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mortal; and he addressed himself to die, not merely with the grace and dignity of the old Roman, but with the fortitude and trusting faith of the true Christian-first despatching letters of counsel to the Parliament,' and then receiving the sacrament at the hands of the Rector of Chinnor, according to the forms of the Church of England, declaring he thought its doctrine in the greater part primitive and conformable to God's Word, as in Holy Scripture revealed.' At length, being well nigh spent and labouring for breath,' he turned himself to die in prayer; and his last words

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The House in which Hampden died,

were, O Lord, save my bleeding country. Have these realms in thy special keeping. Let the King sce his error, and turn the hearts of his wicked counsellors.' So died

The noblest Roman of them all!'

He died at the moment when the issue of the contest was very doubtful, and when his generous and considerate counsels were needed most. The best tributes to his character are not those of his friends, but of his personal opponents and political enemies. Charles himself, it is said, offered to send his own surgeon to the Patriot's bedside; and Clarendon, in after years, however, that the honour is claimed by other old houses in the village, although the balance of evidence is in favour of this.

bore testimony to his genius, his courage, and his integrity.

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Many men

observed,' writes Clarendon, that Chalgrove field, the place on which he received his death-wound, was the same place in which he had first executed the ordinance of the militia, and engaged that country, in which his reputation was very great, in this rebellion.' Strange if it were so! strange that he should, like the hunted stag, return to die where he was roused.*

Had he lived to see the final issue of the contest for Liberty, there is little doubt that the one dismal act for which two centuries have vainly sought an excuse, would have been avoided. 'He was, in truth, a very wise man, and of great parts; temperate in diet, a supreme governor over all his passions and affections; and it is clear that the king lost far more than he gained by the death of John Hampden. Such is, indeed, the testimony of the friends as well as the enemies of the unhappy King, whose fate deducts so largely from the heroism of a remarkable epoch; an epoch fertile of strong minds and great hearts, in men who, whatever may have been their errors, truly and deeply loved the country for which so many of them perished on the scaffold and in the field.

Surely this village, this house, and this church, are shrines which all Englishmen should visit as pilgrim-students. Great acts from high motives. may be taught here; in the patriotism of this Patriot there was no atom of selfishness; no self-glory stirred him on; the 'rare modesty' by which he was distinguished when the business of ship-money' made him the argument of all tongues,' marked him through his whole career; no thought had he of a monument to record his mighty services to his country—as little as his descedants who have given him none !

Such of the soldiers of the Parliament as could be spared from the several adjacent quarters of the army were gathered together to accompany the corpse of their honoured leader to his grave, in Hampden Church; they marched to the sad music of the muffled drum and with reversed arms, through the lanes and over the hills of the Chilterns; as they conducted the body to the grave, the soldiers chaunted the 90th psalm :

"In the morning they are like grass which groweth up in the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down and withereth."

On their return from the interment, they sung the 43rd psalm :

"Judge me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation: O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man.

"Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance and my God."

The pilgrim to this shrine will, however, find memories of Hampden all about him-memories that cannot perish, for they exist with Nature.

And what a holy scene it was when the veterans, and the young men, of his regiment bore across the Chilterns the body of John Hampden, to lay it under foot in this lonely village church! chaunting psalms as they marched; a sad funeral procession of true mourners; their arms reversed, their drums muffled, and their heads uncovered. It was no hard task upon imagination to recal this solemn scene; as we looked along the landscape towards Oxfordshire, and traced the route they must have taken; a band of steel-clad men with their boy-comrades by their sides-branches and saplings of the old tree of British freedom. Weeping aloud, and not ashamed of tears, they enter this church-fill it, as it was never filled before nor since; deposit there the body of their great Leader, and retire -again singing the words of the Psalmist, and wending their way to another battle-field.

THE RESIDENCE OF HANNAH MORE.

N the month of January, 1825-during a fall of sleet and snow, we left Bristol to pay a visit to Hannah More at BARLEY WOOD, her then residence, close to the pretty and retired village of Wrington, in Somersetshire.

Trembling on the threshold of a Life of Literature -quivering with apprehension as to what our fate might be if we dared to pass its iron gates, and ask to sit in the awful presence of those who had raised

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the veil of the Inner Temple,

:

'whose names

In Fame's eternal volume live for aye!'

a note of invitation from Hannah More, written by her own hand, was an event that made the heart thrill with delight-not altogether unallied to fear and even now, after the lapse of more than a quarter of a century, with its mingled burthen of triumphs and depressions, it recals one of the most impressive memories of a long and active career of authorship to which that valuable and admirable woman was the earliest, if not the strongest, prompter. We had previously made acquaintance with many memorable women of the epoch: we had bowed to the turbaned head of Miss Benger; gossipped with Miss Spence; been affectionately greeted by the excellent and accomplished sisters, Jane and Maria Porter; attracted, as by a golden link, to the lofty genius and generous heart of unhappy Lætitia Landon;

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corresponded with Felicia Hemans; been stirred to activity by honoured and venerated Maria Edgworth; and received from good Barbara Hoffland encouragement to 'appear in print'-notwithstanding the too popular opinion which refuses faith in the possibility that women may think and write and yet keep their homes in order, and augment the comforts of all around them. But none of these had inspired us with the awe which seemed inseparable from the idea of an interview with Hannah More, whose great work in life had been accomplished before we entered it; whose lessons had been our guides from youth upwards, and whose friends were the now buried immortalities of a gone-by age. Her Strictures on Female Education' had been our Polar Star from infancy; and its author could not fail to be, in imagination, so wise, so lofty, so self-contained, so far above, and so different from, all other women, that while we eagerly desired, we feared, to meet her.

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The snow was deep on the ground, and the friends with whom we sojourned said it was madness to set out for Wrington on such a morning, particularly as the venerable lady's hours of reception were but from twelve till three; but we were decided, and the journey of some ten miles was passed in speculations as to what she would say, how she would look-and also as to what we should say! Say?' why nothing; how could we speak to Hannah More, or before Hannah More! who had depicted so truthfully the character of Lucilla Stanley' in Colebs,' and of course expected every woman to be a Lucilla; who had written Practical Piety,' and 'Christian Morals;' who had suggested to Royalty how a Princess should be educated, who had been complimented by Dr. Johnson, who had sat to Sir Joshua Reynolds, exchanged wit with Sheridan, enjoyed the social eloquence of Burke, had sufficient bravery to set Walpole in the right path, and been the honoured counsellor of Porteus and Wilberforce, and the familiar friend of David Garrick!

We had too much faith in the righteousness of her name—we honoured her too devoutly to imagine her-Mrs. Hannah More-anything like any other human being we had ever seen; we recalled to memory how she had been fêted, and embroidered for,'* by Royalty, we could hardly conceive

* The late Duchess of Gloucester was so charmed by Mrs. Hannah More's work, Hints

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