that they might avoid an act so offensive as that of destroying the brother by the sister's testimony.

The plot was published in the most terrific manner. Ou the 31st of May (1643), at a solemn fast, when they were listening to the sermon, a messenger entered the church, and communicated his errand to Pym, who whispered it to others that were placed near him, and then went with them out of the church, leaving the rest in solicitude and amazement. They immediately sent guards to proper places, and that night apprehended Tomkyns and Waller; having yet traced nothing but that letters had been intercepted, from which it appeared that the parliament and the city were soon to be delivered into the hands of the cavaliers. They perhaps yet knew little themselves, beyond some general and indistinct notices. "But Waller," says Clarendon, "was so confounded with fear and apprehension, that he confessed whatever he had said, heard, thought, or seen; all that he knew of himself, and all that he suspected of others, without concealing any person of what degree or quality soever, or any discourse that he had ever, upon any occasion, entertained with them: what such and such ladies of great honour, to whom, upon the credit of his wit and great reputation, he had been admitted, had spoken to him in their chambers upon the proceedings in the Houses, and how they had encouraged him to oppose them: what correspondence and intercourse they had with some ministers of state at Oxford, and how they had conveyed all intelligence thither." He accused the earl of Portland and lord Conway as co-operating in the transaction; and testified that the earl of Northumberland had declared himself disposed in favour of any attempt that might check the violence of the parliament, and reconcile them to the king.

Tomkyns was seized on the same night with Waller, and appears likewise to have partaken of his cowardice; for he gave notice of Crispe's having obtained from the king a commission of array, of which Clarendon never knew how it was discovered. Tomkyns had buried it in his garden, where, by his direction, it was dug up; and thus the rebels obtained, what Clarendon confesses them to have had, the original copy. It can raise no wonder that they formed one plot out of these two designs, however remote from each other, when they saw the same agent employed in both, and found the commission of array in the hands of

him who was employed in collecting the opinions and af fections of his people. *

Of the plot, thus combined, they took care to make the most. They sent Pym among the citizens, to tell them of their imminent danger, and happy escape; and inform them, that the design was, "to seize the lord mayor and all the committee of militia, and would not spare one of them." They drew up a vow and covenant, to be taken by every member of either House, by which he declared his detestation of all conspiracies against the parliament, and his resolution to detect and oppose them. They then appointed a day of thanksgiving for this wonderful delivery; which shut out, says Clarendon, all doubts whether there had been such a deliverance, and whether the plot was real or fictitious.

On June 11, the earl of Portland and lord Conway were committed, one to the custody of the mayor, and the other of the sheriff: but their lands and goods were not seized. Waller, however, was still to immerse himself deeper in ignominy. The earl of Portland and lord Conway denied the charge; and there was no evidence against them but the confession of Waller, of which undoubtedly many would be inclined to question the veracity. With these doubts he was so much terrified, that he endeavoured to persuade

"The plot," says May, was borrid, and could not possibly have been put in execution without great effusion of blood, as must needs appear by the particular branches of it, which were confessed upon the examinatious of master Waller, master Tomkins, master Challoner, master Hassel, master Blinkhorne, master White, and others the chief actors of it." That which appeared by the Narrative declaration published by authority of Parliament, was to this effect; that 1. They should seize into their custody the king's children. 2. To seize upon several members of both Houses of Parliament, upon the lord mayor of London, and the committee of the militia there, under pretence of bringing them to legal trial. 3. To seize upon all the city's outworks and forts, upon the tower of London, and all the magazines, gates, and other places of importance in the city. 4. To let in the king's forces, to surprise the city with their assist

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ance, and to destroy all those, who should by authority of Parliament be their opposers; and by force of arms to resist all payment imposed by the authority of both Houses for support of those armies employed in their defence. Many other particulars there were," continues Mr. May, "too tedious to relate at large; as what signals should have been given to the king's forces of horse to invade the city; what colours for difference those of the plot should wear to be known to their fellows, and such like. Much heartened they were in this business by a commission of array sent from Oxford at that time from the king to them, and brought secretly to London by a lady, the lady Aubigny, daughter to the earl of Suffolk, a widow ever since the battle of Keynton, where the lord Aubigny her husband was slain. That commission of array was directed from the king to sir Ni cholas Crispe, &c. &c."

Portland to a declaration like his own, by a letter which is extant in Fenton's edition of his works; but this had very little effect: Portland sent (June 29) a letter to the Lords, to tell them, that he "is in custody, as he conceives, without any charge; and that, by what Mr. Waller had threatened him with since he was imprisoned, he doth apprehend a very cruel, long, and ruinous restraint: he therefore prays, that he may not find the effects of Mr. Waller's threats, a long and close imprisonment; but may be speedily brought to a legal trial, and then he is confident the vanity and falsehood of those informations which have been given against him will appear."

