of whom we have all known specimens-friendly, busy, closely attentive to the proceedings and interests of his race, much addicted to giving counsel, one to whom every one looked up and of whom every one was afraid, yet who, when in difficulties of his own, exhibited the very reverse of practical sense, and came to grief even from excess of self-opinion and caution.

What he was remarkable for, was his prudent management of his affairs, and his invariable good nature and consistent liberality, to the extent of his means, towards all who had any claim upon him. This made him the influential, respected, centre of a large family circle. For more than half a century, brothers, brothers-in-law, son, sons-inlaw, nephews, grandsons, applied to him for help in their difficulties, and sought to please him by keeping him acquainted with the news of the day, for which he evidently had a keen relish. There are one hundred and ten letters addressed to him, most of which are as interesting to us now as they were to him in his day.

"The approach of the troubled times of the Civil War sadly perplexed this good man. It will be seen from the letter addressed to him in 1634 by Francis Courtney, that the position of militia captain had been forced upon him. In October 1642 he received a stirring circular, from some of the gentlemen of the county, inviting him to attend a meeting at Exeter to concert measures for their common defence against the King's troops, in consequence of Sir Ralph Hopton having passed through into Cornwall "with five hundred horse." He, however, gave them so little satisfaction, that in the following January, Sir Samuel Rolle exclaimed against him for "backwardness to the service," in aid of which he seems only to have contributed a buff coat and carbine, which were transferred by their order to a man who could be depended upon. After that it appears, from a letter, signed by him and others, to Sir John Berkeley, that he was encouraged by the temporary success of the Royal forces in the West of England, to give open support to that cause; and in June 1644 he received a requisition from the Committee of the four Western counties, for a loan of one hundred pounds, to be paid within six days, "for support of his Majesty's affaires to with"stand the present invasion and rebellion." In November 1645 he received a "protection " from Sir Thomas Fairfax against plunder, and he afterwards petitioned the " Committee of Compositions sitting at "Goldsmiths' Hall," expressing his readiness to take the National Covenant and the Oath of the 5th April, but saying that it was impossible for him to attend the Standing Committee of Parliament for Devon at Plymouth, "by reason of the enemy's quarters in those parts," or" to travel this winter season so far as London, for the taking of the same, having a weak body at this present, and not thoroughly re"covered of his late sickness," and that he was "aged seventy-six years or thereabouts." He therefore prays that "if he be accused of any crime committed against the State (which to his knowledge he is "no way guilty of), he may have a reasonable composition, having "already lent to the Parliament 1401., besides horses and arms, utterly "refusing to have any hand in the Commission of Array, or at any time

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"to meddle in the Commission of Oyer and Terminer." William Davie undertook to obtain for him a pardon under the great seal, which seems to have been granted on easy terms, his former payments being allowed as part of the assessment.'

You

The records of the doings of this John Willoughby, the patriarch for half a century of the Trevelyan connexion, are full of memorials of one characteristic custom of the manor-house of old time-that of transmitting and receiving public intelligence by letters, in the default of newspapers, which as yet had no substantial existence. Students of the 'Paston Papers' will remember abundant instances of this usage. Great personages seem either to have insisted on their dependents paying them as it were a kind of toll of political and social gossip, or to have maintained a kind of special correspondents' of their own. The Trevelyan archives contain plenty of evidence of the same character. John Willoughby was just the man to be exceedingly exacting of this kind of tribute. His correspondents, when urging him for some favour to themselves, seldom fail to sweeten the request by adding a special paragraph of news. Others addressed him in news letters' as they were called, appropriated to furnishing this kind of information. desired me,' says his son-in-law John Turbervill, of the Middle Temple, if there were any novelty stirring, to acquaint you 'with it.' And he obeys the direction in the most dutiful manner in a whole series of epistles, some of which contain really curious items of gossip of the Long Parliament day. One or two of John Willoughby's correspondents of this class were anonymous '-others pseudonymous, signing by imaginary names. Sometimes important suggestions, such as might please a busy officious man, are conveyed to him along with the news. 6 If,' says his cousin William Davie, in 1641, you know any desirous of knighthood, or of being baronets, I have divers friends that offer to procure as many as can be 'desired; for knights the rate is 150l., and 591. for the fees; and for baronets 4007., and 1347. for the fees, I believe the reason why these offers swarm thus, is to put the King's servants in stock for the voyage into Scotland!' 'This is all

'truth,' says one of the news-letter correspondents with much simplicity, after detailing a number of very apocryphal occuror else my author lieth.'

rences,

We take leave of the house of Trevelyan with regret, after keeping close company with them for about two hundred years; but after the Restoration, although they continued to thrive, and to extend their connexion even as far as Northumberland, their papers, so far as published, fall off in matter and in inter

est. But we have hopes that the editors possess further stores of information as yet uncommunicated.

