visited all the countries of Europe, and and the treaty of Nimeguen. The the civilised nations of the East. He mutual relations of the two sexes seem may have observed the manners of to us to be at least as important as the many barbarous races. But here is mutual relations of any two governsomething altogether different from ments in the world; and a series of every thing which he has seen, either letters written by a virtuous, amiable, among polished men or among savages. and sensible girl, and intended for the Here is a community politically, in- eye of her lover alone, can scarcely fail tellectually, and morally unlike any to throw some light on the relations of other community of which he has the the sexes; whereas it is perfectly posmeans of forming an opinion. This is sible, as all who have made any histhe really precious part of history, the torical researches can attest, to read corn which some threshers carefully bale after bale of despatches and prosever from the chaff, for the purpose of tocols, without catching one glimpse of gathering the chaff into the garner, and light about the relations of governflinging the corn into the fire. to us. ments. Mr. Courtenay proclaims that he is one of Dorothy Osborne's devoted servants, and expresses a hope that the publication of her letters will add to the number. We must declare ourselves his rivals. She really seems to have been a very charming young woman, modest, generous, affectionate, intelligent, and sprightly; a royalist, as was to be expected from her connections, without any of that political asperity which is as unwomanly as a long beard; religious, and occasionally gliding into a very pretty and endearing sort of preaching, yet not too good to partake of such diversions as London afforded under the melancholy rule of the puritans, or to giggle a little at a ridiculous sermon from a divine who was thought to be one of the great lights of the Assembly at Westminster; with a little turn for coquetry, which was yet perfectly compatible with warm and disinterested attachment, and a little turn for satire, which yet seldom Thinking thus, we are glad to learn so much, and would willingly learn more, about the loves of Sir William and his mistress. In the seventeenth century, to be sure, Lewis the Fourteenth was a much more important person than Temple's sweetheart. But death and time equalise all things. Neither the great King, nor the beauty of Bedfordshire, neither the gorgeous paradise of Marli nor Mistress Osborne's favourite walk "in the common that lay hard by the house, where a great many young wenches used to keep sheep and cows and sit in the shade singing of ballads," is any thing Lewis and Dorothy are alike dust. A cotton-mill stands on the ruins of Marli; and the Osbornes have ceased to dwell under the ancient roof of Chicksands. But of that information for the sake of which alone it is worth while to study remote events, we find so much in the love letters which Mr. Courtenay has published, that we would gladly purchase equally interest-passed the bounds of good-nature. She ing billets with ten times their weight loved reading; but her studies were not in state-papers taken at random. To those of Queen Elizabeth and Lady us surely it is as useful to know how Jane Grey. She read the verses of the young ladies of England employed Cowley and Lord Broghill, French Methemselves a hundred and eighty years moirs recommended by her lover, and ago, how far their minds were culti- the Travels of Fernando Mendez Pinto. vated, what were their favourite studies, But her favourite books were those what degree of liberty was allowed to ponderous French romances which them, what use they made of that modern readers know chiefly from the liberty, what accomplishments they pleasant satire of Charlotte Lennox. most valued in men, and what proofs She could not, however, help laughing of tenderness delicacy permitted them at the vile English into which they were to give to favoured suitors, as to know translated. Her own style is very all about the seizure of Franche Comté agreebale; nor are her letters at all the lery and tenderness are mixed in a very engaging namby-pamby. worse for some passages in which rail- | them; he knew that they were in his power; and he regarded them as a band of malefactors and idolaters, who When at last the constancy of the were mercifully treated if they were lovers had triumphed over all the ob- not smitten with the edge of the sword. stacles which kinsmen and rivals could On those who resisted he had made oppose to their union, a yet more serious war as the Hebrews made war on the calamity befell them. Poor Mistress Canaanites. Drogheda was as Jericho; Osborne fell ill of the small-pox, and, and Wexford as Ai. To the remains though she escaped with life, lost all of the old population the conqueror her beauty. To this most severe trial granted a peace, such as that which the