The clergy of the vicinity assembled their more charitable parishioners to register and give sepulture to those earliest sacrifices to the Molock of internal strife. Brother sought out brother, and sons their fathers, to snatch the remains of those they loved from an undistinguished grave; or, it might be, to cherish and rekindle the yet lingering spark of life. The name of more than one son of knightly race, is preserved, who after a search of days, found his parent, naked, covered with wounds, and well nigh frozen in his blood; and had his pious cares repaid by the sufferer's recovery."

Our next extract describes the soldiers of the Civil War,

"England-the loud beating of whose warlike pulse had, since the great dispute arose, wholly drowned the faint, decaying traditions of those miseries that attended her ancient domestic feuds-had likewise happily forgotten military tactics, and their very nomenclature had become an unknown language. To drill their zealous recruits, withdrawn suddenly from the plough, the anvil, or the loom, the Parliament employed officers who had served in the wars of Germany: the fortifications and management of the artillery were chiefly confided to foreign soldiers of fortune, German or French. The proper equipment of the men was, for the same reason, a difficulty which it required time to surmount. The rude but picturesqe matchlocks or muskets of the period, and, when these could not be had, pikes and pole-axes, supplied the arms of the infantry; the long heavy sword, the carbine and pistols, the back and breast plates, with the steel cap, common to both horse and foot, presented the superior accoutrement of the cavalry or troopers. Both armies, but especially the King's, were at first but imperfectly furnished with arms of any kind; Cromwell's 'Iron-sides' obtained that well-known title as well on account of the more complete steel' in which they were belted as for their invincible daring; and every one has heard of Haslerigg's regiment, nicknamed by the Cavaliers 'lobsters,' 'because of the bright iron shells with which they were covered, being perfect cuirassiers.' The colours of the regiments were various, according to the fancy, or, more frequently, agreeing with the household livery of the respective leaders. This mark of distinction was the more important, because, at the outbreak of the war, it was sometimes the only means of recognition by which, in battle, friend could be discerned from foe, no distinctive field-word having been adopted. 'Hollis's,' Lord Nugent, in his Life of Hampden, informs us, were the London red coats; Lord Brookes's, the purple; Hampden's, the green coats; Lord Say's and Lord Mandeville's, the blue; the orange, which had long been the colour of Lord Essex's household, and now that of his body-guard, was worn in a scarf over the armour of all the officers of the Parliament army, as the distinguishing symbol of their cause.' The King's famous regiment likewise adopted red; the Earl of Newcastle's regiment of Northumbrians were termed, from the white colour of ther coats, (or, as some say, with reference to their fierce courage,) 'Newcastle's lambs.' It was only by degrees, however, that anything like uniformity was attained: the choice of clothing and arms was, in the first instance, often decided by the taste or circumstances of the individual wearer. Each regiment or each troop had its standard or cornet, bearing on one side

the watch-word of the Parliament, God with us;' and on the other, the device of its commander, with his motto. The inscription on the Earl of Essex's was 'Cave, adsum;' the better-chosen and more characteristic words which waved in battle over the head of Hampden were 'Vestigia nulla retrorsum ;' later in the war, Algernon Sidney, one of the steadiest adherents to the cause, thus expressed, in the motto of the regiment which he commanded, the source of his devotedness to the service 'Sanctus amor patriæ dat animum.'

One of the most stirring chapters of the volume and vivid of the literary sketches is under the title "Partisan Warfare." It is thus outlined :

