here beheld; and a more happy society than you were ever of before. Surely Brook and Pim, and Hamden, and White, &c., are now members of a more knowing, unerring, well-ordered, right ayming, self-denying, unanimous, honorable, triumphant senate, than this from whence they were taken is, or ever parliament will be. It is better to be a doorkeeper to that assembly, whither I wish we are translated, than to have continued here the moderator of this. That is the true Parliamentum Beatum, the blessed parliament, and that is the only church that cannot erre."

The testimony of these famous divines puts utterly to flight the vile and mad rumors which the royalists malignantly raised against the moral reputations of Hampden and Pym, especially the latter. It is incredible that men like Baxter and Marshall would have so

written or so spoken, had not such reports been empty as the wind. The accusation, commonly believed among the royalists, that Pym died of a loathsome disease, is a calumny which only party malice could have invented, and was disproved by post-mortem dissection.

Before we leave Hampden Manor, we may recall the fact that it was the place of Baxter's residence during the period of the great plague of London. He was then visiting his beloved friend, Mr. Richard Hampden, "the true heir of his famous father's sincerity, piety, and devotedness to God." From this place he returned to Acton, in March, 1666, to find "the church-yard like a ploughed field with graves, and many of his neighbors dead."

CHAPTER V.

ÁIMINGS AT THE IMPOSSIBLE.

"With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up-hill rolls Sisyphus his huge round stone.

The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,

Thunders impetuous down, and foams along the ground."

POPE.

THE old town of Kimbolton, in the county of Huntingdon, has not much to recommend it, except to an historical antiquary. Yet it is situated in the midst of agreeable and quietly-varied scenery, stands amidst rich slopes of arable land, and is in the immediate adjacency of a ducal residence with an extensive park. The town itself is small, and its situation shows that in former times it had nestled as closely as possible to the baronial castle which stood there, for protection. To many readers the name of Kimbolton will at once recall the remembrance of an important history and a despotic tyrant ; of a faithless husband, an injured wife, and of a course of ecclesiastical oppression which has, from that day to this, been the fruitful source of misconduct and disorder. Kimbolton was the residence, after her divorce, of Katharine of Arragon, the first and not least injured wife of Henry VIII. One of Shakspeare's best scenes points hither:

66 Griff. How does your grace?

"Kath.

O Griffith, sick to death;

My legs, like loaden branches, bow to the earth,

Willing to leave their burden.

Now I am past all comforts here but prayers.

Remember me

In all humility unto his highness:
Say his long trouble now is passing

Out of this world; tell him in death I blessed him,
And so I will. Mine eyes grow dim. - Farewell,
My lord Griffith, farewell—I must to bed;

Call in more women.- -When I am dead, good wench,
Let me be used with honor; strew me o'er
With maiden flowers, that all the world may know
I was a chaste wife to my grave; embalm me,
Then lay me forth; although unqueened, yet like
A queen and daughter to a king inter me;

At this time Kimbolton Castle is represented as being "double dyked, and the building of it metely strong;" in short, totally unlike the aspect it presents at the present day. Kimbolton Castle has for centuries belonged to the Montagus. This name was derived from a town in Normandy; and as it was convenient to write it in Latin "De Monteacuto," it was sometimes termed in English Montacute. Little of the baronial style characterizes the present residence of the Dukes of Manchester. The associations which this chapter is intended to connect with Kimbolton belonged to it when it was very different from that in which it now appears.

No man occupied a more prominent position during the early history of the Commonwealth than Edward, afterwards known by the name of the Earl of Manchester. His father was Lord Privy Seal in the reign of James, and had passed, as Clarendon tells us, through all the eminent degrees in the law and in the state;" but, losing the favor of the court, had been left with the empty title of President of the Council, and, to make amends, had been created Viscount Mandeville, and, in James' latter days, Earl of Manchester. He died about the opening of the great civil war. His son, of whom we now principally write, had been one of Prince Charles' attendants during the expedition to Spain, but being of uncourtly principles, and being also known strongly to favor puri

tanism, he had become unacceptable to his royal patron. His first marriage was to a relative of the Duke of Buckingham, by whose influence he was raised to the peerage whilst his father was yet living, under the designation of Baron of Kimbolton. His first wife being dead, he married as his second wife the daughter of the Earl of Warwick. This alliance naturally tended to increase his predilections in favor of the puritans; for Warwick, though himself of facetious manners, is well known to have greatly encouraged and protected that religious party. After this marriage, Lord Mandeville gradually withdrew himself from court, and formed a strict alliance with many noblemen and gentlemen of similar views. Clarendon says, “There was a kind of fraternity of many persons of good condition, who chose to live together in one family at a gentleman's house of fair fortune." This was probably at Great Stoughton, which lies about three miles south of Kimbolton. Valentine Wauton, or Walton, its proprietor, was member for the county, and his wife was Oliver Cromwell's youngest sister. Between this family and Cromwell's there was, therefore, a strong alliance; and the reader of "Carlyle's Letters" will remember a striking communication addressed by Cromwell to his brother-inlaw, announcing the death of Walton's son by a cannon-ball at Marston Moor.

Manchester's disposition was in early life frank, generous, and impulsive, and he was in the very centre of all the movements contemplated by the party in opposition, as well as a principal actor in the turbulent scenes of the time. He had the singular honor of being the only peer who was included in the list of the impeached members by the king's proscription.

When, in 1642, Charles, amidst adverse and discouraging omens, first erected his standard at Nottingham, Manchester was appointed to one of the principal posts of command. None was more earnest in the cause of the parliament, but the views of Manchester were narrow and confined; he could not step out of a prescribed circle. That "sweet, meek man," as Baillie terms