affection and honour of the lovers Israel granted to the Gibeonites. He of that age was not unfrequently sub-made them hewers of wood and drawers jected. Our readers probably remem- of water. But, good or bad, he could ber what Mrs. Hutchinson tells us of not be otherwise than great. Under faherself. The lofty Cornelia-like spirit of the aged matron seems to melt into a long-forgotten softness when she relates how her beloved Colonel "married her as soon as she was able to quit the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her were affrighted to look on her. But God," she adds, with a not ungraceful vanity, "recompensed his jus-angels, with some high commission of tice and constancy, by restoring her as well as before." Temple showed on this occasion the same justice and constancy which did so much honour to Colonel Hutchinson. The date of the marriage is not exactly known. But Mr. Courtenay supposes it to have taken place about the end of the year 1654. From this time we lose sight of Dorothy, and are reduced to form our opinion of the terms on which she and her husband were from very slight indications which may easily mislead us. vourable circumstances, Ireland would have found in him a most just and beneficent ruler. She found in him a tyrant; not a small teasing tyrant, such as those who have so long been her curse and her shame, but one of those awful tyrants who, at long intervals, seem to be sent on earth, like avenging destruction and renovation. He was no man of half measures, of mean affronts and ungracious concessions. His Protestant ascendency was not an ascendency of ribands, and fiddles, and statues, and processions. He would never have dreamed of abolishing the penal code and withholding from Catholics the elective franchise, of giving them the elective franchise and excluding them from Parliament, of admitting them to Parliament, and refusing to them a full and equal parTemple soon went to Ireland, and re-ticipation in all the blessings of society sided with his father, partly at Dublin, and government. The thing most alien partly in the county of Carlow. Ire- from his clear intellect and his comland was probably then a more agree-manding spirit was petty persecution. able residence for the higher classes, as compared with England, than it has ever been before or since. In no part of the empire were the superiority of Cromwell's abilities and the force of his character so signally displayed. He had not the power, and probably had not the inclination, to govern that island in the best way. The rebellion of the aboriginal race had excited in England a strong religious and national aversion to them; nor is there any reason to believe that the Protector was so far beyond his age as to be free from the prevailing sentiment. He had vanquished He knew how to tolerate; and he knew how to destroy. His administration in Ireland was an administration on what are now called Orange principles, followed out most ably, most steadily, most undauntedly, most unrelentingly, to every extreme consequence to which those principles lead; and it would, if continued, inevitably have produced the effect which he contemplated, an entire decomposition and reconstruction of society. He had a great and definite object in view, to make Ireland thoroughly English, to make Ireland another Yorkshire or Norfolk. Thinly regular plantations of trees, and fences and inclosures raised throughout the kingdom, purchases made by one from another at very valuable rates, and jointures made upon marriages, and all other conveyances and settlements executed, as in a kingdom at peace within itself, and where no doubt could be made of the validity of titles." peopled as Ireland then was, this end was not unattainable; and there is every reason to believe that, if his policy had been followed during fifty years, this end would have been attained. Instead of an emigration, such as we now see from Ireland to England, there was, under his government, a constant and large emigration from England to Ireland. This tide of All Temple's feelings about Irish population ran almost as strongly as questions were those of a colonist and that which now runs from Massachu- a member of the dominant caste. He setts and Connecticut to the states be- troubled himself as little about the hind the Ohio. The native race was welfare of the remains of the old Celtic driven back before the advancing van population, as an English farmer on of the Anglo-Saxon population, as the the Swan River troubles himself about American Indians or the tribes of the New Hollanders, or a Dutch boor Southern Africa are now driven back at the Cape about the Caffres. The before the white settlers. Those fearful years which he passed in Ireland, while phænomena which have almost invari- the Cromwellian system was in full ably attended the planting of civi-operation, he always described as lised colonies in uncivilised countries," years