Another accession to the private history of English families may be noticed before we close the subject. The Life and 'Letters of John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusett's Bay Company at their emigration to New England,' have been published at Boston by his descendant Robert C. Winthrop, and dedicated to the Massachusetts Historical Society. The main interest of these two remarkable volumes relates to a chapter of history with which we are not now concerned the first establishment of the Pilgrim Fathers in America, and, especially, the share taken therein by one of the most zealous and disinterested men who ever embarked in a great and beneficent enterprise. But the first volume contains in addition some curious records from the earlier annals of the Winthrops. They were a Suffolk family, whose fortune was made in trade in the early part of the sixteenth century; although they claimed, by heraldic aid, a much longer descent. Groton in Suffolk, formerly the lordship of the Abbot of Bury, was granted at the Dissolution to Adam Winthrop, Esquire,' the first Suffolk magnate of the name. Adam Winthrop the third -his grandson-seems to have been a singular character, judging from the odd records which he has left behind him in scattered fragments of diary, mostly inscribed in almanacs of each year. He noted down with equal diligence scraps of public news, and the most trivial events which occurred to his own person, in his family, and in his neighbourhood. He was, moreover, exceedingly addicted to composing Latin verseshexameter and pentameter-generally of the most canine character; and commonly honoured the memory of a deceased acquaintance with a specimen of this kind of versification. Aug. 26, Sir W. Waldegrave died. Vir patriæ charus, sed 'pietatis inops.' Oct. 29. The Lady Mountague died: Vul'nere quam subito mors inopina tulit.' The xiiith day of 'July, 1597, my cosen Alibaster fatebatur se esse papistam.' The return of the same scapegrace to the fold of the Protestant Church (after having just undergone the salutary process of imprisonment) is noticed in the two very worst Latin verses we ever remember to have read: Dum fuerit Romæ, Roma'num colluit Papam; sed patriæ rediens, renuit ille papam.' Another of the family seems to have displayed equally poetical propensities; for Adam notes, under the 21st December, 1602, My brother Alibaster came to my house, and toulde me he 'made certain inglishe verses in his sleepe, which he recited 'to me; and I lent him 40 shillings!' The misdeeds of his

servants and neighbours are briefly chronicled, sometimes with a satirical comment: The 17th of May Adam Seely went privily from my house and carried away 15 s. which he did steale from Richard Edwardes; pro quo facto dignus est capistro.' The 18th September, being Saint Luke's day, John 'Hawes rent Mary Pierce's peticote, and did beate her sister 'Katherine with a staff!'

Such ludicrous details, however, seem scarcely suited to the pages which contain the solemn records of such men as the founders of New England. It is singular enough that such a man as John Winthrop, the first Governor, so serious, so resolute, his mind so strongly fixed on one great undertaking abroad and on his own tender domestic affections at home, should have been the son of the quaint old trifler from whose diaries these miscellaneous extracts are given. John Winthrop belonged to a day, and displayed a tone of mind, of which but slight memories survive among us now in any class, and none, or nearly so, in the class of gentry to which he belonged. Certainly, Companies with limited liability' have altered their outward demeanour since the time when the Massachusetts Company, on the eve of their Governor's embarkation for America, spent a day in prayer and fasting, and the Lord hath been pleased to assist us graciously.' In him the most straitlaced Puritanism was united not only with the practised abilities of a man of the world, but with the tenderest home affections and sympathies-no uncommon union, as the biographies of those days sufficiently show, but rarely so perfect as that exhibited in these pages. We cannot forbear concluding with one or two extracts from his impassioned letters to his wife Margaret-'mine own, mine only, my best-beloved' -when, in middle age, in flourishing circumstances, and with an affectionate family surrounding, he was about to leave her in performance of his self-devoted pilgrimage across the ocean:

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'The Lord our God has often brought us together with comfort, when we have been long absent; and if it is good for us, He will do so still. When I was in Ireland, He brought us together again. When I was sick here at London, He restored us together again. How many dangers, near death, hast thou been in thyself! and yet the Lord hath granted me to enjoy thee still. If He did not watch over us, we need not go over sea to seek death or misery; we should meet it at every step, in every journey. And is He not a God abroad as well as at home? Is not His power and providence the same in New England that it hath been in Old England? If our ways please Him, He can command deliverance and safety in all places, and can make the stones of the field and the beasts, yea, the raging seas, and our very enemies, to be in league with us. But, if we sin against Him, He can raise up

evil against us out of our own bowels, houses, estates, &c. My good wife, trust in the Lord, whom thou hast found faithful. He will be better to thee than thy husband, and restore thee thy husband with advantage.'

'Being now ready to send away my letters,' he says in another place, I received thine. The reading of it has dissolved my head into tears. I can write no more. If I live, I will see thee ere I go. I shall part from thee with sorrow enough. Be comfortable, my most sweet wife, our God will be with thee. Farewell.'

The words in italics,' say the editors, are almost illegible. The paper having evidently been wet-it may be, with the 'very tears of which he writes.' It is satisfactory to remember that Margaret Winthrop lived to rejoin her husband at Boston, and was his helpmate there for many years; until, as he notes in his own journal, she left this world for a better: a woman of 'singular virtue, prudence, modesty, and piety, and specially beloved and honoured of all the country.'

Before we take leave of this inviting subject of family history, there is yet one other recent publication of a rare and curious document to which we must be permitted to allude. In the last volume of the Miscellany of the Philobiblon Society a volume guarded from the eyes of the profane by the jealous care of that distinguished body, who limit their impressions to 100 copies will be found a Narrative by Mr. Edward Grimston of his captivity in the Bastille, and his escape 'therefrom,' now first printed by the kind permission of the Earl of Verulam. Edward Grimston was comptroller of Calais when that place was attacked and taken by the Duc de Guise in 1558, and being made prisoner on the surrender of the town he was sent to the Bastille, where he remained nineteen months, and at length effected his escape with extraordinary skill and courage, until he reached England. The narrative is a most curious specimen of the composition of the time, and shows out of how rude a mould was shaped the language of Shakspeare and Bacon. On his return to England Edward Grimston was tried for the part he had in the surrender of Calais, acquitted, and discharged of all further liability on that score by a warrant of Queen Elizabeth-one of the first acts of her reign. Grimston lived to do her good service, and died at last in 1600, aged ninety-two, having lived through nearly the whole of the sixteenth century. This is as genuine and characteristic a fragment of autobiography as we remember to have met with.