46 cold, but the symptoms that did follow it spake more sickness; a gradual indisposition it begot in all the faculties of the bodie. The learned said a consumption did attend it; but I thank God I did not feel or credit it. What they advised as the ordinance that's appointed I was content to use, and in the time I was a patient, suffered whatever they imposed. Great is the authority of princes, but greater much is their's who both command our purses and our wills. What the success of their government wills, must be referred to him that is master of their power. I find myself bettered, though not well, which makes me the more readie to observe them. The Divine blessing must effectuate their wit-it is that medicine that has hitherto protected me, and will continue me among other affairs to remain your faithfull friend." It is affecting to observe, even in his manner of writing, a characteristic of the fatal disorder that had seized him. was not even suffered to remain quietly in his wretched lodging. He was removed from place to place, each one as "darke and smoakey" as the first. "The lodging which I had upon my first remove before Christmas," he writes to Sir Oliver Luke, "being again altered, I may saie of my lodgings in the Tower as Jacob for his wages, 'Now, then, ten times have they chaunged it; but, I thank God, not once has it caused an alteration of my mind-so infinite is that mercie which has hitherto protected mee, and I doubt not but I shall find it with mee." He concludes by referring to some light papers" which seem to have engaged him in the intervals of his greater work. "When you have wearied your good thoughts with those light papers that I sent you, return them with the corrections of your judgment. I may one day send you others of more worth, if it please God to continue me this leisure and my health; but the best can be but broken and in patches, from him that dares not hazard to gather them. Such thinges, from me, falling like the leaves in autumn soe variously and uncertainly, that they hardly meet again; but with you I am confident what else my weak-out of his darke smoakey lodging into a betness shall present will have a faire acceptance." This allusion to his health was ominous. Sickness had already begun to threaten him. Some days after this, he writes to his kinsman Knightly (whose son afterward married one of Hampden's daughters) a description of what he conceives to have been the commencement of his disorder, the colds of his prison. "For the present I am wholly at a stand, and have been soe for this fortnight by a sicknesse which it hath pleased my Master to impose, in whose hands remain the issues of life and death. It comes originally from my colds, with which the cough having been long upon me causes such ill effects to follow it, that the symptoms are more dangerous than the grief; it has weakened much both the appetite and concoction, and the outward strength; by that some doubt there is of a consumption, but we endeavour to prevent it by application of the means, and, as the great physition, seek the blessing from the Lord." Good humour and easy quiet, however, did not desert him, though his disease steadily advanced. A week after the date of the foregoing, he writes to Hampden: "Lately my business hath been much with doctors, so that, but by them, I have had little trouble with myself. These three weeks I have had a full leisure to do nothing, and strictly tied unto it either by their direction or my weakness. The cause originally was a ment, the king took occasion also to attack Eliot. In reference, it may be supposed, to his commissioners of inquiry into Eliot's property having had a "nihil" returned to them, Charles observes, Notwithstanding his majesty's late declaration, for satisfying the minds and affections of his loving subjects, some ill-disposed persons do spread false and pernicious rumours abroad; as if the scandalous and seditious proposition in the House of Commons, made by an outlawed man, desperate in mind and fortune, tumultuously taken by some few, after that by his majesty's royal authority he had commanded their adjournment, had been the voice of the whole House, whereas the contrary is the truth." The words I have printed in italics are not in Rushworth, but Rymer supplies them. (Fodera, xix., 62.) The infatuated king continues, "This late abuse having for the present driven his majesty unwillingly out of that course, he shall account it presumption for any to prescribe any time to his majesty for Parliaments; the calling, continuing, and dissolving of them, being always in the king's own power." As his illness became more determined, the severity of his imprisonment was increased. Pory the letter writer, indeed, remarked, about this time, "I heare Sir John Eliot is to remove ter;" but I can find no evidence of the removal. On the contrary, shortly before his last letter to Hampden, he had written to Bevil Grenville (who then opposed the court, but afterward, with no suspicion of his virtue, died fighting for the king at Landsdowne) a statement of increased restraint. His friend had by letter alluded to some rumours that were then abroad,* and on the faith of which Pory seems to have gossiped, as above, of his probable liberation. "The