spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had minded before with more neatness, and industry, and expense than is usual to so great a soul, he was not now only incurious but too negligent; and in his reception of suitors and the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quick, and sharp, and severe, that there wanted not some men-strangers to his name and disposition-who believed him proud and imperious, from which no mortal man was ever more free.

"When there was any overture or hope of peace he would be more easy and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press any thing which he thought might promote it; and sitting among his friends often after a deep silence and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, ingerminate the word 'Peace! Peace!' and would passionately profess that the very agony of the war, and the calamities and desolation of the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart!

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"In the morning before the battle, as always upon action he was very cheerful, and put himself into the first ranks of the Lord Byron's regiment, then advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers, from whence he was shot with a musket, and in the instant fell from his horse. Thus died that incomparable young man, in the fourand-thirtieth year of his age, having so much dispatched the true business of life, that the eldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocency whosoever leads such a life needs be the less anxious upon how short warning it is taken from him."

I had thought to insert, as a companion picture, Lord Clarendon's character of Hampden, but I find, on reference, that it does less justice to its subject and to its author. Such is party spirit!

The second battle of Newbury was fought about a twelvemonth after, the King having come to relieve Donnington Castle, and being suddenly attacked by Waller while at Mr. Dolemna's house at Shaw

I can not attempt more than a brief description of the principal scene of action.

Shaw House is a stately specimen of Tudor architecture, with bay windows, porch and pinnacles, surrounded by magnificent trees, many of which must have been in existence two centuries ago, the clear bright stream of the Lamborne-that Lamborne which a thousand of the train-bands forded the morning of the combat-flowing peacefully through the park, and the intrenchments thrown up for the defense of the mansion, now forming the turfy boundaries of a bright flower-garden and a velvet bowling-green. A brass plate near an upper window now overhang ing the brilliant beds of scarlet geraniums and golden calceolaria, marks the place where a cannon-ball lodged, fired at the King as he was shaving in his chamber, and various other reliques of sharp attack and desperate resistance, are carefully preserved in the house, the condition of which, so perfect in its venerable antiquity, free alike from any symptom of decay or any token of modern renovation, does the highest honor to Mr. Eyre, the present possessor. It would be difficult to point to a spot that appeals more forcibly to the imagination, or is more fitted to be the scene of stirring deeds. Just so it might have looked when the forces of Waller appeared before it, and the train-bands, no longer the scoffed-at holyday soldiers, waded through the stream.

No great result followed: the King with Prince Charles, then a boy, maintaining his ground through the day, and retreating toward Oxford during the following night, but the general effect, as through the whole contest, was disastrous to his cause. Cromwell (for, that no association may be wanting, that great name appears on this occasion) accused Manchester in the Commons of having suffered the royal army to escape through cowardice and lukewarmness, adding that he himself went to him and showed how they might be defeated, and "desired him if he would give him leave with his own brigade of horse to charge the King's army in their retreat, and the earl, with the rest of his army, might look on if he thought fit."

Although the result on the side of the Cavaliers was called by their enemies an escape, and must, perhaps, be considered as a retreat, yet the Royalists could boast, as usual, many instances of individual bravery. Colonel Lisle, in three successful charges near Shaw House, in the first charge "used for his field-word

For the Crown;' in the second For Prince Charles;' in the third For the Duke of York.' Had the enemy returned, he had resolved to have gone over all the King's children until he had not left one rebel to fight against the crown or the royal progeny." Lisle himself fought without defensive armor, and having laid aside his buff doublet, led on his men "in a good Holland shirt," a mode not uncommonly adopted by the Cavaliers for the purpose of inspiring their followers with courage and evincing their own contempt of danger.

The defense of Donnington Castle is one of the most memorable stories of this memorable war. Situate on an abrupt and lofty eminence, this fortress, of which nothing now remains but two towers on either side of an arched gateway, and a beautiful hall immediately behind the entrance, was of considerable importance as commanding the main roads between London and the West frequently traversed by the Parliamentarians, and the road between Oxford and Wallingford, the royal strongholds.