of great satisfaction." Farmand which had been known to the ing, gardening, county business, and nations of Europe only by distant and studies rather entertaining than proquestionable rumour, were now pub- found, occupied his time. In politics licly exhibited in their sight. The he took no part, and many years later words, extirpation," eradication," "he attributed this inaction to his love were often in the mouths of the En- of the ancient constitution, which, he glish back-settlers of Leinster and Mun- said, "would not suffer him to enter ster, cruel words, yet, in their cruelty, into public affairs till the way was plain containing more mercy than much for the King's happy restoration." softer expressions which have since does not appear, indeed, that any offer been sanctioned by universities and of employment was made to him. If cheered by Parliaments. For it is in he really did refuse any preferment, we truth more merciful to extirpate a hun- may, without much breach of charity, dred thousand human beings at once attribute the refusal rather to the cauand to fill the void with a well-governed tion which, during his whole life, prepopulation, than to misgovern millions vented him from running any risk, than through a long succession of genera- to the fervour of his loyalty. tions. We can much more easily pardon tremendous severities inflicted for a great object, than an endless series of paltry vexations and oppressions inflicted for no rational object at all. 66 66 Ireland was fast becoming English. Civilisation and wealth were making rapid progress in almost every part of the island. The effects of that iron despotism are described to us by a hostile witness in very remarkable language. "Which is more wonderful," says Lord Clarendon, "all this was done and settled within little more than two years, to that degree of perfection that there were many buildings raised for beauty as well as use, orderly and It In 1660 he made his first appearance in public life. He sat in the convention which, in the midst of the general confusion that preceded the Restoration, was summoned by the chiefs of the army of Ireland to meet in Dublin. After the King's return an Irish parliament was regularly convoked, in which Temple represented the county of Carlow. The details of his conduct in this situation are not known to us. But we are told in general terms, and can easily believe, that he showed great moderation, and great aptitude for business. It is probable that he also distinguished himself in debate; for many years afterwards he remarked In May, 1663, the Irish parliament was prorogued, and Temple repaired to England with his wife. His income amounted to about five hundred pounds a-year, a sum which was then sufficient for the wants of a family mixing in fashionable circles. He passed two years in London, where he seems to have led that easy, lounging life which was best suited to his temper. that "his friends in Ireland used to to the falling fortunes of a minister the think that, if he had any talent at all, study of whose life was to offend all it lay in that way." parties. Arlington, whose influence was gradually rising as that of Clarendon diminished, was the most useful patron to whom a young adventurer could attach himself. This statesman, without virtue, wisdom, or strength of mind, had raised himself to greatness by superficial qualities, and was the mere creature of the time, the circumstances, and the company. The dignified reserve of manners which he had He was not, however, unmindful of acquired during a residence in Spain his interest. He had brought with him provoked the ridicule of those who letters of introduction from the Duke considered the usages of the French of Ormond, then Lord-Lieutenant of court as the only standard of good Ireland, to Clarendon, and to Henry breeding, but served to impress the Bennet, Lord Arlington, who was Se-crowd with a favourable opinion of his cretary of State. Clarendon was at the sagacity and gravity. In situations head of affairs. But his power was where the solemnity of the Escurial visibly declining, and was certain to would have been out of place, he threw decline more and more every day. An it aside without difficulty, and conobserver much less discerning than versed with great humour and vivacity. Temple might easily perceive that the While the multitude were talking of Chancellor was a man who belonged "Bennet's grave looks," his mirth to a by-gone world, a representative of made his presence always welcome in a past age, of obsolete modes of think-the royal closet. While Buckingham, ing, of unfashionable vices, and of more in the antechamber, was mimicking the unfashionable virtues. His long exile had made him a stranger in the country of his birth. His mind, heated by conflict and by personal suffering, was far more set against popular and tolerant courses than it had been at the time of the breaking out