cautiously put forth. Nor are instances altogether wanting, in which the curb is set aside, and the whole nature of the writer has its resistless way.

I have remarked on the aristocratic influences which surrounded Wentworth's youth. Every thing had tended to foster that principle within him. His ancient lineage, extending, at no very distant period, to the blood royal -the degree of attention which must have early attached itself to the eldest of twelve children-his inheritance of an estate of 6000l. a year, an enormous fortune in those days-his education-all the various circumstances which have been touched upon-contributed to produce a character ill fitted to comprehend or sympathise with "your Prynnes, Pyms, Bens, and the rest of that generation of odd names and natures,1" who recognised, in the struggling and oppressed Many, those splendid dawnings of authority, which others were disposed to seek only in the One. From the first we observe in Wentworth a deep sense of his exact social position and its advantages. This is explained in a passage of a remarkable letter, written at a later period to his early tutor, Mr. Greenwood, but which I shall extract here, since it has reference to the present time. "My sister Elizabeth writes me a letter concerning my brother Mathew's estate, which I know not how to answer till I see the will; nor do I know what it is she claims-whether money alone, or his rent-charge forth of my lands, or both. Therefore I desire the copy of the will may be sent me, and her demand, and then she shall have my answer. This brother, that she saith was so dear unto

1 Strafford Papers, vol. i. p. 344. Such was We judged classification. Benjamin Rudyard.

"Ben" may

be presumed dcliffe's Essay. i. p. 79.

her, had well tutored her, or she him, being the couple of all the children of my father that I conceived loved me least; it may be they loved one another the better for that too. However it prove, I know not; but this I am most assured,—that in case any of the three brothers died without issue, my father ever intended their rentcharge should revert to me, and not lie still as a clog upon my estate; or that any daughter of his, whom he had otherwise provided for forth of the estate, should thus intercept his intentions towards his heir. But how often hath he been pleased to excuse unto me the liberal provisions taken forth of my estate for my brothers and sisters? And as often hath been assured by me, I thought nothing too much that he had done for them; and yet I can make it confidently appear, that he left not my estate better to me than my grandfather left it to him, by 200l. a year; nay, some that understand it very well have, upon speech had with me about it, been very confident he left it me rather worse than better than he received it. But I shall and can, I praise God, and have heretofore, patiently looked upon their peevishness and frowardness towards me, and all their wise and prudent councils and synods they have held against me, as if they had been to have dealt with some cheater or cozener, not with a brother, who had ever carried himself justly and lovingly towards them; nor do I, or will I, deny them the duties I owe unto them, as recommended unto my care by my father. Nay, as wise as they did, or do, take themselves to have been, I will say, it had not been the worse for them, as I think, if they had taken less of their own foolish empty and followed more of my advice, who, I must needs correspoelf to have been full as able to have directed authority of

they themselves could be at that

age." Here the remark cannot but occur, of the very early age at which these extraordinary "excuses" from a father to a son must have been proffered and accepted! Sir William Wentworth died in 16142, shortly after his son, who had scarcely accomplished his twenty-first year, was returned to parliament from Yorkshire. This patriarchal authority, then, this strong sense of his hereditary rights of property, was of no late assumption; and in after life it was Wentworth's proud satisfaction that he came not to Ireland "to piece up a broken fortune." 3—“ For,” says he elsewhere, "as I am a Christian, I spend much more than all my entertainments come unto; yet I do not complain; my estate in England may well spare me something to spend." At his so early maturity, being called to the family inheritance by the death of his father, a new charge devolved to him in the guardianship of his elder sister's children, the issue of sir George Savile, which trust he faithfully discharged. His own account of his family regards, generally, given in the passage quoted, appears to me to be perfectly just. His disposition was kind, but exacting. Those of his relations who paid him proper deference, received from him attentions and care. And it is remarkable to observe, in those brothers, for instance, who continued attached to him through all his fortunes-one an intimate counsellor, another a "humble poster in his affairs"—the complete deference they at all times cheerfully paid to him.

Such was the new member for Yorkshire, who took his seat in the parliament of 1614. I have described the condition of affairs. They had arrived at such a point, that not to declare in favour of the popular party, was to 2 Radcliffe's Essay. 3 Strafford Papers, vol. i. p. 138. and see vol. i. p. 79.

