Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles

twenty years. The first, which may be called the 'Manuscript History', belongs to 1646-8; the second, the 'Manuscript Life', to 1668-70. They

ory was made for the printers. The work was published at Oxford in three handsome folio volumes in 1702, 1703, and 1704, and became the property of the University. The portions of the 'Manuscript Life' which C

work was built up, and learn how his art developed. We can also judge how closely the printed texts represent what Clarendon had written. The old controversy on the authenticity of the first edition has long been settled.[2] The original editors did their work faithfully according to the editorial standards of their day; and they were well within the latitude allowed them by the terms of Clarendon's instructions when they occasionally omitted a passage, or when

arendon's mind that even in the midst of this crisis he should have been able to begin his History. He began it in Scilly on March 18, 1646-the date is at the head of his manuscript; and once he was settled in Jersey he immediately resumed it. But in writing his History he did not, in these days, think of himself only as an historian. He was a trusted adviser of the defeated party, and he planned his faithful narrative of what he knew so well not solely to vindicate the

l I know, of persons and things, and the oversights and omissions on both sides, in order to what they desired; so that you will believe it will make mad work among friends and foes, if it were published; but out of it enough may be chosen to make a perfect story, and the original kept for their perusal, who may be the wiser for knowing the most secret truths; and you know it will be an easier matter to blot out two sheets, than to write half an one. If I live to finish it (as on my conscience I shall, for I write apace), I intend to seal it up, and have it always with m

t of persons, and deriving the same to posterity, is no less the business of history than the truth of things'.[6] He gave much thought to the character of Falkland, 'whom the next age shall be taught', he was determined, 'to value more than the present did.'[7] Concurrently with the introduction of characters he paid more attention to the literary, as distinct from the didactic, merits of his work. We find him comparing himself with other historians, and considering what Livy and Tacitus would have done in like circumstances. By the spring of 1648 he had brought down his narrative to the opening of the campaign of 1644. Earlier in the year he had been commanded by the King to be ready to rej

st him by the House of Commons in A Discourse, by Way of Vindication of my self, begun on July 24, 1668; he wrote most of his Reflections upon Several Christian Duties, Divine and Moral, a collection of twenty-five essays, some of considerable length, on subjects largely suggested by his own circumstances; and he completed between December 1668 and February 1671 his Contemplations and Reflections upon the Psalms of David, an elaborate exposition extending to well over four hundred folio pages of print, which he had begun at Jersey in 1647. But his great work at this time was his Life, begun on July 23, 1668, and brought down to 1660 by August 1, 1670. It is by far the most elaborate autobiography that had yet been attempted in English. The manuscript consists of over six hundred pages, and each page contains on an average about a thousand words. He wrote with perfect freedom, for this work, unlike the earlier History, was not intended for the eyes of the King, and the didactic days we

h deals with his Chancellorship and his fall, and was not intended 'ever for a public view, or for more than the information of his children'. As its conclusion shows, it was his last work to be completed, but while engaged on it he found time to write much else, including his reply to Hobbes's Leviathan. 'In all this retirement', he could well say, in a passage which reads like his obituary, 'he was very seldom vacant, and then only when he was under some sharp visitation of the gout, from reading excellent books, or writing some animadversions and exercitations of his own, as appears by the papers and notes which he left.' The activity of these yea

prescribed and limited by God himself for the expiration of some of his greatest judgements.'[10] In the seventh year of his banishment he left Moulins f

*

he had still been used to, of the most excellent men in their several kinds that lived in that age; by whose learning, and information, and instruction, he formed his studies, and mended his understanding, and by whose gentleness and sweetness of behaviour, and justice, and virtue, and example, he formed his manners, subdued that pride and suppressed that heat and passion he was naturally inclined to be transported with.' He used often to say, he continues, that 'he never was so proud, or thought himself so good a man, as when he was the worst man in the company'. He cultivated his friendships, it is true, with an eye to his advancement; but it is equally true that he had a nature which invited friendships. He enjoyed to the full the pleasure of living and seeing others live, and a great part of his pleasure consisted in observing how men differed in their habits and foibles. He tells how Ben Jonson did not understand why young Mr. Hyde should neglect the delights of his company at the call of business; how Selden, with all his stupendous learning, was never more studious of anything than his ease; how Earle gave a wrong impression by the negligence of his dress and

your early Co

Flames are with

Time, that if

Mistresses, the

allen in the quarrel, on which side soever.' 'I know myself', he said in the History,[13] 'to be very free from any of those passions which naturally transport men with prejudice towards the persons whom they are obliged to mention, and whose actions they are at liberty to censure.' It was beyond human nature for a man who had lived through what he did to be completely unprejudiced. He did not always scrupulously weigh what he knew would be to the discredit of the Parliamentary leaders, nor did he ignore mere Royalist rumour, as in the character of Pym. But his characters of them are often more favourable than might have been expected. He may show his personal dislike, or even his sense of their

at leisure to draw on his recollections, he made the individual to a greater degree the representative of the type. But the distinction is not clearly marked, and Clarendon may not have suspected it. His habitual detachment was assisted by his exile. The dis

ty, as his manuscripts show, is to make his pen move fast enough. He does not build up his characters. He does not, as many others do, start with the external features in the hope of arriving at the

wick who speaks of the 'scurf commonly on his face'.[14] He says that the younger Vane 'had an unusual aspect', and leaves us wondering what was unusual. His Falkland is an exception, but he adopted a different scale when describing his greatest friend and only hero. Each of his two accounts of Falkland is i

atest character writer should have formed one of the great collections of pictures of 'wits, poets, philosophers, famous and learned Englishmen'.[15] To describe them on p

ailed examination of t

y see the three artic

Historical Review f

ever afford to

ee No. 33, int

troductory note, and No. 3

ble occasionally to insert commas, where seventeenth century printers would have inserted them; but the run of the se

e Papers, 1773, v

er of March 16, 1

of January 8, 1647;

1837, vol.

part 1, § 85; omitted i

ters by Clarendon in this volume, twent

Papers, 1786, vol.

lmost exactly with Milton's. He was two months

ecember 14, 164

x, ad init.; ed. Mac

See note, p. 1

'The Clarendon Gallery' in Lady Theresa Lewis's Lives of the friends