“ He appealed to Englishmen of the seventeenth century like no other historian. They felt the human interest of a narrative based on what the writer had experienced for himself; and they found that its political wisdom could be applied, or even applied itself spontaneously, to their own circumstances. They were widely read in the classics. They knew how Plutarch depicted character in his Lives, and Cicero in his Speeches. They knew all the Latin historians. But when they wrote their own characters their chief master was Tacitus. ”

“ He had the art of making all people grow fond of him at first, by a softness in his whole way of conversation, as he was certainly the best bred man of the age. But when it appeared how little could be built on his promise, they were cured of the fondness that he was apt to raise in them. When he saw young men of quality, who had something more than ordinary in them, he drew them about him, and set himself to corrupt them both in religion and morality ”

“ The debt to French literature can easily be overstated. No French influence is discoverable in the origin and rise of the English character, nor in its form or manner; but its later development may have been hastened by French example, especially during the third quarter of the seventeenth century.
France was the home of the mémoire, the personal record in which the individual portrays himself as the centre of his world, and describes events and persons in the light of his own experience. ”

“ The art of literary portraiture in the seventeenth century developed with the effort to improve the writing of history. Its first and at all times its chief purpose in England was to show to later ages what kind of men had directed the affairs and shaped the fortunes of the nation. In France it was to be practised as a mere pastime; to sketch well-known figures in society, or to sketch oneself, was for some years the fashionable occupation of the salons. In England the character never wholly lost the qualities of its origin. ”

“ For to Clarendon history was the record of the struggle of personalities. When we are in the midst of a crisis, or view it from too near a distance, it is natural for us to think of it as a fight between the opposing leaders, and the historians of their own time are always liable to attribute to the personal force of a statesman what is due to general causes of which he is only the instrument. ”

“ Begin with the individual, but draw him in such a way that we recognize in him our own or others' qualities; or begin with the qualities shared by classes of people, embody these in a person who stands for the greatest common measure of the class, and finally—and only then—let him take on his distinctive traits: these are methods which are not confined to the drama, and at all stages of our literature have lived in helpful rivalry. Long before France had her La Bruyère, England had her Hall, Overbury, and Earle. ”

“ As Privy Councillor and Chancellor of the Exchequer he was in the thick of the conflict. The men whom he had now to study were men of affairs. He had the clear and unimpassioned vision which often goes with a warm temperament, and could scrutinize his friends without endangering his affection for them. However deeply his feelings might be engaged, he had taken a pleasure in trying to see them exactly as they were. ”

“ For that he deserves more applause from the most virtuous men, than for his other abilities he ever obtained from the Learned.
He had indeed a perfect natural goodness, which neither the uncertainties of his condition, nor the largeness of his wit could pervert. He had a firmness and strength of mind, that was of proof against the Art of Poetry it self. Nothing vain or fantastical, nothing flattering or insolent appeared in his humour. He had a great integrity, and plainness of Manners ”

“ Not long after comes the great Lord Chancellor Bacon to a Censure, for the most simple, and ridiculous follies, that ever entred into the heart of a Wise man. He was the true Emblem of humane frailty, being more than a man in some things, and less than a woman in others. ”

“ Roger North made his life of his brother Lord Keeper Guilford an account of the bench and bar under Charles II and James II. Of its many sketches of lawyers whom he or his brother had known, none is so perfect in every way as the character of Chief Justice Saunders, a remarkable man in real life who still lives in North's pages with all his eccentricities. North writes at length about his brother, yet nowhere do we see and understand him so clearly as we see and understand Saunders. The truth is that a life and a character have different objects and methods and do not readily combine. ”

“ And he had so ill an opinion of mankind, that he thought the great art of living and governing was, to manage all things and all persons with a depth of craft and dissimulation. And in that few men in the world could put on the appearances of sincerity better than he could: Under which so much artifice was usually hid, that in conclusion he could deceive none, for all were become mistrustful of him. ”

“ It might be used on occasion as a record of affection, or as a weapon of political satire; but our chief character writers are our historians. At the beginning of the seventeenth century England was recognized to be deficient in historical writings. Poetry looked back to Chaucer as its father, was proud of its long tradition, and had proved its right to sing the glories of Elizabeth's reign. The drama, in the full vigour of its youth, challenged comparison with the drama of Greece and Rome. ”

“ As far as my Memory can return back into my past Life, before I knew, or was capable of guessing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the natural affections of my soul gave me a secret bent of aversion from them, as some Plants are said to turn away from others, by an Antipathy imperceptible to themselves, and inscrutable to mans understanding. ”