A small garrison was thrown into it by the King, at the commencement of the contest; and although besieged with more or less activity to the end, Colonel Boys contrived to maintain the place till the very last, only surrendering it when every other fortress had yielded and all hope was lost. At one time Colonel Horton, after a long blockade, battered it with cannon for twelve days, beating down three towers and a part of the wall. He then summoned the Governor in form, offering quarter if the place were given up by twelve o'clock the next day. Boys treated this summons as he had done all former ones, with contempt, and returned for answer that he would neither give nor receive quarter. The assaults of the besiegers were generally followed by sallies and skirmishes, and endeavors to take the place by sap were equally unsuccessful. A field near the Castle is still called Dalbier's Meadow, in remembrance of one of the Parliamentary leaders who established a battery there; Fairfax himself was among the besiegers; and the day after the second battle of Newbury, the whole army appeared before the Castle, and summoned the Governor and his garrison to surrender it to them, or they would not leave one stone upon another; to which Sir John Boys (having no other means of reward, Charles appears to have knighted this brave soldier) returned this laconic and spirited answer: "That he was not bound to repair the

Castle, but, by God's help, he would keep the ground afterward."

The siege however, with all its glories, forms but a part of the glory of Donnington. It is said upon evidence which appears incontestable that the father of English poetry, almost of the English language, Geoffrey Chaucer, once gazed from this fair hill and inhabited these massive towers. Godwin, who certainly spared no pains in the investigation, and a host of biographers and antiquaries, assume it as an undoubted fact; and local tradition, no mean authority in local questions, comes in aid of their assertion. A noble grove of oaks about half-way down the hill has always borne the name of Chaucer's Grove, and "Chaucer's Head" served as the sign of an old public-house which existed during the present century.

But

The scene is worthy of the poet. The old Castle stands on the brow of a lofty eminence, whose picturesque abruptness may in some places perhaps have been assisted by art, as the steepness of the hill must have formed the chief defense of the fortress. nature has long resumed her rights. The precipitous ascent is everywhere carpeted with turf of the richest verdure, garlanded with hawthorn and trailing plants, and interspersed with forest trees of the noblest growth. The outer wall of the Castle, inclosing the whole table-land of the hill-top, leveled with the earth in many places and ruinous in all, have been taken down and replaced by a lower fence composed of the original stones and clothed with evergreens surrounding a tasteful flower-garden. The towers too, although still bearing visible marks of the ravages of war, have been repaired and wreathed with ivy, and the care taken of this venerable ruin is most honorable to Mrs. Hartley in whose family it has long been. One of the towers containing a geometrical staircase had its walls torn asunder, exposing the steep stone steps, although of such massive strength that it seems like rending a solid rock. The other, less injured by the besieging army, is pierced with loop-holes, mere slits on the outer side but gradually widening within; and there no doubt has stood many a marksman, matchlock in hand, picking off the Roundheads in the valley below.

These towers with their battlements, and the strong-erected entrance with the marks of the portcullis still visible and a basket of shot picked up about the place standing within the gate, speak

of little but war in its sternest form; but the little hall, with its beautiful groined roof, and a certain mixture of rude splendor and homely comfort, which make it even now a most covetable apartment, tell of the genial poet whose healthy, cordial, hearty spirit must have made him the delight of every board, and most especially of his own.

I was much tempted to extract some passage in harmony with this feeling; some bright and life-like portrait from the description of the Canterbury Pilgrims, or that inimitable character of the Good Parson, which among its innumerable merits has none higher than the proof it affords of Chaucer's own love of piety and virtue. But these fine fragments are too well known. I subjoin (taking no other freedom than that of changing the orthography) one of my own favorite bits, less familiar probably to the general reader, but full as it seems to me of tenderness, pathos and truth. Eustance and her infant are banished by her husband, and sent adrift in a vessel.

Weepen both young and old in all that place,
When that the King this cursed letter sent:
And Eustance with a deadly pale face.
The fourthe day toward the ship she went;
But natheless she tak'th in good intent
The will of Christ, and kneeling on the strand
She saide: "Lord, aye welcome be thy sand.

He that me kepte from the false blame
While I was in the land amonges you,

He can me keep from harm and else from shame
In the salt sea, although I see not how;
As strong as ever he was, he is yet now
In him trust I, and in his Mother dear
That is to me my sail and eke my steer."

Her little child lay weeping in her arm,
And kneeling, piteously to him she said-
"Peace, little son, I will do thee no harm."
With that, her kerchief off her head she braid,
And over his little eyen she it laid,

And in her arm she lulleth it full fast,

And into th' Heaven her eyen up she cast.

'Mother,' quod she, and maiden bright Mary!
Soth is that thorough woman's

Mankind was born, and damned aye to die,