[JUNE, to give, and I had other conversa- 864 Here, infidelity! is a lesson for you, if any thing can give you instruction. I defy you to produce such an instance of the benefit arising from your teaching. Here is a person reclaimed from sin, and evidently taught of God, when his own reasoning powers were weak, and through the medium of those very means of grace which you affect to despise. The above, sir, were my reflec tions on the history of poor Barny, in the year 1801; and they are still the same. I have now only to add, that he is gone to his reward. He continued the same faithful attendance in the courts of the Lord's house that he had been accustomed Your obedient servant, To the Editor of the Christian Observer.. If it have been often said, that " All' GESIME, SIVE IN PASSIONE DOMINI AD PANGE lingua gloriosi De Parentis Protoplasti Quando venit ergo sacri Vagit infans inter arcta Virgo mater alligat; Et manus pedesque et crura Stricta cingit fascia. Gloria et honor Deo Usquequaque altissimo, Una Patri, Filioque, Inclito Paraclito. Cui Laus est et Potestas Per æterna sæcula. Amen. For the Christian Observer. PSALM XV. WHO, blest with God's eternal smile, In holy tents perform his will? E'en be whose heart and life are free From blind corruption's sinful stain Whose words and actions well agree; Whose promise ne'er is pledg'd in vain! That man whose generous soul disdains The crooked paths of dark deceit : O'er whom bright truth, triumphant, reigns; Whose breast is honour's chosen seat. Slander, before his open face, Abash'd and cowering, far retires; The oath he sware is sacred still; external advantages can compensate. Considering man even as the mere creature of time, and as soon to lay down his mouldering frame in the dust, yet, while he lives, he fills so important a sphere, and the interests and destinies of so large a part of creation are influenced by his individual character, that the heart sickens at the contemplation of his vices. But when we extend his being to eternity; when we contemplate him, and all whom he controuls or influences, as the possible inheritors of heaven or hell; then his character assumes a still more terrific interest, and we cease 10 wonder at the exclamation, Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because men keep not thy word."-But in the same degree in which the vices of mankind, and especially those of the great, sadden the mind, do their virtues charm and refresh it. It is delightful to pause, amidst the scenes of tumult and horror through which the hand of the historian conducts us, and fe create ourselves in the contempla tion of some character rising above the level of his age, "faithful found among the faithless;" a "preacher of righteousness" amidst the general dissolution of morals, or a pillar of integrity at a moment when the fabric of rational honesty is shaken to its foundation. The desire of searching out such characters, and of recruiting the mind by the examination of them, has produced some of the noblest works of biography; the lives, for instance, of an Agricola or a Hooker. The same desire also, in part perhaps, prompted that more elaborate production (which is at once the honour and the consolation of this age), a Church History*;" which, passing by those individuals whose vices are blazoned in former histories of the church, gives us the records of those who lived and died the tried and triumphant servants of a crucified Master. Such indeed is the anxiety of the mind to discover such points Milner. of repose; to create, as it were, such cases in the desert; that it is not unusual to imagine or fabricate, in certain characters, virtues they did not possess; to dress up an idol; to invest him with imaginary splendour, and then to do him homage; not more for his honour, perhaps, than for our own gratification. Now, we confess, that our sovereign Charles I., especially as contemplated in the last years of his life, and when purified by the fires of affliction, is one of those characters to whom, in surveying the vices of the great, our eye has often turned for consolation. There is no age in which such consolation is more necessary than in his; for none, perhaps, exhibits a more violent contrast of principle and practice; of that species of inconsistency which is most apt to shock the moral eye. At the same time, such was the angry and divided spirit of those times, that it is diffi cult to form any just estimate of any of the public actors in them. No sooner, for instance, had we discovered some verdict in favour of Charles, than up rose some Paritau writer to reverse it. Such, for example, is the tendency of the evidence collected in the important, and lately republished, work of Harris; who, though a lover of truth, and endeavouring to preserve in himself all the neutrality and sang froid of Bayle, on whose plan he composes, has nothing of the real scepticism and indifference of Bayle by which to maintain his neutrality; and is, in fact, the most dangerous, because the unavowed, enemy of Charles. Such also are the Me moirs of Col. Hutchinson, where our suspicion of the spirit of misrepresentation and puritanical prejudice is disarmed by the sex, the gentleness, and the piety of the Memorialist. We will own that, after reading these two works, we were preparing, like the emperor of old, to strip our idol of the golden cloak with which we had been accustomed to invest him, and to put over him, at least, a mantle of woollen. We were preparing, and a mournful preparation it was, to huddle Charles into the grave of ordinary men; to deprive our selves of an illustrious example of the uses of adversity;" to take one from the small catalogue of those who redeemed, in some degree, the reputation of that disastrous period. Under these circumstances, it was with no small delight we hailed the publication of the little work before us: of its -pretensions to influence public opinion upon this point we shall now proceed to give some account. The author of it, Sir Thomas Herbert, was groom of the chamber to the sovereign, of the two last years of whose life he here gives a brief, simple, and most interesting narrative. Connected with the noble house of Pembroke, he was sent by the earl of that name to travel in foreign countries, where he remained four years, and, on his return, published an account of his travels. that such a document is of high au thority and importance. Had it contained merely the evidence of a thorough-bred cavalier, it might justly have been suspected to be tinged by the channel through which it had flowed. Or had it been the testimony of some low man, vanquished by the overwhelming munificence or courtesy of a wealthy or polite prince, it might not have been less suspicious. But Sir Thomas Herbert was originally connected with the parliamentary party; was even placed by them as a watch upon his person; received