“ In a word, M'r Hobbes is one of the most antient acquaintance I have in the World, and of whom I have alwaies had a great esteem, as a Man who besides his eminent parts of Learning and knowledg, hath bin alwaies looked upon as a Man of Probity, and a life free from scandal; and it may be there are few Men now alive, who have bin longer known to him then I have bin in a fair and friendly conversation and sociableness. ”

“ In all his accounts of the friends of his youth Clarendon is in the background, but we picture him moving among them at ease, conscious of his inferiority in learning and brilliance and the gentler virtues, yet trusting to his own judgement, and convinced that every man worth knowing has a pronounced individuality. ”

“ When the facts of a man's life, his works, and his opinions claimed detailed treatment, the fashion of the short character had passed.
Yet the seventeenth century did not know its richness. None of its best characters were then printed. The writers themselves could not have suspected how many others were similarly engaged, so far were they from belonging to a school. The characters in Clarendon's History of the Rebellion were too intimate and searching to be published at once, and they remained in manuscript till about thirty years after his death. ”

“ The Success he had in this Method, whilst he had Youth and Vigour to support him in it, encouraged him to continue it longer than Nature allowed. Age stealeth so insensibly upon us, that we do not think of suiting our way of Reasoning to the several Stages of Life; so insensibly that not being able to pitch upon any precise Time, when we cease to be young, we either flatter ourselves that we always continue to be so, or at least forget how much we are mistaken in it. ”

“ He enjoyed to the full the pleasure of living and seeing others live, and a great part of his pleasure consisted in observing how men differed in their habits and foibles. He tells how Ben Jonson did not understand why young Mr. Hyde should neglect the delights of his company at the call of business; how Selden, with all his stupendous learning, was never more studious of anything than his ease; how Earle gave a wrong impression by the negligence of his dress and mien, whereas no man was more wary and cultivated in his behaviour and discourse ”

“ One of Clarendon's tests of a good history, it will be noted, is the 'lively representation of persons'; the better writers are distinguished by making 'their characters always very lively'. In his own hands, and in Burnet's, the character assumes even greater importance than the continental historians had given it. At every opportunity Clarendon leaves off his narrative of events to describe the actors in the great drama, and Burnet introduces his main subject with what is in effect an account of his dramatis personæ. They excel in the range and variety of their characters. ”

“ In one respect Latin could claim pre-eminence. It might possess no single passage greater than the character study of Pericles or of the Athenians by Thucydides, but it developed the character study into a recognized and clearly defined element in historical narrative. Livy provided a pattern of narrative on a grand scale. For 'exquisite eloquence' he was held not to have his equal. [3] But of all the Latin historians, Tacitus had the greatest influence. 'There is no learning so proper for the direction of the life of man as Historie; there is no historie so well worth the reading as Tacitus. ”

“ When an author after dealing with a man's career sums up his mental and moral qualities in a section by itself, he does not trust to it alone to convey the total impression. He is too liable also to panegyric, like Rawley, who could see no fault in his master Bacon, or Sprat who, in Johnson's words, produced a funeral oration on Cowley. There are no characters of scholars or poets so good as Clarendon's Hales, or Earle, or Chillingworth, or Waller ”

“ Clarendon and Baxter both lay stress on the element of the fanatic in Vane's nature; and in a later section of the History Clarendon speaks of it emphatically: ... 'Vane being a man not to be described by any character of religion; in which he had swallowed some of the fancies and extravagances of every sect or faction, and was become (which cannot be expressed by any other language than was peculiar to that time) a man above ordinances, unlimited and unrestrained by any rules or bounds prescribed to other men, by reason of his perfection. ”

“ A more impartial and convincing estimate of any king need never be expected. In method and purpose, it stands by itself. It is indeed not so much a character in the accepted sense of the word as a scientific investigation of a personality. ”

“ The truth is, a King is to be such a distinct Creature from a Man, that their Thoughts are to be put in quite a differing Shape, and it is such a disquieting task to reconcile them, that Princes might rather expect to be lamented than to be envied, for being in a Station that exposeth them, if they do not do more to answer Mens Expectations than human Nature will allow. ”

“ He said once to my self, he was no atheist, but he could not think God would make a man miserable only for taking a little pleasure out of the way. He disguised his Popery to the last. But when he talked freely, he could not help letting himself out against the liberty that under the Reformation all men took of enquiring into matters of religion: For from their enquiring into matters of religion they carried the humour farther, to enquire into matters of state. ”

“ It is a Quality that must not always spring from the Heart, Mens Pride, as well as their Weakness, maketh them ready to be deceived by it: They are more ready to believe it a Homage paid to their Merit, than a Bait thrown out to deceive them. ”

