In a word, this work is a confutation of many errors in all the writers upon the subject of our wars in England, and even in that extraordinary history written by the Earl of Clarendon; but the editors were so just that when, near twenty years ago, a person who had written a whole volume in folio, by way of answer to and confutation of Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion," would have borrowed the clauses in this account, which clash with that history, and confront it,—we say the editors were so just as to refuse them.
There can be nothing objected against the general credit of this work, seeing its truth is established upon universal history; and almost all the facts, especially those of moment, are confirmed for their general part by all the writers of those times. If they are here embellished with particulars, which are nowhere else to be found, that is the beauty we boast of; and that it is that much recommend this work to all the men of sense and judgment that read it.
The only objection we find possible to make against this work is, that it is not carried on farther, or, as we may say finished, with the finishing the war of the time; and this we complain of also. But then we complain of it as a misfortune to the world, not as a fault in the author; for how do we know but that this author might carry it on, and have another part finished which might not fall into the same hands, or may still remain with some of his family, and which they cannot indeed publish, to make it seem anything perfect, for want of the other parts which we have, and which we have now made public? Nor is it very improbable but that if any such farther part is in being, the publishing these two parts may occasion the proprietors of the third to let the world see it, and that by such a discovery the name of the person may also come to be known, which would, no doubt, be a great satisfaction to the reader as well as us.
This, however, must be said, that if the same author should have written another part of this work, and carried it on to the end of those times, yet as the residue of those melancholy days, to the Restoration, were filled with the intrigues of government, the political management of illegal power, and the dissensions and factions of a people who were then even in themselves but a faction, and that there was very little action in the field, it is more than probable that our author, who was a man of arms, had little share in those things, and might not care to trouble himself with looking at them.
But besides all this, it might happen that he might go abroad again at that time, as most of the gentlemen of quality, and who had an abhorrence for the power that then governed here, did. Nor are we certain that he might live to the end of that time, so we can give no account whether he had any share in the subsequent actions of that time.
'Tis enough that we have the authorities above to recommend this part to us that is now published. The relation, we are persuaded, will recommend itself, and nothing more can be needful, because nothing more can invite than the story itself, which, when the reader enters into, he will find it very hard to get out of till he has gone through it.
MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER.
PART I.
It may suffice the reader, without being very inquisitive after my name, that I was born in the county of Salop, in the year 1608, under the government of what star I was never astrologer enough to examine; but the consequences of my life may allow me to suppose some extraordinary influence affected my birth.
My father was a gentleman of a very plentiful fortune, having an estate of above £5000 per annum, of a family nearly allied to several of the principal nobility, and lived about six miles from the town; and my mother being at —— on some particular occasion, was surprised there at a friend's house, and brought me very safe into the world.