of the civil war. He pined for the decorous tyranny of the old Whitehall; for the days of that sainted king who deprived his people of their money and their ears, but let their wives and daughters alone; and could scarcely reconcile himself to a court with a seraglio and without a Star-chamber. By taking this course he made himself every day more odious, both to the sovereign, who loved pleasure much more than prerogative, and to the people, who dreaded royal prerogatives much more than royal pleasures; and thus he was at last more detested by the Court than any chief of the Opposition, and more detested by the Parliament than any pandar of the Court. Temple, whose great maxim was to offend no party, was not likely to cling pompous Castilian strut of the Secre- He "Bennet's grave looks were a pretence is a line in one of the best political poems of that age. one for the public, whom he wished to | ducted. France had espoused the inawe into respect, and a gay one for terests of the States-General. DenCharles, who thought that the greatest mark seemed likely to take the same service which could be rendered to a side. Spain, indignant at the close prince was to amuse him. Yet both political and matrimonial alliance these were masks which he laid aside which Charles had formed with the when they had served their turn. Long House of Braganza, was not disposed after, when he had retired to his deer- to lend him any assistance. The great park and fish-ponds in Suffolk, and plague of London had suspended trade, had no motive to act the part either of had scattered the ministers and nobles, the hidalgo or of the buffoon, Evelyn, had paralysed every department of the who was neither an unpractised nor an public service, and had increased the undiscerning judge, conversed much gloomy discontent which misgovernwith him, and pronounced him to be ment had begun to excite throughout a man of singularly polished manners the nation. One continental ally Engand of great colloquial powers. land possessed, the Bishop of Munster, a restless and ambitious prelate, bred a soldier, and still a soldier in all his tastes and passions. He hated the Dutch for interfering in the affairs of his see, and declared himself willing to risk his little dominions for the chance of revenge. He sent, accordingly, a strange kind of ambassador to London, a Benedictine monk, who spoke bad English, and looked, says Lord Clarendon, “ like a carter. This person brought a letter from the Bishop, offering to make an attack by land on the Dutch territory. The English ministers eagerly caught at the proposal, and promised a subsidy of 500,000 rix-dollars to their new ally. It was determined to send an English agent to Munster; and Arlington, to whose department the business belonged, fixed on Temple for this post. Clarendon, proud and imperious by nature, soured by age and disease, and relying on his great talents and services, sought out no new allies. He seems to have taken a sort of morose pleasure in slighting and provoking all the rising talent of the kingdom. His connections were almost entirely confined to the small circle, every day becoming smaller, of old cavaliers who had been friends of his youth or companions of his exile. Arlington, on the other hand, beat up everywhere for recruits. No man had a greater personal following, and no man exerted himself more to serve his adherents. It was a kind of habit with him to push up his dependents to his own level, and then to complain bitterly of their ingratitude because they did not choose to be his dependents any longer. It was thus that he quarrelled with two successive Treasurers, Gifford and Danby. To Arlington Temple attached himself, and was not sparing of warm professions of affection, or even, we grieve to say, of gross and almost profane adulation. In no long time he obtained his reward. Temple accepted the commission, and acquitted himself to the satisfaction of his employers, though the whole plan ended in nothing, and the Bishop, finding that France had joined Holland, made haste, after pocketing an instalment of his subsidy, to conclude a separate peace. Temple, at England was in a very different a later period, looked back with no situation with respect to foreign powers great satisfaction to this part of his from that which she had occupied life; and excused himself for underduring the splendid administration of taking a negotiation from which little the Protector. She was engaged in good could result, by saying that he war with the United Provinces, then was then young and very new to busigoverned with almost regal power by ness. In truth, he could hardly have the Grand Pensionary, John de Witt; been placed in a situation where the and though no war had ever cost eminent diplomatic talents which he the kingdom so much, none had ever possessed could have appeared to less been more feebly and meanly con-advantage. He was ignorant of the |