public spirit which animated some of the popular leaders, while we do not refuse to drop a tear over the fate of the misguided, the gallant, martyred Charles.

In all the questions which arose during the first Parliament of which he was a member, Wentworth's conduct was marked by circumspection and moderation. He so managed as to obtain consideration with the country party, without rendering himself personally obnoxious to the King. Early in the new reign, however, he adopted a more decided line of conduct, and took his station amongst the most conspicuous patriots. It must, however, be admitted, that his motives on this occasion are not without suspicion. As a popular country gentlemen, he must have felt strongly the arbitrary proceedings of the court; but he had moreover been personally slighted, and his views of advancement had been thwarted by the favourite, Buckingham. This man, whose influence had been the shame of James's declining years, and was now destined to be the herald of misfortune to Charles, was alike remarkable for insolence and incapacity: to a man like Wentworth, therefɔre, whose talents enabled him to appreciate rightly the incompetency of the Minister, and whose hereditary pride would lead him to regard with indignation the arrogance of the upstart, a slight from such a quarter must have rankled deeply. He was soon visited with more decisive marks of the favourite's displeasure. In common with many other distinguished members of the lower house, he was nominated to the office of High-Sheriff, which was then considered incompatible with the duties of a Member of Parliament, so as to render the person holding it absolutely ineligible. He was also deprived of his office of Custos Rotulorum in a manner vexatiously insulting. At first he submitted calmly to this shameful treatment; indeed it appears from some of his letters, that he was not deterred by it from receiving private overtures from the Duke, and even making, on his own account, some advances to the King himself. But nothing came of these; and the measures into which the rash

ness of Buckingham had in the meantime hurried his master, were such as to inflame still more the general discontent. In his eager desire to get rid of the troublesome authority of Parliament, Charles boldly ventured to impose, under the name of a general loan, such contributions as Parliament alone had for ages been considered competent to bestow. This proceeding spread universal consternation, and the spirit of resistance was everywhere displayed. Wentworth was among the foremost of those who refused to pay; and he was in consequence, by an order of Privy Council, thrown into prison, and afterwards, by a mitigated punishment, sent to Dartford, in Kent, where he was prohibited from going more than two miles from the town. After two years he was released, the Court having been obliged to change its measures, in consequence of the disastrous expedition to the Isle of Rhè, where, through the misconduct of Buckingham, the flower of the British army had perished ingloriously.

The affair of the famous Petition of Right succeeded, in which Wentworth took a very prominent part. In this celebrated state paper the leaders of the popular party had embodied all their grievances, and professed to have enumerated all their claims. Charles, after a long but feeble and ill-managed resistance, was obliged at last by his embarrassments to declare his acceptance of the terms thus proposed to him; and had there been good faith on either side, the Petition of Right would have been the definitive arrangement between King and people. But the court faction conceded only in the hope that some change of circumstances would allow them to retract their concessions; and many of the patriotic party had already begun to cherish speculative notions of republicanism, and, in fact, regarded this only as an experiment, enabling them to ascertain how far the feeling of the people would go along with them. It has, however, always been considered as an admirable state paper, and proves how great an improvement had been made, within a few years, in the poli

tical knowledge and feeling of the people at large. Compared with the similar papers put forth in our own time by those nations who have suffered, or are now suffering, under the painful crisis of political convulsions, it is a document of which Englishmen may well be proud; and if we wished to bring forward a conclusive illustration of the superiority of our national character, we should print the Petition of Right in parallel columns with the atheistic rhodomontade of the French National Convention, or the crude and incomprehensible theories of the Spanish Cortes.