restraint and watch uppon me," Eliot answers, "barrs much of my intercourse with my friends; while their presence is denied me, and letters are soe dangerous and suspected, as it is little that way we exchange; soe as if circumstances shall condemn me, I must stand guiltie in their judgments; yet yours (though with some difficultie I have received, and manie times when it was knocking at my door, because their convoy could not enter they did retire again, wherein I must commend the caution of your messenger, but at length it found a safe passage by my servant) made mee happie in your favour, for which this comes as a retribution and acknowledgment. For those rumours which you meet that are but artificial, or by chance, it must be your wisdom not to credit them. Manie such false fires are flyinge dailie in the ear. When there shall be occasion, expect that intelligence from friends; for which in the meene time you do well to be provided; though I shall crave when that dispute falls, properlie and for reasons not deniable, a change of your intention in particulars as it concerns myselfe; in the rest I shall concur in all readiness to serve you, and in all you shall command me who am nothing but as you represent." His concluding * These rumours prevailed strongly at one time. They arose out of whispers of a possibility of a Parliament; and I find it stated in a letter among the Harleian MSS., 7000, dated Dec. 14, 1631-2, that "Sir John Eliot had lately been courted and caressed in his prison by some great men who are most in danger to be called in question." If any such overtures were made to him, it is certain that he continued immoveable. Rapin, indeed, says distinctly (vol. x., p. 263, note), Sir John Eliot had been tampered with, but was found proof against all temptation." words are affecting. "My humble service to your ladie, and tell her that yet I doubt not to kisse her hand. Make much of my godson." Immediately after this, instead of any evidence of better treatment, I have to furnish proof of an accession of the most savage and atrocious severity. Eliot hitherto had been permitted, under certain restrictions, to receive visits from his friends. This poor privilege was now withdrawn, and—it is well that this is to be offered on the best authority, or I could not have asked the reader to give credence to it-the comfort of a fire, necessary to life in a damp prison, whose inmate already struggled with a disorder brought on by cold, was, in the depth of winter, wholly, or almost wholly, denied to Eliot! On the 26th of December, 1631, he thus writes to Hampden: "That I write not to you anything of intelligence, will be exeused when I do let you know that I am under a new restraint, by warrant from the king, for a supposed abuse of liberty, in admitting a free resort of visitants, and under that colour holding consultations with my friends. My lodgings are removed, and I am now where candlelight may be suffered, but scarce fire. I hope you will think that this exchange of places makes not a change of minds. The same protector is still with me, and the same confidence, and these things can have end by him that gives them being. None but my servants, hardly my son, may have admittance to me. My friends I must desire, for their own sakes, to forbear coming to the Tower. You among them are chief, and have the first place in this intelligence. I have now leisure," he continues, with affecting resignation, "and shall dispose myself to business; therefore those loose papers which you had, I would cast out of the way, being now returned again unto me. In your next give me a word or two of note; for those translations you excepted at, you know we are blind towards ourselves; our friends must be our glasses; therefore in this I crave (what in all things I desire) the reflection of your judgment." I have spoken of a kindred spirit with that of Eliot. It is impossible, in describing Eliot's labours at this moment-when, Kin Active still, and unrestrain'd, his mind Explored the long extent of ages past, And with his prison hours enrich'd the worldnot to recollect Sir Walter Raleigh. dred they were, at least in magnanimity of spirit and largeness of intellect. If it were worth while, I could point out other resemTheir faces, in portraits I have seen, blances. were strongly like. They were both of old Devonshire families; both were new residents in Cornwall; and, through the Champernownes, one of whom had given birth to Raleigh, their They families were in a degree related.