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The Character of the Honourable W. Hastings, of Woodlands in Hampshire, second Son of Francis, Earl of Huntingdon.

In the year 1638 lived Mr. Hastings; by his quality, son, brother, and uncle to the Earls of Huntingdon, He was, peradventure, an original in our age; or rather the copy of our ancient nobility, in hunting not in warlike times.

'He was low, very strong, and very active; of a reddish flaxen hair. His clothes always green cloth, and never all worth (when new) five pounds.

• His house was perfectly of the old fashion, in the midst of a large park well stocked with deer, and near the house, rabbits to serve his kitchen; many fish-ponds; great store of wood and timber: a bowling green in it, long but narrow, full of high ridges, it being never levelled since it was ploughed. They used round sand-bowls; and it had a banquetinghouse like a stand, built in a tree.

He kept all manner of sport hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger; and hawks, long and short-winged. He had all sorts of nets for fish. He had a walk in the New Forest, and the manor of Christ Church. This last supplied him with red deer, sea and river-fish. And indeed all his neighbours' grounds and royalties were free to him, who bestowed all his time on these sports, but what he borrowed to caress his neighbours' wives and daughters; there being not a woman in all his walks, of

* Connoisseur,' No. 81. "The picture of the extraordinary gentleman, here described, is now at the seat of Lord Shaftesbury at Winborne St. Giles near Cranborn in Dorsetshire; and this lively character of him was really and truly drawn by Antony Ashley Cooper, first Earl of Shaftesbury, and is inscribed on the picture."

the degree of a yeoman's wife or under, and under the age of forty, but it was extremely her fault if he was not intimately acquainted with her. This made him very popular: always speaking kind to the husband, brother, or father; who was, to boot, very welcome to his house whenever he came. There he found beef, pudding, and small-beer in great plenty ; a house not so neatly kept as to shame him or his dirty shoes; the great hall strewed with marrowbones, full of hawk's perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers; the upper side of the hall hung with foxskins of this and the last year's killing; here and there a pole-cat intermixed; game-keepers' and hunters' poles in great abundance.

• The parlour was a large room as properly furnished. On the great hearth, paved with brick, lay some terriers, and the choicest hounds and spaniels. Seldom but two of the great chairs had litters of young cats in them, which were not to be disturbed, he having always three or four attending him at dinner; and a little white stick of fourteen inches lying by his trencher, that he might defend such meat as he had no mind to part with to them. The windows (which were very large) served for places to lay his arrows, cross-bows, stone-bows, and other such like accoutrements. The corners of the room full of the best chosen hunting and hawking poles. An oyster-table at the lower end, which was of constant use twice a day all the year round: for he never failed to eat oysters before dinner and supper through all seasons; the neighbouring town of Pool supplied him with them.

The upper part of the room had two small tables and a desk, on one side of which was a churchBible, and on the other the Book of Martyrs. On the tables were hawks' hoods, bells, and such like;

two or three old green hats with their crowns thrust in so as to hold ten or a dozen eggs, which were of a pheasant kind of poultry he took much care of and fed himself. Tables, dice, cards, and boxes were not wanting. In the hole of the desk, were store of tobacco-pipes that had been used.

• On one side of this end of the room was the door of a closet, wherein stood the strong beer and the wine, which never came thence but in single glasses; that being the rule of the house exactly observed. For he never exceeded in drink, or permitted it.

On the other side was the door of an old chapel, not used for devotion. The pulpit, as the safest place, was never wanting of a cold chine of beef, venison-pasty, gammon of bacon, or great apple-pye with thick crust extremely baked.

His table cost him not much, though it was good to eat at. His sports supplied all but beef and mutton, except Fridays, when he had the best salt-fish (as well as other fish) he could get, and was the day his neighbours of best quality most visited him. He never wanted a London pudding, and always sung it in with My part lies therein a.' He drank a glass or two of wine at meals, very often syrup of gilliflower in his sack; and had always a tun glass without feet stood by him, holding a pint of small beer, which he often stirred with rosemary.

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'He was well-natured, but soon angry, calling his servants bastards' and 'cuckoldy' knaves, in one of which he often spoke truth to his own knowledge; and sometimes in both, though of the same man. He lived to be a hundred; never lost his eye-sight, but always wrote and read without spectacles; and got on horseback without help. Until past fourscore, he rode to the death of a stag as well as any.'

171

ALGERNON SIDNEY.*

[1622-1683.]

THIS illustrious character, the second son of Robert Earl of Leicester by his wife Dorothy, eldest daughter of Henry Percy Earl of Northumberland, was born about the year 1622. His noble father gave great attention to his education, even in his early years; and in 1632, when he went Embassador to Denmark, took him in his train, as he did also when in the same capacity he visited Paris in 1636. About this time, his genius began to display itself: and an active life seeming best suited to the bent of his natural disposition, the Earl, upon being appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, procured him a commission in his own regiment of horse in 1641; and sent him over to that kingdom, accompanied by his elder brother, Philip Viscount Lisle, who acted as deputy to his father. The Irish rebellion had then broken out; and Sidney upon many occasions distinguished himself by his bravery.

In 1643, he had the royal permission to return to England with his brother, on the express condition of

* AUTHORITIES. General Biographical Dictionary, Memoirs prefixed to Hollis' Edition of his Works, and Towers' Examination, &c. of the Charges brought against Russell and Sidney, 1773.

repairing without loss of time to his Majesty at Oxford; of which the parliament receiving intelligence, they were both taken into custody upon their landing in Lancashire. The King suspected, that they had voluntarily thrown themselves into his enemies' hands; and the event appeared to justify his surmises, for from this time they adhered to the parliamentary interest. In 1644, Algernon accepted a Captain's commission of horse; and, the year following, was raised to the rank of Colonel of Cavalry by General Fairfax.

Lord Lisle being shortly afterward appointed by the parliament Lieutenant General of Ireland, and Commander in Chief of their Irish forces, Algernon (who served under his brother in that kingdom) performed such signal exploits, that he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General of the Irish Horse, and made Governor of Dublin. The latter appointment however, being thought too weighty a trust for so young a man, who was likewise somewhat dissi pated in his conduct, was in 1647 transferred to Colonel Jones, a senior officer. But upon his return to England, he received the thanks of the House of Commons for his exertions in the sister-island; and, in recompence of his services, was soon afterward made Governor of Dover Castle. In 1648, he was nominated one of the Members of the High Court of Justice, appointed to try Charles I.; but, from some cause or other yet unascertained, he neither sat in judgement upon that occasion, nor does his name appear in the warrant for his execution. Yet was he, on patriotic grounds, a zealous foe to tyranny of every description, always professing to make Marcus Brutus his model: so that, when Cromwell usurped the supreme authority, he opposed him with great

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