1 Strafford Papers, vol. i. p. 484.

exert an influence against them. The liberal strength had not declined in the present assembly. The confederacy of "undertakers1," banded for the purpose of influencing the elections, had pursued their vile avocations without effect. The new members were staunch; resumed complaints against monopolies and other unjust grants; called the bishop of Lincoln to account for disrespectful words; and received the tribute to their honesty of a dissolution after two months' sitting 2, and of imprisonment, in many cases, afterwards. During these two months, Wentworth had continued silent ;not unobserved, but silent. I have examined the Journals, and find no trace of his advocacy of either side in the great struggle.1

1 For the origin of these "strange ugly kind of beasts,” as the king, in his subsequent confession of their existence, oddly called them, see Wilson, in Kennet, vol. ii. p. 696. For James's present false denial of their having been employed, see Čarte, vol. iv. pp. 19, 20.; Bacon's Works, vol. i. p. 695.; Commons' Journals, p. 462.

2 This house of commons, says Hume, "showed rather a stronger spirit of liberty than the foregoing, so little skill had the courtiers for managing elections." (vol. v. p. 49.) It subsequently received from the politer courtiers the title of the "addle" parliament, from the circumstance of its not having been allowed to pass a single bill. Aikin, vol. i. p. 439. See a curious fact mentioned in D'Israeli's Character of James, p. 158., and the king's assertion, in his remarkable commission for the dissolution.

3 The compilers of the Parliamentary History have denied this; but see debate on it in Journals of Feb. 5. 12. and 15. 1621; and Hatsell's proof, vol. i. p. 133, 134. edit. 1796. Hume admits the statement, vol. v. p. 50.

4 In some of the less precisely accurate histories,-in Echard's, Oldmixon's, and Mrs. Macaulay's-Wentworth had been erroneously ranked as one of the "factious" members of this session, who had earned imprisonment after the dissolution by a violent personal attack on the king. Mr. Brodie set the mistake completely at rest, by showing its origin. A Mr. Thomas Wentworth, a very popular member, represented Oxford in all the parliaments of James, and in the two first parliaments of Charles. It was he who spoke violently, and was imprisoned. It was he also who took the active part against Buckingham in the second parliament, which had been

At the close of the session he returned to Yorkshire, and a year passed over him at his country residence, engaged, to all appearance, in no pursuits less innocent than his favourite sport of hawking. Let the reader judge, however, if his personal ambitions had been forgotten. Sir John Savile, the father of the afterwards lord Savile—and not, as has been invariably stated by modern writers, the lord Savile himself1-at this time held an office of great esteem in the county,-that of custos rotulorum, or keeper of the archives, for the West Riding. So strong an influence, however, had for some time been moving against Savile in the county, that the lord chancellor Ellesmere was induced to interfere. It is

ascribed to sir Thomas Wentworth (who did not sit in that parliament at all), even by Rushworth. In expressing great surprise at this mistake on the collector's part, however, Mr. Brodie overlooks the circumstance of its having arisen from a mere error of the press. Had it been otherwise, it would have been difficult (considering that Rushworth attended the house himself, and was necessarily acquainted with the persons of the different members) to have received even Mr. Brodie's authority and that of Wentworth's own letters, against the indefatigable collector. But the context of Rushworth shows the error to have been merely one of the press. He is stating the argument of the lawyers of the house on the difference between 66 common fame" and " rumour; " and observes, "It was declared by sir Tho. Wentworth, Mr. Noy, and other lawyers in the debate,' &c.-Now Mr. Wentworth was a lawyer, and an eminent one, the author of a legal treatise of great merit on Executors, and recorder of Oxford; but sir Thomas Wentworth was none of these things. The mistake does not occur again. See Rushworth, vol. i. p. 217. The author of the History continued from Mackintosh has fallen into Rushworth's error, vol. v. p. 33.

1 It is singular that this mistake should have occurred; for occasionally, in the Papers, he is called "the old knight," ""old sir John," &c. (vol. i. p. 38. &c.); and in his own letter to the lord chancellor Ellesmere, on which the whole of the present business turns, he expressly alludes to "service of forty years under the late queen of gracious memory."-Strafford Papers, vol. i. p. 2. incorrectly are circumstances looked at, which do not seem to bear immediately on the matter in hand, yet are to illustrate it afterwards not unimportantly.

But so