* both died victims of the grossest tyranny, but not till they had illustrated to the world examples of fearless endurance, and left, for the world's instruction, the fruit of their prison hours. In one particular here, or, rather, accident, the resemblance fails; for Raleigh's intention of benefit was fulfilled by the publication of his labours, while Eliot's have remained to the present day unpublished, disregarded, almost unknown. I shall shortly endeavour to remove from literature, at least, a portion of this reproach; and, in so doing, an opportunity will be given to Eliot himself to complete this allusion to Raleigh, by one of the finest tributes that has yet been paid to that gallant and heroic spirit. The health of the imprisoned philosopher sank day by day. His "attorney at law," however, told Pory that he was the same cheerful His friends now and undaunted man as ever. appear to have resolved to make a desperate effort to save him. I quote from one of Pory's manuscript letters to Sir Robert Puckering:+ On Tuesday was sennight, Mr. Mason, of Lincoln's Inn, made a motion to the judges of King's Bench for Sir John Eliot, that, whereas the doctors were of opinion he could never recover of his consumption until such time as he might breathe in purer air, they would, for some certain time, grant him his enlargement Whereunto my Lord-chieffor that purpose. justice Richardson answered, that although Sir John were brought low in body, yet was he as high and lofty in mind as ever, for he would neither submit to the king, nor to the justice In fine, it was concluded by the of that court. bench to refer him to the king by way of petition" Thus, in the midst of his worst sufferings, Eliot had the consolation and sustainment of the philosophical work in which he had engaged His own study, as I have described, had been plundered of its papers and sealed up by the king; but his friends supplied him with books; and in this office, as in every other care and kindness, Hampden was most forward. Sir Robert Cotton's library would have Eliot refused to do this, proceeded still with proved of inestimable value to Eliot at this his treatise, and uttered no complaint. Hamptume, as some few years before it had served a den continued to send him books, and, with kindred spirit, but the atrocious tyranny that delicate good sense, rallies him to his labours: "Make good use of the bookes you shall renow prevailed had reached its learned owner. Accused of having furnished precedents to Sel-ceive from mee, and of your time; be sure you den and Eliot, Sir Robert Cotton's great library was seized and held by the king; and, unable to survive its loss, the great scholar died.‡ I shall have a more proper opportunity (in the notice of Hampden) of eliciting a number of delightful personal characterat.cs from his present conduct to his friend. Sir Walter Raleigh. See an interesting letter in the Biographia Britannica, vol. v., p. 3485. The following extract from Sir Symonds D'Ewes' diary is deeply affecting: "When I went several times to visit and comfort him (Sir Robert Cotton] in the year 1630, he would tell me, they had broken his heart, that had locked up has library from him.' I easily guessed the reason, be cause his honour and esteem were much impaired by this shall render a strict account of both to your it was sent in portions to Hampden, who criticised it, and, as I shall show, gave value to his praise by occasional objection: "And that to satisfy you, not myselfe, but that by obeying you in a command so contrary to my own disposition, you may measure how large a power you have over John Hampden." Very little political allusion passed in these letters. It was a dangerous subject to touch, for Eliot's correspondence was never safe from exposure.* Some time before, he had mentioned this, as we have seen, to Grenville; and he wrote to Denzil Hollis a letter which bears upon political affairs, but only in dark hints, which he might not express more plainly. Through a long silence," he says, "I hope you can retaine the confidence and memoire of your frende. He that knows your virtue in the generale cannot doubt any particular of your charitie. The corruption of this age, if no other danger might occur, were an excuse, even in business, for not writing. The sun, we see, begets divers monsters on the earth when it has heat and violence; time may do more on paper; therefore, the safest intercourse is by harts; in this way I have much intelligence to give you, but you may divine it without prophesie." 66 Nearly four years had now passed over Eliot in his prison. Those popular leaders who had been subjected to confinement at the same time, had all of them, within the first eighteen months, obtained their release.t Eliot only was detained. After the conclusion of the treatise that had so long served to keep up his interest and attention, he appears to have sunk rapidly. Almost worn out by his illness, his friends at last prevailed upon him to petition the king. The account of his "manner of proceeding" is affecting to the last degree. I give it in the words of a letter from Pory to Sir Thomas Puckering: "Hee first presented a petition to his majesty, by the hand of the lieutenant, his keeper, to this effect: Sir, your judges have committed mee to prison here in your Tower of London, where, by reason of the quality of the ayer, I am fallen into a dangerous disease. I humbly beseech your majesty you will command your judges to sett mee at liberty, that, for recovery of my health, I may take some fresh ayer,' &c. Whereunto his majestie's answer was, 'it was not humble enough.' Then Sir John sent another petition, by his own sonne, to the effect following: Sir, I am hartily sorry I have displeased your majesty, and, having so said, doe humbly beseech you once againe to comand your judges to sett me at liberty, that, when I have recovered my health, I may returne back to my prison, there to undergoe suche punishment as God hath allotted unto mee,' &c. Upon this the lieutenant