INTRODUCTION. HE characters of the men who bore part in the great rebellion stand prominently before us. In the confused chronicles of earlier times the annalist laid on the colours where he chose, he arranged every light and every shade, and with his busy pencil created demi-gods or imagined fiends. In the contest between the King and his disaffected subjects all the conditions were changed; on every side light streams in upon us; the fierce political pamphlets and newspapers of the day, the memoirs, letters, and state papers subsequently published, and the essays at a yet later date of historians, philosophers, and partizans, all contribute to that great store of historical learning on which the inquirer can draw, and from which he may form an estimate of the actors in that eventful strife. It is difficult, however, to write of the past and not to feel like a partizan, and in almost every essay, memoir, or history we refer to, there are traces of a bitterness of spirit and harshness of judgment which are scarcely consistent with a justly poised balance. No doubt the records of the past history of their own land are of exceptional interest to English writers. In most |