The references to Digby in various parts of the History show the interest—­sometimes an amused interest—­that Clarendon took in his strange and erratic character.  ’The temper and composition of his mind was so admirable, that he was always more pleased and delighted that he had advanced so far, which he imputed to his virtue and conduct, than broken or dejected that his success was not answerable, which he still charged upon second causes, for which he could not be accountable’ (vol. iv, p. 122).  ’He was a person of so rare a composition by nature and by art, (for nature alone could never have reached to it,) that he was so far from being ever dismayed by any misfortune, (and greater variety of misfortunes never befell any man,) that he quickly recollected himself so vigorously, that he did really believe his condition to be improved by that ill accident’ (id., p. 175).  But the interest is shown above all by the long study of Digby that he wrote at Montpelier in 1669.  It was first printed in his State Papers, 1786, vol. iii, supplement, pp. li-lxxiv.  The manuscript—­a transcript revised by Clarendon—­is in the Bodleian Library, Clarendon MS. 122, pp. 1-48.

Page 120, l. 8. the other three, Sir John Culpeper, or Colepeper; Lord Falkland; and Clarendon.

Page 121, l. 2. sharpe reprehension.  ’He was committed to the Fleet in June 1634, but released in July, for striking Mr. Crofts in Spring Garden, within the precincts of the Court. Cal.  Dom.  State.  Papers, 1634-5 (1864), pp. 81, 129’—­Macray, vol. i, p. 461.

Shaftesbury gives a brief sketch of him at this time in his fragmentary autobiography:  ’The Earl of Bristoll was retired from all business and lived privately to himself; but his son the Lord Digby, a very handsome young man of great courage and learning and of a quick wit, began to show himself to the world and gave great expectations of himself, he being justly admired by all, and only gave himself disadvantage with a pedantic stiffness and affectation he had contracted.’

l. 19.  As Baron Digby, during the lifetime of his father; June 9, 1641.

Page 123, l. 5. a very unhappy councell, the impeachment and attempted ‘Arrest of the Five Members’, January 3 and 4, 1642.  Compare Clarendon, vol. i, p. 485:  ’And all this was done without the least communication with any body but the Lord Digby, who advised it.’

31.

Clarendon, MS. Life, p. 389, and MS. History, p. 25 (or 597); History, Bk.  XI, ed. 1704, vol. iii, pp. 210-11; ed.  Macray, vol. iv, pp. 510-11.