BLUNDELL, F.S.A. Library Law Institution, London. December 21, 1859. THE TWO BATTLES OF NEWBURY. MR. PETTIGREW, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, Before commencing the task allotted to me this evening, I think it proper to explain, that I appear before you as the representative of our valued friend MR. THOMAS HUGHES, who has been prevented by severe and sudden family bereavements from attending our congress, and describing in his own picturesque and soul-stirring language, those bloody conflicts betwixt the Cavaliers and Roundheads, of which, during little more than twelve months, Newbury was twice the theatre. This last exexpression I use advisedly.-The connexion betwixt your town and these obstinately contested battles, I believe to have been entirely local. I am not aware of any reason for supposing, far less of the existence of any sort of evidence which proves, that the men of Newbury took part on either side. Individuals, doubtless, entertained, and may have acted on their private predilections, but speaking generally, the inhabitants were neutral. Dr. Twisse, at that time Rector of St. Nicholas, a noted calvinist, and prolocutor of the Westminster Assembly, was little likely to advocate from the pulpit "the right divine of kings to govern wrong," or to declaim in favour of the high-church dogmas and semi-papist tenets of Archbishop Laud. The civil wars moreover, had well nigh ruined the West country clothiers. Nevertheless, the town'speople, in the hour of extremity, discharged the duties of humanity with active tenderness, irrespective of the claims of party. They B felt as did the American flag-officer during our late disaster on the Peiho river, that all were children of one common motherEngland, and that, emphatically, "blood was thicker than water.” (1) Sir Walter Scott has described in a few glowing couplets, one of the most desperate and sanguinary encounters of the great civil war: "On either side loud clamours ring, God and the cause! God and the king! (1) The only local act of partizanship, and that a very dubious one, with which I am acquainted, was performed by an aged woman, who, wandering near the Parliamentary intrenchments, was, after a smart struggle, shot through the head by a Round-head trooper, under the belief that she was a Royalist spy, endeavouring to blow up their powder magazine. She died 'game,' and prophesying victory to the Earl of Essex. -Pamphlets, in the King's Library, British Museum, E. 69, No. 126. "A snowball," says John Bunyan, "loses nothing by rolling." The same collection contains,-"A most certain, strange, and true discovery, of a witch being taken by some of the Parliament forces, as she was standing on a small plank and sayling on it over the river of Newbury." This story is substantially the same as that to which I have above referred. On the frontispiece is a rude woodcut representing an old harridan floating down the Kennet on a pigmy raft, and ostensibly in chase of one of the winged emissaries of his Satanic Majesty. Some cynic has prefixed to the narration an introductory paragraph to the effect that "Many are in a belief that this silly sex of woman can by no means attain to that so vile and d-d practice of sorcery, in regard of their illiterateness and want of learning, &c. &c." Secure on this plea, of his own acquittal from such a charge, the blockhead argues at great length against its relevancy as regards the fair sex generally. The brochure would be beneath contempt, but that it is eminently characteristic of the fanaticism of the 17th century, during the greater part of which an accusation of sorcery was as fatal as a charge of heresy had been in the 15th and 16th. Butler, in his "Hudibras," canto 3, part 2, severely satirizes the credulity and bloodthirstiness of these enthusiasts: "Has not this present Parliament, A Ledger to the Devil sent, And has he not, within a year, Hanged three-score of them in one Shire?" &c., &c. The shire was Suffolk. The Devil's representative, or agent, was one Matthew Hopkins, whose brute ignorance and pitiless inhumanity obtained for him the sobriquet-in which he gloried, of "The Witch-finder." Selden, in his "Table Talk," opposed learning and reason, as Butler had employed wit, against this insane brutality. Learning, wit, and reason, having however, as little influence over as connexion with fanatics, the cruel superstition lingered in England throughout the 18th century, and is, perhaps, scarcely extinct even in our own day. I could have laughed, but lacked the time, How the fierce bigots fought and bled Some for a dream of public good, Some for church tippet, gown, and hood; Thus scoffed the fierce and treacherous assassin, Risingham;Scott's pet villain, a blood-thirsty and desperate buccaneer:-fearless, indeed, but whose brute hardihood, the reflex of a seared conscience and innate ferocity, left the wretch impervious to pity, honour, or religion, yet quailing dastard-like before the phantoms of an anile superstition. Not such as Bertram Risingham however, were the true English hearts who battled loyally on either side, in what Lord Macaulay admirably describes as," the great conflict betwixt liberty and despotism, betwixt reason and prejudice ;—the great battles fought for no single generation, for no single land, when the destinies of the human race were staked upon the same cast with the freedom of the English people." The earlier portion of the campaign of 1643, had been favorable to the royal arms. Hampden had fallen sorely wounded, as he charged at Chalgrove in the front rank of his Buckinghamshire green-coats, and had expired a few days subsequently, his last accents faltering a prayer that "God would bless and save his country." The savage triumph of the Oxford news-letters of the period prove how intensely the patriot was feared and hated by the court sycophants, who recoiled instinctively from whatever was high-hearted, honest, or excellent, in human nature. Not these, or such as these vile men however, were the main body of the Cavaliers. No doubt their ranks contained but too many "Unfit to lay their hands upon the ark mere bravoes, drunkards, gamblers, and desperadoes, whose reckless profligacies and flagrant vices rendered them terrible to every one except their enemies. Amongst the leading royalists, however, there was, says the most eloquent of English essayists, "a freedom "in subordination, a nobleness in their very degradation. The "sentiments of individual independence were strong within them. "They were misled indeed, but by no base or selfish motive. "Compassion and romantic honour, the prejudices of childhood, "and the venerable names of history, threw a veil over them. "They scarcely entered at all into the merits of the political ques"tion. It was not for a treacherous king, or an intolerant church, "that they fought, but for the old banners which had waved in so "many battles over the heads of their fathers, and for the altars at "which they had received the hands of their brides." This is the truth.-The Cavaliers were impassioned and picturesque alike in their religion and their loyalty. They rather felt than reasoned, while their fidelity and self-devotion threw a halo, brilliant but delusive, around both courtly and ecclesiastical usurpations. The valour, piety, and erudition, of king Charles's chief adherents are unquestionable, yet all these combined,―nay, even the misfortunes of twelve generations of the royal and ill-fated house of Stuart, have done less, far less, to "keep their memories green" amongst us, than the magic pencils of Vandyke and Rubens, the wild wit of Butler, the stately eloquence of Clarendon, the soul-subduing minstrelsy of the Jacobites, and,-in our own day, the master-pieces of Sir Walter. Against these and such-like influences, the very best informed amongst us, find it difficult to bear our reason strongly up ;-—and while keeping sympathy and compassion still alive, to keep them also, as they ever ought to be, subordinate to the love of truth and freedom. Prospero has waved his wand, the million bow before the spell of the enchanter, and clinging fondly to a mere illusion, believe,—if such a word be not too strong to characterize their unquestioning and unreasoning credulity,—that Charles I. was a martyr and an honest man, and Laud, a victim rather than a baffled persecutor. To return from this digression. The high-mettled courage, and brilliant personal accomplishments of very many leading Cava |