In consequence of this letter, the Lords ordered Portland and Waller to be confronted; when the one repeated his charge, and the other his denial. The examination of the plot being continued (July 1,) Thinn, usher of the House of Lords, deposed, that Mr. Waller having had a conference with the lord Portland in an upper rooin, lord Portland said, when he came down, "Do me the favour to tell my lord Northumberland, that Mr. Waller has extremely pressed me to save my own life and his, by throwing the blame upon the lord Conway and the earl of Northumberland." Waller, in his letter to Portland, tells him of the reasons which he could urge with resistless efficacy. in a personal conference; but he overrated his own oratory; his vehemence, whether of persuasion or intreaty, was returned with contempt. One of his arguments with Portland is, that the plot is already known to a woman. This woman was doubtless lady Aubigny, who, upon this occasion, was committed to custody; but who, in reality, when she delivered the commission of array, knew not what it was. The parliament then proceeded against the conspirators, and Tomkyns * and Chaloner were hanged. The earl of Northumberland, being too great for prosecu tion, was only once examined before the Lords. The earl of Portland and lord Conway, persisting to deny the charge, and no testimony but Waller's yet appearing against them, were, after a long imprisonment, admitted to bail. Hassel, the king's messenger, who carried the letters to Oxford, died the night before his trial. Hampden escaped

*Waller's influence at this time must have been very low, when it served just to save his own life, but not that of his sister's husband; or his

feelings must have been strangely blunted, if he was not sensible of the meanness of his own escape, and the disgrace now inflicted on his family.

death, perhaps by the interest of his family, but was kept in prison to the end of his life. They whose names were inserted in the commission of array were not capitally punished, as it could not be proved that they had consented to their own nomination: but they were considered as malignants, and their estates were seized.

"Waller," says Clarendon, whom we have already quoted on this point, "though confessedly the most guilty, with incredible dissimulation, affected such a remorse of conscience, that his trial was put off, out of Christian compassion, till he might recover his understanding." What use he made of this interval, with what liberality and success he distributed flattery and money, and how, when he was brought (July 4) before the House, he confessed and lamented, and submitted and implored, may be read in the History of the Rebellion (B. vii.). The speech, to which Clarendon ascribes the preservation of his dearbought life, is inserted in his works. The great historian, however, seems to have been mistaken in relating that he prevailed in the principal part of his supplication, not to be tried by a council of war; for, according to Whitlock, he was by expulsion from the House abandoned to the tribunal which he so much dreaded, and, being tried and condemned, was reprieved by Essex; but after a year's imprisonment, in which time resentment grew less acrimonious, paying a fine of ten thousand pounds, he was permitted to recollect himself in another country. Of his behaviour in this part of his life, Johnson justly says, it is not necessary to direct the reader's opinion.

For the place of his exile he chose France, and stayed some time at Roan, where his daughter Margaret was born, who was afterwards his favourite, and his amanuensis. He then removed to Paris, where he lived with great splendour and hospitality; and from time to time amused himself with poetry, in which he sometimes speaks of the rebels, and their usurpation, in the natural language of an honest man. At last it became necessary for his support, to sell his wife's jewels, and being thus reduced, he solicited from Cromwell permission to return, and obtained it by the interest of colonel Scroop, to whom his sister was married. Upon the remains of his fortune he lived at Halibarn, a house built by himself, very near to Beaconsfield, where his mother resided. His mother, though

related to Cromwell and Hampden, was zealous for the royal cause, and when Cromwell visited her used to reproach him; he, in return, would throw a napkin at her, and say he would not dispute with his aunt; but finding int time that she acted for the king as well as talked, he made her a prisoner to her own daughter, in her own house. This daughter was Mrs. Price, who is said to have betrayed her brother.

Cromwell, now protector, received Waller, as his kinsman, to familiar conversation. Waller, as he used to relate, found him sufficiently versed in ancient history; and when any of his enthusiastic friends came to advise or consult him, could sometimes overhear him discoursing in the cant of the times; but, when he returned, he would say, "Cousin Waller, I must talk to these men in their own way," and resumed the common style of conversation. He repaid the Protector for his favours, in 1654, by the famous panegyric, which has been always considered as the first of his poetical productions. His choice of encomiastic topics is very judicious; for he considers Cromwell in his exaltation, without inquiring how he attained it; there is consequently, says Johnson, no mention of the rebel or the regicide. All the former part of his hero's life is veiled with shades; and nothing is brought to view but the chief, the governor, the defender of England's honour, and the enlarger of her dominion. The act of violence by which he obtained the supreme power is lightly treated, and decently justified. In the poem on the war with Spain are some passages at least equal to the best parts of the panegyrick; and, in the conclusion, the poet ventures yet a higher flight of flattery, by recommending royalty to Cromwell and the nation. Cromwell was very desirous, as appears from his conversation, related by Whitlock, of adding the title to the power of monarchy, and is supposed to have been withheld from it partly by fear of the army, and partly by fear of the laws, which, when he should govern by the name of king, would have restrained his authority. The poem on the death of the Protector seems to have been

that the patriot Hampden was first consin both to Cromwell and to Waller, and Cromwell therefore used to call Waller's mother aunt, and Waller cousin.

*This seems a mistake. What has of Cromwell. Yet Mr. Noble states given rise to the notion that Waller was a relation of Cromwell, was their always calling cousin, a usual custom at that time, where any family connexions were, though the parties were not actually allied.-Noble's Memoirs