“ Dryden is his own best critic: 'The Character of Zimri in my Absalom, is, in my Opinion, worth the whole Poem: 'Tis not bloody, but 'tis ridiculous enough. And he for whom it was intended, was too witty to resent it as an injury. If I had rail'd, I might have suffer'd for it justly: But I manag'd my own Work more happily, perhaps more dextrously. I avoided the mention of great Crimes and apply'd my self to the representing of Blind-sides, and little Extravagancies: To which, the wittier a Man is, he is generally the more obnoxious. ”

“ But he enriched English literature with a 'just history', as distinct from annals and chronicles. [5] 'I am not altogether ignorant', he said, 'in the Lawes of Historie, and of the Kindes.' When we read his lives and commendations of the great men of antiquity as he pictured them, we cannot but regret that the same talents, the same overmastering interest in the eternal human problems, had not been employed in depicting men whom he had actually known. ”

“ Clarendon, MS. Life, pp. 383-4; History, Bk. XI, ed. 1704, vol. iii, pp. 197-9; ed. Macray, vol. iv, pp. 488-92.
The sense of Fate overhangs the portrait in which Clarendon paints for posterity the private virtues of his unhappy master. The easy dignity of the style adapts itself to the grave subject. This is one of Clarendon's greatest passages. It was written twenty years after Charles's death, but Time had not dulled his feelings. ”

“ The text is taken from the transcript that was made for the printers.
This is the portrait of a great English nobleman whose tastes lay in music and poetry and the arts of peace, but was forced by circumstances into the leadership of the Royalist army in the North. He showed little military talent, though he was far from devoid of personal courage; and he escaped from the conflict, weary and despondent, when other men were content to carry on the unequal struggle. He modelled himself on the heroes of Romance. ”

“ He thought interest and fear were the chief principles of society: And he put all morality in the following that which was our own private will or advantage. He thought religion had no other foundation than the laws of the land. ”

“ We understand them rather than see them. Hampden, he tells us, was 'of a most civil and affable deportment' and had 'a flowing courtesy to all men', a 'rare temper and modesty'; it is Sir Philip Warwick who speaks of the 'scurf commonly on his face'. [14] He says that the younger Vane 'had an unusual aspect', and leaves us wondering what was unusual. His Falkland is an exception, but he adopted a different scale when describing his greatest friend and only hero. Each of his two accounts of Falkland is in fact a brief biography rather than a character ”

“ These men were of greater understanding than common Soldiers, and therefore were more apprehensive of the Importance and Consequence of the War; and making not Money, but that which they took for the Publick Felicity, to be their End, they were the more engaged to be valiant; for he that maketh Money his End, doth esteem his Life above his Pay, and therefore is like enough to save it by flight when danger comes, if possibly he can: But he that maketh the Felicity of Church and State his End, esteemeth it above his Life, and therefore will the sooner lay down his Life for it. ”

“ Hobbs, who had long followed the Court, and passed there for a mathematical man, tho' he really knew little that way, being disgusted by the Court, came into England in Cromwell's time, and published a very wicked book, with a very strange title, The Leviathan. His main principles were, that all men acted under an absolute necessity, in which he seemed protected by the then received doctrine of absolute decrees. He seemed to think that the universe was God, and that souls were material, Thought being only subtil and unperceptible motion. ”

“ Thomas Triplet, tutor of the third Viscount, to whom the volume is dedicated. The dedication is in effect a character of Falkland, and dwells in particular on his great virtue of friendship. A passage in it recalls Clarendon. 'And your blessed Mother', says Triplet, 'were she now alive, would say, she had the best of Friends before the best of Husbands. This was it that made Tew so valued a Mansion to us: For as when we went from Oxford thither, we found our selves never out of the Universitie: So we thought our selves never absent from our own beloved home'. ”

“ He had a particular talent to make others trust to his judgment, and depend on it: And he brought over so many to a submission to his opinion, that I never knew any man equal to him in the art of governing parties, and of making himself the head of them. ”

“ By BURNET.
Thus lived and died King Charles the second. He was the greatest instance in history of the various revolutions of which any one man seemed capable. He was bred up, the first twelve years of his life, with the splendor that became the heir of so great a Crown. After that he past thro' eighteen years in great inequalities, unhappy in the war, in the loss of his Father, and of the Crown of England. Scotland did not only receive him, tho' upon terms hard of digestion, but made an attempt upon England for him, tho' a feeble one. ”

“ He may show his personal dislike, or even his sense of their crime, but behind this he permits us to see the qualities which contributed to their success. There can be no reasonable objection to his characters of Hampden and Cromwell. Political partisans find them disappointing, and they are certainly not the final verdict. The worst that can be said of them is that they are drawn from a wrong point of view; but from that point of view their honesty is unquestionable. He does not distinguish men by their party. ”