Envoy

—­Seal’d of that holy band,
Rest here, beneath the foot-fall hushing sod,
Wrapt in the peace of God,
While summer burns above thee; while the land
Disrobes; till pitying snow
Cover her bareness; till fresh Spring-winds blow,
And the sun-circle rounds itself again:—­
Whilst England cries in vain
For thy wise temperance, Lucius!—­But thine ear
The violent-impotent fever-restless cry,
The faction-yells of triumph, will not hear: 
—­Only the thrush on high
And wood-dove’s moaning sweetness make reply.

Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland, may perhaps be defined as at once the most poetically chivalrous and the most philosophically moderate amongst all who took part in the pre-restoration struggles.  He was killed in the royal army at the first battle of Newbury, Sep. 20, 1643, aged but 33 years, and buried, without mark or memorial, in the church of Great Tew (North Oxfordshire), the manor of which he owned.

English Eastern; The common brake-fern and its allies seem to betray tropical sympathies by their late appearance and sensitiveness to autumnal frost.

That Arlesian plain; Now named the Crau.  It lies between Aries and the sea—­a bare and malarious tract of great size covered with shingle and boulders.  Aeschylus describes it as a ‘snow-shower of round stones,’ which Zeus rained down in aid of Heracles, who was contending with the Ligurians.

Mira; A star in the Whale, conspicuous for its singular and rapid changes of apparent size.

The Cause; After passing through several phases this word, in Cromwell’s mouth, with the common logic of tyranny, became simply a synonym for personal rule.

Smiting with iron heel; The terrorism of the Protector’s government, and the almost universal hatred which it inspired, are powerfully painted by Hallam.  ’To govern according to law may sometimes be an usurper’s wish, but can seldom be in his power.  The protector abandoned all thought of it. . . .  All illusion was now (1655) gone, as to the pretended benefits of the civil war.  It had ended in a despotism, compared to which all the illegal practices of former kings, all that had cost Charles his life and crown, appeared as dust in the balance.’

The blood-path; The trials under which Gerard and Vowel were executed in 1654, Slingsby and Hewit in 1658, are the most flagrant instances of Cromwell’s perversion of justice, and contempt for the old liberties of England.  But they do not stand alone.

Guile and coarseness; ’A certain coarse good nature and affability that covered the want of conscience, honour, and humanity:  quick in passion, but not vindictive, and averse to unnecessary crimes,’ is the deliberate summing-up of Hallam,—­in the love of liberty inferior to none of our historians, and eminent above all for courageous impartiality,—­iustissimus unus.