He now retired to the duties and pleasures of a rural life.  During the eleven years which followed the dissolution of the Parliament of 1628, he resided at his seat in one of the most beautiful parts of the county of Buckingham.  The house, which has since his time been greatly altered, and which is now, we believe, almost entirely neglected, was an old English mansion, built in the days of the Plantagenets and the Tudors.  It stood on the brow of a hill which overlooks a narrow valley.  The extensive woods which surround it were pierced by long avenues.  One of those avenues the grandfather of the great statesman had cut for the approach of Elizabeth; and the opening which is still visible for many miles, retains the name of the Queen’s Gap.  In this delightful retreat, Hampden passed several years, performing with great activity all the duties of a landed gentleman and a magistrate, and amusing himself with books and with field sports.

He was not in his retirement unmindful of his persecuted friends.  In particular, he kept up a close correspondence with Sir John Eliot, who was confined in the Tower.  Lord Nugent has published several of the Letters.  We may perhaps be fanciful; but it seems to us that every one of them is an admirable illustration of some part of the character of Hampden which Clarendon has drawn.

Part of the correspondence relates to the two sons of Sir John Eliot.  These young men were wild and unsteady; and their father, who was now separated from them, was naturally anxious about their conduct.  He at length resolved to send one of them to France, and the other to serve a campaign in the Low Countries.  The letter which we subjoin shows that Hampden, though rigorous towards himself, was not uncharitable towards others, and that his puritanism was perfectly compatible with the sentiments and the tastes of an accomplished gentleman.  It also illustrates admirably what has been said of him by Clarendon:  “He was of that rare affability and temper in debate, and of that seeming humility and submission of judgment, as if he brought no opinion of his own with him, but a desire of information and instruction.  Yet he had so subtle a way of interrogating, and, under cover of doubts, insinuating his objections, that he infused his own opinions into those from whom he pretended to learn and receive them.”

The letter runs thus:  “I am so perfectly acquainted with your clear insight into the dispositions of men, and ability to fit them with courses suitable, that, had you bestowed sons of mine as you have done your own, my judgment durst hardly have called it into question, especially when, in laying the design, you have prevented the objections to be made against it.  For if Mr. Richard Eliot will, in the intermissions of action, add study to practice, and adorn that lively spirit with flowers of contemplation, he will raise our expectations of another Sir Edward Vere, that had this character—­all summer in the field,