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which they commend; which cannot but argue the community of vice in both. Horace, therefore, Juvenal and Persius, were no prophets, although their lines did seem to indigitate and point at our times. There is a certain list of vices

committed in all ages, and declaimed against by all authors, which will last as long as humane nature; which digested into common places, may serve for any theme, and never be out of date until Doomsday.

Vulgar Errors, book i. chap. 6.

JOHN MILTON.

I.

1608-1674.

I AM now to write of what befel the Britons from fifty and three years before the birth of our Saviour, when first the Romans came in, till the decay and ceasing of that empire; a story of much truth, and for the first hundred years and somewhat more, collected without much labour. So many and so prudent were the writers, which those two, the civilest and the wisest of European nations, both Italy and Greece, afforded to the actions of that puissant city. For worthy deeds are not often destitute of worthy relaters : as by a certain fate, great acts and great eloquence have most commonly gone hand in hand, equalling and honouring each other in the same ages. It is true, that in obscurest times, by shallow and unskilful writers, the indistinct noise of many battles and devastations of many kingdoms, overrun and lost, hath come to our ears. For what wonder, if in all ages ambition and the love of rapine hath stirred up greedy and violent men to bold attempts in wasting and ruining wars, which to posterity have left the work of wild beasts and destroyers, rather than the deeds and monuments of men and conquerors? But he whose just and true valour uses the

necessity of war and dominion not to destroy, but to prevent destruction, to bring in liberty against tyrants, law and civility among barbarous nations, knowing that when he conquers all things else, he cannot conquer time or detraction, wisely conscious of this his want as well as of his worth not to be forgotten or concealed, honours and hath recourse to the aid of eloquence, his friendliest and best supply; by whose immortal record his noble deeds, which else were transitory, become fixed and durable against the force of years and generations, he fails not to continue through all posterity, over envy, death, and time also victorious.

History of England, book ii.

II.

The Britons thus, as we heard, being left without protection from the empire, and the land in a manner emptied of all her youth, consumed in wars abroad, or not caring to return home; themselves, through long subjection, servile in mind, slothful of body, and with the use of arms unacquainted, sustained but ill for many years the violence of those barbarous invaders, who now daily grew upon them. For although at first greedy of change, and to be thought the leading nation to freedom from the empire, they seemed awhile to bestir them with a show of diligence in their new affairs, some secretly aspiring to rule, others adoring the name of liberty, yet so soon as they felt by proof the weight of what it was to govern well themselves, and what was wanting within them, not stomach or the love of license, but the wisdom, the virtue, the labour, to use and maintain true liberty, they soon remitted their heat, and shrunk more wretchedly under the burden of their own liberty, than before under a foreign yoke.

History of England, book iii.

III.

The English were in a strait disadvantageous place, so that many, discouraged with their ill ordering, scarce having room where to stand, slipped away before the onset, the rest in close order, with their battleaxes and shields, made an impenetrable squadron: the king himself with his brothers on foot stood by the royal standard, wherein the figure of a man fighting was inwoven with gold and precious stones. The Norman foot, most bowmen, made the foremost front, on either side wings of horse somewhat behind. The duke arming, and his corslet given him on the wrong side, said pleasantly, "The strength of my dukedom will be turned now into a kingdom." Then the whole army singing the song of Rowland, the remembrance of whose exploits might hearten then, imploring lastly divine help, the battle began; and was fought sorely on either side: but the main body of English foot by no means would be broken, till the duke, causing his men to feign flight, drew them out with desire of pursuit, into open disorder, then turned suddenly upon them so routed by themselves, which wrought their overthrow; yet so they died not unmanfully, but turning oft upon their enemies, by the advantage of an upper ground, beat them down by heaps, and filled up a great ditch with their carcasses. Thus hung the victory wavering on either side from the third hour of day to evening; when Harold having maintained the fight with unspeakable courage and personal valour, shot into the head with an arrow, fell at length and left his soldiers without heart longer to withstand the unwearied enemy.

History of England, book vi.

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LORD CLARENDON.

I.

1608-1674.

MR. HAMBDEN was a man of much greater cunning, and may be of the most discerning spirit, and of the greatest address and insinuation to bring anything to pass which he desired, of any man of that time, and who laid the design deepest. He was a gentleman of a good extraction, and a fair fortune, who, from a life of great pleasure and license, had on a sudden retired to extraordinary sobriety and strictness, and yet retained his usual cheerfulness and affability; which together with the opinion of his wisdom and justice, and the courage he had shewed in opposing the Ship-money, raised his reputation to a very great height, not only in Buckinghamshire, where he lived, but generally throughout the kingdom. He was not a man of many words, and rarely begun the discourse, or made the first entrance upon any business that was assumed; but a very weighty speaker, and after he had heard a full debate, and observed how the House was like to be inclined, took up the argument, and shortly and clearly, and craftily so stated it, that he commonly conducted it to the conclusion he desired; and if he found he could not do that, he was never without the dexterity to divert the debate to another time, and to prevent the determining anything in the negative, which might prove inconvenient in the future. He made so great a show of civility, and modesty, and humility, and always of mistrusting his own judgment, and esteeming his with whom he conferred for the present, that he seemed to have no opinions or resolutions, but such as he contracted from the information and instruction he received upon the discourses of others, whom he had a wonderful art of governing, and leading into his principles and inclinations, whilst they believed that he wholly depended upon their counsel and advice. No man

had ever a greater power over himself, or was less the man that he seemed to be, which shortly after appeared to every body, when he cared less to keep on the mask.

History of the Rebellion, book iii.

II.

"Gentlemen, you have heard these orders read; it is your part, in your several places, to observe them exactly. The time cannot be long before we come to action, therefore you have the more reason to be careful and I must tell you, I shall be very severe in the punishing of those, of what condition soever, who transgress these instructions. I cannot suspect your courage and resolution; your conscience and your loyalty hath brought you hither, to fight for your religion, your king, and the laws of the land. You shall meet with no enemies but traitors; such who desire to destroy both church and state, and who have already condemned you to ruin for being loyal to us. That you may see what use I mean to make of your valour, if it please God to bless it with success, I have thought fit to publish my resolution to you in a protestation; which when you have heard me make, you will believe you cannot fight in a better quarrel; in which I promise to live and die with you."

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History of the Rebellion, book vi. (Speech of King Charles I.)

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III.

But I must here take leave a little longer to discontinue this narrative and if the celebrating the memory of eminent and extraordinary persons, and transmitting their great virtues, for the imitation of posterity, be one of the principal ends and duties of history, it will not be thought impertinent in this place, to remember a loss which no time will suffer to be forgotten, and no success or good fortune could repair. In this unhappy battle was slain the Lord Viscount Falkland;

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