"While, after the battle of Edge hill, the operations of the two great armies were suspended, or conducted with languor, the warfare of partisans, in the more remote provinces, grew every day sharper and more general. There the movements of the leaders were unembarrassed by public responsibility or political views; and the private feuds of families and individuals stimulated their zeal, or even determined their choice of a party. The means of commencing and carrying on those little insulated wars, into which every man, even in the remotest corners of the country, if he failed to be drawn by his inclinations, was nevertheless cruelly forced by the circumstances of the time, were obtained in two ways. In the one case, the predominant disposition of a district, of a county, or even of several adjoining counties, influenced and directed probably by one or more distinguished proprietors, embodied itself in an application to the parliament or the king, respectively, for authority to raise troops, and enforce contributions for their maintenance. Such authority was readily given; a chief or chiefs appointed, or sanctioned, on the recommendation of the applicants, free from all control, except the duty of now and then communicating to the great belligerent parties at Westminster or at Oxford a statement of their operations; or, if need arose, of asking advice or assistance. Of these associations, the earliest were those of the northern counties under the Earl of Newcastle; of the eastern counties, under the Earl of Manchester and Cromwell; of the midland counties, under the Lord Brooke. In the other case, a single bold and zealous individual raised, equipped, and supported, at his own expense, his little band of guerilla warriors, drawn from among his tenantry and neighbours; and carried on the war, as occasioned offered, either single-handed, or in conjunction with other adventurers like himself, until his forces became absorbed in some more considerable armament. Of such bodies, the strength, the position, the objects, were continually changing from day to day. One thing alone was permanent, and common to all-to imitate on a smaller scale, but with greater freedom from constraint, the deeds and vices of more numerous armies. Yet the generous nature of the objects of contention,-loyalty, liberty, religion,-in which selfishness had no part, rendered the explosion of the coarser passions in acts of heartless or wanton violence comparatively rare. The English have proved that revolution and civil war, while they rouse honour from the embrace of luxury, and awaken slumbering genius in high and low, are not necessarily the worst of

public evils. Englishmen, in the deadliest conflicts of the Civil War, seldom forgot that they were such; nor was there any one circumstance which contributed more to injure Charles's reputation with this partially misled, but, upon the whole, sound-hearted people, than the powers and indulgences lavished on an individual of a different temper. The unfeeling insolence and predatory fierceness of Rupert were qualities of the foreign soldier of fortune, which darkly distinguished the royal trooper from every other general in the service; and they reflected on the cause for which he fought a portion of that prejudice wherewith he was himself regarded, partly as a foreigner by birth, but more as foreign in character and manners to the manly and humane temper with which the English mingled in that awful contest."

We have intimated that Mr. Cattermole's sympathies are mainly in favour of the Royalist canse; for he puts the best face on the character and the doings of the cavalier party, but hardly seems to lend the same liberal construction to their antagonists, or to appreciate so fully their motives, aspirations, and great-hearted hopes. He seems not to have allowed to Hampden at the close of his mighty career the sustaining principles which had guided and distinguished his life. What we now quote is picturesque enough, but deficient in regard to the lesson to be taught by the martyrhero's history,

"The first accounts of this eventful day, published by the parliamentarians, spoke with confidence of their great champion's recovery: his wound was more likely to be a badge of honour than any danger of life.' But these hopes were quickly dissipated. On moving from the scene of conflict, Hampden was first observed to make for the house of a relation in the neighbourhood. But Rupert's cavalry were covering the plain between. Turning his horse, therefore, he rode back in the way to Thame. When he came to a brook which divides the plain, he paused a while; but it being impossible for him, in his wounded state, to remount, if he had alighted to turn his horse over, he suddenly summoned his strength, clapped spurs, and cleared the leap. Through such particulars the recent biographer of this eminent person naturally delights to carry his reader. But what must have been Hampden's thoughts, as he crossed that field of his youthful remembrances, staining the green blades that glittered in the sun of a bright morn in May with no ignoble blood? There he had first practised his confiding neighbours, and his admiring tenants and serving-men, in the use of those pikes which they were to level at the crown and the mitres of England; and there the avenging ball of the royalist had shivered his vigorous right arm! The cause was, to all appearance, declining:-the army weakened, and commanded by a cold and vacillating partisan; the enemy victorious, and every day gathering new strength; the parliament rapidly losing the confidence of the people; Pym, his great fellow-champion, lying on his deathbed-the most sentient nerve of Freedom, the toughest sinew in the whole body of Rebellion, shrivelling like a parched scroll! Yet, could he have looked further, and with prophet eyes beheld Naseby-Carisbrook-White

hall, defiled by the blood of a king and the residence of an usurper, more appalling would have been that contemplation of its triumph. Where would he have discovered the laws, which he had vindicated,-the Liberty, at whose shrine he had sacrificed so much, besides what was own, or, even a free field for that sly but strong ambition, which, more, it may be, than he was himself aware, directed the movements of his life? In great pain and nearly exhausted, Hampden reached Thame. The surgeons who dressed his wounds encouraged his grieving fellow-patriots and brothers-in-arms with hopes of his recovery; but his own impression from the fact was, that his hurt was mortal. It was too true an one. After six days of intense suffering, Hampden breathed his last."