no particular marks of royal bounty, (for the few personals of the monarch, with the exception of a cloak given to Sir Thomas, were distributed among his own children); was a man of birth and education and much discernment, a friend of truth, and evidently a lover of virtue; and, what perhaps may be still more decisive with some as to the value of his testimony, was, to the last, trusted by the Parliament, left with the King when all others were removed, and permitted to attend him in his confinement, and even to sleep in his room. Such was the man, And, if to these it could be necessary to add other evidence in his favour, it might be collected from the memoir itself. In our minds, nothing can more strongly wear the stamp of truth. The Christian and the gentleman prevail in every part of it. We have not discovered a single instance in which he is chargeable with intentionally quitting that path of simple, sober statement, which he had prescribed to himself. And falsehood is rarely either sober or simple; for those passions which lead men to practise it, generally carry with them into the act, the evidence of their own existence. Thus much, then, for the pretensions, and general character of the work. We shall now proceed to lay before our readers some of those extracts by which we have been most interested; and which are, at the same Now, it need scarcely be said, time, most illustrative of the points « Soon after his return," (says the editor of this little volume, in a short extract from the Life of Sir Thomas Herbert, in the Athenæ Oxoniensis)," he had the misfortune to lose his patron, who died suddenly; upon this distressing event, he again went abroad. At his second return, he found his country poisoned by a mental blight, which ended in civil war, bloodshed, and misery. "In this unhappy state of his country, even the virtuous house of Herbert were in some degree infected; for Philip, Earl of Pembroke, undertook an embassy from the Parliament in 1646, to King Charles, then at Newcastle; and our author attended him, as one of the parliamentary commissioners. He soon found, however, the King to be of a very contrary disposition from what the malcontents of the day had represented him. He, therefore, like a truly virtuous man, wishing to make his conscience some amends for the error with which his mind had been poisoned, attached himself to the King from that time, to the moment of his murder; and during these two years, he underwent, night and day, all the difficulties, dangers, and distresses, that his royal master suffered," we have in view. Upon those parts of the relation which are to be found in all the histories of the times, we shall not dwell. Sir Thomas begins, with relating the flight of the King from Oxford, about April, 1646, to put himself into the bands of the Scots. Soon after, the Parliament made certain propositions to him; which, as they involved several conditions wholly in compatible with his views of religion or justice, he peremptorily rejected. Upon this, the Parliament came to an accommodation with the Scots; by means of which, they secured to themselves the person of the King. And, the treaty being completed, they appointed some commissioners to attend upon his majesty, on his journey to Holmby, and during his residence there; among whom, was Mr. Herbert, afterwards Sir Thomas Herbert. These commissioners, though not selected from among the friends of Charles, appear to have been most graciously received by him. They soon set out on their journey with the royal prisoner; for such he must from this moment be esteemed. The following paragraph gives us an idea of the state of public feeling at this period. "And it is note-worthy, that through most parts where his majesty passed, some out of curiosity, but most (it may be presumed) for love, flocked to behold him, and accompanied him with acclamations of joy, and with their prayers for his preservation; and that not any of the troopers who guarded the King, gave those country-people any check or disturbance as the King passed, that could be observed, (a civility his majesty was well pleased with)." p. 14. We shall next extract a passage which occurs soon after, as strikingly indicating the strength of the King's episcopal preferences, and his devotional habits. "were « At mealtimes, Dr. Marshall and Mr. Carrel," two Presbyterian divines, most times present when his majesty dined and supped, and willing to crave a blessing; but the King always said grace himself, standing under the state, his voice sometimes audible. His majesty, nevertheless, was civil to those ministers, seeming to have a good esteem of them, in reference to what he had heard, both as to their learning and conversation. Nor did he express a dislike towards any of his servants then attending him, as were free to repair to the chapel where those ministers by turns preached, forenoon, and afternoon, every Lord's day, before the commissioners and others of the household; albeit, as some of them would say, they had rather have heard such as the King better approved of. The King, every Sunday, sequestered himself to his private devotion; and all other days in the week, spent two or three hours in reading, and other pious axercises." pp. 15, 16. Soon after, the Parliamennt deprived him of his own friends and servants; and the parting scene, as given by Herbert, is too striking to be passed over. "Next day his majesty's servants came, as at other times, into the presence-chanber; where, at dinner time, they waited: but after his majesty arose from dinner, and acquainted them with what had passed betwixt him and the commissioners, they kiss ed his majesty's hand, and with great expressions of grief for their dismiss, poured forth their prayers for his majesty freedom and preservation, and so departed. All that afternoon, the King withdrew into his bed-chamber, having given orders that none should interrupt him in his privacy." p. 19. The following statement of his mode of life, which follows soon, throws much light on his character. "It is well worthy our observation, that, in all the time of his majesty's restraint and solicitude, he was never sick, nor took any thing to prevent sickness, or had need of a physician: which (under God) is attributed to his quiet disposition and unparalleled patience; to his exercise when at home. walking in the gallery and privy garden, and other recreations when abroad; to his abstemiousness at meat, eating of few dishes, (and, as he used to say) agreeable to his exercise, drinking but twice every dinner and supper; once of beer, and once of wine and water mixt.” p. 24. His quiet and apparently happy life at Holmby, was at length disturbed, by the now thickening plots of the army. In the night, a cornet forced his way into the house; and, without any pretence to instructions of authority, except that supplied by |