came and expostulated with him, saying it was proper to him, and common to none else, * Many of Hampden's most beautiful letters never reach ed him. † Before Valentine had obtained his bail, Eliot began to suspect him of juggling for release; and he writes of him to a friend, Thomas Godfrey, "This is all I can tell you of him, unless by supposition I could judge him in his reservations and retirement, knocking at some back door of the court, at which, if he enter to preferment, you shall know it from your faithful friend." I could furnish many such proofs of the jealous care with which Eliot watched the virtue of his friends. to doe that office of delivering petitions for his prisoners. And if Sir John, in a third petition, would humble himselfe to his majestie in acknowledging his fault and craving pardon, he would willingly deliver it, and made no doubt but hee should obtaine his liberty. Unto this Sir John's answer was: 'I thank you, sir, for your friendly advise, but my spirits are growen feeble and faint, which, when it shall please God to restore unto their former vigour, I will take it farther into my consideration.'"* That this is a perfectly correct account cannot be doubted. Pory collected the particulars after the death of Eliot, and gives us his authority. "A gentleman," he says, "not unknown to Sir Thomas Lucy, told me, from Lord Cottington's mouth, that Sir John Eliot's late manner of proceeding was this." Moreover, in one of Lord Cottington's own despatches to Wentworth, the savage satisfaction with which the court had received, and with which they knew Lord Wentworth would also receive, the assurance of the approaching death of the formidable Eliot, is permitted to betray itself. "Your old dear friend, Sir John Eliot," observes the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Lord-deputy of Ireland, winding up a series of important advices with this, the most important of all, "Is VERY LIKE TO DIE."† Within two months from that date Lord Cottington's prediction was accomplished. Eliot, however, had yet a duty of life left, which he performed with characteristic purpose. He sent for a painter to the Tower, and had his portrait painted, exactly as he then appeared, worn out by disease, and with a face of ghastly paleness. This portrait he gave to his son, that it might hang on the walls of Port Eliot, near a painting which represented him in vigorous manhood-a constant and vivid evidence of the sufferings he had unshrinkingly borne"a perpetual memorial of his hatred of tyranny." These pictures are at Port Eliot still. I have been favoured with a loan of the earlier portrait, by the courtesy of Lord St. Germain's. It represents a face of perfect health, and keenly intellectual proportions. In this respect, in its wedge-like shape, in the infinite majesty of the upper region, and the sudden narrowness of the lower, it calls to mind at once the face of Sir Walter Raleigh. Action speaks out from the quick, keen eye, and meditation from the calm breadth of the brow. In the disposition of the hair and the peaked beard, it appears, to a casual glance, not unlike Vandyke's Charles. The later portrait is a profoundly melancholy contrast. It is wretchedly painted, but it expresses the reality of death-like life. It presents Eliot in a very elegant morning dress, apparently of lace, and bears the inscription of having been " painted, a few days before his death, in the Tower." In the last moments of his life, Eliot presented the perfect pattern of a Christian philosopher. I quote the last of his letters to Hampden. "Besides the acknowledgment of your favour that have so much compassion on your frend, I have little to return you from him that has nothing worthy of your acceptance, but the contestation that I have between an ill bodie and the aer, that quarrell, and are friends, as the summer winds affect them. I have these three daies been abroad,* and as often brought in new impressions of the colds, yet, body, and strength, and appetite, I finde myself bettered by the motion. Cold at first was the occasion of my sickness, heat and tenderness by close keepinge in my chamber has since increast my weakness. Air and exercise are thought most proper to repaire it, which are the prescription of my doctors, though noe physic. I thank God other medicines I now take not, but those catholicons, and doe hope I shall not need them. As children learn to go, I shall get acquainted with the aer; practice and use will compasse it, and now and then a fall is an instruction for the future. These varieties He does trie us with, that will have us perfect at all parts, and as he gives the trial, he likewise gives the ability that shall be necessary for the worke. He has the Philistine at the disposition of his will, and those that trust him, under his protection and defence. O! infinite mercy of our master, deare friend, how it abounds to us, that are unworthy of his service! How broken! how imperfect! how perverse and crooked are our waise in obedience to him! how exactly straight is the line of his providence to us! drawn out through all occurrents and particulars to the whole length and measure of our time! how perfect is his hand that has given his Sonne unto us, and through him has promised likewise