We have heard a great deal lately concerning the fortification of the capital of France. See what were the enthusiastic exertions towards the erection and establishment of the Lines of London during the Great Rebellion,

"The fortifications around London were also now completed. Great part of the labour required to construct these defences was supplied by the voluntary enthusiasm of the people. An esprit de corps, merged, in our days, in sentiments either narrower or more diffused, animated in those times the separate guilds of citizens. Those bodies rivalled each other in the alacrity with which they engaged in this novel employment. The trades marched out to the work in separate parties, bearing mattocks, shovels, and other tools, with drums beating, colours flying, and swords girded. Mixed with most of these companions were to be seen women and girls, some of these ladies of rank and education, two and two, carrying baskets filled with earth; many of whom wrought in the trenches, till they fell ill from the effect of unusual exertion. Of the works thus patriotically raised, an interesting description remains; and though long ago every vestige of their existence has been swept away by the hand of time or the march of improvement, they appear to have been, for that age, of respectable efficiency. The stranger, on approaching the capital by water, before he found himself enclosed between those dense ranks of merchantmen which even then covered both banks of the Thames, was frowned upon from either shore by a stern mult-angular fort, with its deep trench and bristling palisades, surmounted by cannon and guarded by many a steel-capped musketeer, sworn foes to Cavaliers and Malignants. From Limehouse, where they commenced, the lines stretched on to Whitechapel, to Shoreditch, to Hoxton, then along by Holborn to St. Giles's and Marylebone, to Tyburn and Hyde Park; whence bending round by Tothill Fields, the river was again commanded by two forts, the one erected at that station and the other at Nine Elms, on the opposite side; from which point they stretched across the angle of Surry, through Newington to Redriff, where they again terminated upon the stream. At each of these, and of many intervening angles, a fort commanded the adjoining approaches. There were, in all, twenty-four forts, besides redoubts, counter-scarps, and half-moons along the trenches between; the whole planted with 212 pieces of ordnance; a circuit of twelve miles, enclosing great wealth, and swarming with a various and eager population. VOL. I. (1841.) No. 1.

H

At each chief centralpoint within this wide circumference was placed a corpsde-garde-in the City, in Southwark, by the Houses of Parliament, at Whitehall. The writer from whose curious details we copy the present sketch, though a Scotchman, a Presbyterian, and a devoted admirer of the Parliament, unconsciously throws in a natural touch of loyal feeling, which finishes the grand but melancholy picture of a mighty capital in rebellion against its sovereign: 'I found,' says he, 'the grass growing deep in the royal courts of the King's house; which, indeed, was a lamentable sight."

We must now dismiss this valuable as well as superb volume, which closes with Marston Moor. Another volume will conduct us to the utter downfall of royalty.

ART. XI.-The Idler in Italy. By the COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON. Vol. III. London: Colburn.

THE of the season and the month in which we write forces pressure us to be brief with the works which still have a claim upon our attention, before the birth of a new year. At the same time the volumes which thus crowd our table do not require any very particular criticism, and may properly be dismissed after general notices, or at most with a few appended specimens.

The concluding volume of Lady Blessington's Italian journals stands especially in little need of close analysis and minute review, not merely because the character of its predecessors has been fully appreciated by the readers of light and sketchy literature, but because the nature of the subjects which arrest her mind, and the tone of her sentimentality may be described in a sentence or two, and exemplified by almost any one of her pages.

Her Ladyship's subjects are such as float on the surface, or that may be seized by any tourist who has read the lighter portions of literature; who has mingled rather extensively in the society of men of letters, of artists, and people of fashion; who has had considerable experience of foreign life; and who is more or less acquainted with some continental languages. She has read at least the translations of classical authors too, and has a competent knowledge of history. Thus furnished her taste runs a good deal upon traditions, collecting anecdotes, detailing recollections, painting scenes and sketching family pictures. Natural intelligence and feeling, together with feminine gracefulness may throughout her writings be discovered, marred however very frequently by an artificial or affected sentimentality, or enfeebled by attenuation and verbosity. There is much that is genuine about her; but there is also impressed sometimes upon the mind a feeling of coldness when the author professes extraordinary warmth of sympathy. But after all there are not many idlers who would have strung together so much that is interesting in the course of an Italian tour, or who