The Petition of Right was the last occasion on which Wentworth appeared in opposition to the Court. That love of power, which doubtless was the fatal infirmity of his otherwise noble mind, was now to be gratified in another manner; he suffered himself to be detached from the party he had supported, and the principles he had avowed, by the offer of a peerage, and the Presidency of the Council of York. In this transaction there was no real inconsistency; there was a change of conduct, indeed, but no change of character: love of power was his ruling passion, and it operated quite as forcibly on the benches of the House of Commons as in the President's chair at York. He had shown his zeal in defending the rights of the subject; the same zeal was now exhibited in enforcing the claims of the Crown; and it is very curious to observe how little the change in public circumstances affected the tone of his private letters. It is only by a diligent perusal and comparison of dates, that we can ascertain the precise time when the sturdy patriot was transformed into the zealous and devoted courtier.

The Council of York had been instituted in times of turbulence, to keep in order the northern counties; -the extent of its jurisdiction had never been precisely defined, and its powers were equally uncertain these two circumstances gave full opportunity for Wentworth to develop his whole character and method of government. He seized every occasion of

extending the claims of the prerogative; and the talents and courage with which he supported the various arbitrary and oppressive measures to which he had resort, while they made him most acceptable at court, obtained for him a great though odious reputation throughout the kingdom. He soon began to be considered by all parties as one of the most formidable opposers of the new order of things; nor was Charles slow to perceive the advantage he might hope to gain by engaging so much talent and courage still more closely in his service. From the Presidency of the Council of York, Wentworth was speedily called to serve the crown in a more extended sphere. After the death of Buckingham, Charles seems to have rescued himself from the odious influence of a personal favourite; but the peculiar circumstances of the times would not allow him to follow the bent of his own inclination, which prompted him to the enjoyment of liberal and refined indulgence: he was obliged to face the difficulties by which he was surrounded, and to seek for the assistance of the ablest and the boldest men, to enable him to do so with effect. Such a man he had already found in Laud, to whom the conduct of affairs in England were entrusted; the Marquess of Hamilton was made answerable for the management of Scotland; and it was now resolved to offer the government of Ireland to Wentworth, with the title of Lord Deputy.

The plan of government thus adopted by Charles, was, in appearance at least, very specious. England, Scotland, and Ireland, were considered to have separate interests, as they were known to cherish their peculiar discontents: to consign each of them to separate superintendence, seemed, therefore, a measure of strict prudence; and in the choice of persons a similar prudence was manifested. Charles had no idea, at this time, of temporizing with or managing that spirit of innovation which showed itself in all quarters, and from which he was afterwards to suffer so terribly; his object was to resist

and put it down with a high hand; and it was with the hope of effecting this object, that he sought the co-operation of such men as Wentworth, Laud, and Hamilton. Whatever shades of difference we may observe in their characters, they resembled each other in one important particular-their determined opposition to the spirit of the times; but that spirit proved powerful enough to crush both them and the master whose cause they sought to serve.

It would be impossible, within the limits of this brief memoir, to give an adequate account of the state of Ireland, at the time when Wentworth assumed the reins of government. Such an account would not be intelligible, without an intimate knowledge of her domestic history: for it was then as it is now; the evils under which the sister kingdom laboured were neither recent nor temporary; they were deep-rooted in all her institutions, and had grown up to a baneful maturity. Wentworth turned all the powers of his vigorous mind to the subject; and he appears to have made himself acquainted with its minutest details: but unhappily the objects he had immediately in view, were to render the kingly power uncontrollable in Ireland; and to derive from her a revenue sufficient both to support her own expenditure and to aid the English treasury; thus hoping, by every means, to render the province advantageous to the Crown. Schemes he had indeed for enriching Ireland, and plans for promoting her civilization ;—these, however, he was content to consider as subordinate to his favourite objects; for, (as he writes to the King), "in all affairs, the benefit of the Crown must and shall be my principal, nay, my sole object."

It was in January, 1632, that he received his commission as Lord Deputy; but he did not proceed to his destination till the middle of the following year. For seven years from this time, he persisted, through difficulties and dangers which would have appalled an ordinary mind, to carry into effect the plan of government which he had laid down; and in appear