to give us all things relieving our wants, sanctifying our necessities, preventing our dangers, freeing us from all extremities, and dying himself for us! What can we render? what retribution can we make worthy soe great a majestie? worthy such love and favour? We have nothing but ourselves, who are unworthy above all, and yett that, as all other things, is his. For us to offer up that, is but to give him of his owne, and that in far worse condition than we at first received it, which yet (for infinite in his goodnesse for the merits of his Sonne) he is contented to accept. This, dear frend, must be the comfort of his children; this is the physic we must use in all our sicknesse and extremities; this is the strengthening of the weake, the nuriching of the poore, the libertie of the captive, the health of the diseased, the life of those that die, the death of the wretched life of sin! And this happiness have his saints. The contemplation of this happiness has led me almost beyond the compass of a letter; but the haste I use unto my frends, and the affection that does move it, will, I hope, excuse me. Frends should communicate their joyes: this, as the greatest, therefore, I could not but impart unto my frend, being therein moved by the present expectation of your letters, which always have the grace of much intelligence, and are happiness to him that is trulie yours.' I add to this an extract from one of Pory's The precincts of his prison, it is unnecessary to add, enclosed the "abroad" of Eliot. The "air and exercise" be afterward mentions, as having somewhat "bettered" him, were only what he could win from a few narrow paces within the walls of the Tower. It is easy to conclude from this, that a sight of his native country, the greeting of one healthful Cornish breeze, would almost instantly have restored him. F | He survived twelve days. On the 27th of November, 1632, Sir John Eliot died. Immediately after the event, his son (Richard, as I presume, since he did not go abroad as he purposed) "petitioned his majesty once more, hee would bee pleased to permitt his body to be carried into Cornwall, there to be buried. Whereto was answered at the foot of the petition, Lett Sir John Eliot's body be buried in the church of that parish where he dyed.'"† This attempt to wreak an indignity on the remains of Eliot was perfectly in accordance with Charles's system. A paltry piece of heartless spite on the lifeless body of a man appropriately closes a series of unavailing attempts to reduce his living soul. What remained of the great statesman was thrust into some obscure corner of the Tower church, and the court rejoiced that its great enemy was gone. Faithful and brave hearts were left to remember this, and the sufferings of Eliot were not undergone in vain. They bore their part in the heat and burden of the after struggle. His name was one of its watchwords, and it had none more glorious. His sufferings, then, have been redeemed. The manner of his death was no more than the completion of the purposes of his life. Those purposes, and the actions which illustrated and sustained them, I have described in these pages, for the first time, with fidelity and minuteness. In doing this, I have also endeavoured to exhibit his personal and intellectual qualities so fully, that any reiteration of them here might be tedious, and is certainly unnecessary. In estimating his character as a statesman, our view is limited by the nature of the political struggle in which he acted. We have sufficient evidence, however, to advance from that into a greater and more independent field of achievement and design. His genius would assuredly have proved itself as equal to the perfect government of a state, as it showed itself supreme in the purpose of rescuing a state from misgovernment. As a leader of opposition, he has had no superior in history, probably no equal. His power of resource, in cases of emergency, was brilliant to the last degree, and his eloquence was of the highest order. The moral structure of his mind was as nearly perfect as that of the most distinguished men who have graced humanity. It ranks with theirs. Yet this is he whose memory has been insulted by a series of monstrous slanders flung out against it by political opponents with a recklessness beyond parallel! The time for such slanders, however, has happily passed away, and the name of John Eliot may now be preserved, unsullied, for the affection and veneration of his countrymen. What remains to be said of this great person, I shall subjoin as an appendix to this me moir. I am about to examine his philosophical | mingled sweetness and grandeur have been treatise for, I believe, the first time. It has quoted; no attempt has even been made to debeen mentioned, certainly by more writers than scribe them. I am about to remove this reone, and about twenty lines have been quoted proach from literature, and to enrich it with from it; but this is the utmost extent of appre- several specimens of thought and style, which ciation it has received. No one has yet shown might give an added lustre to the reputation any evidence of other than the most superficial of our loftiest writers in prose-to a Hooker or glance at its contents; none of its passages of a Milton. |