It is not so much, however, in Poetry or the Drama as in Historical literature that the clubs develop their strength. It is difficult to estimate the greatness of the obligations of British history to these institutions. They have dug up, cleansed, and put in order for immediate inspection and use, a multitude of written monuments bearing on the greatest events and the most critical epochs in the progress of the empire. The time thus saved to investigators is great and priceless. In no other department of knowledge can the intellectual labourer more forcibly apply the Latin proverb which warns him that his work is indefinite, but his life brief. In the ordinary sciences the philosopher may and often does content himself with the well-rounded and professedly completed system of the day. But no one can grapple with history without feeling its inexhaustibleness. Its final boundaries seem only to retreat to a farther distance the more ground we master, as Mr Buckle found, when he betook himself, like another Atlas, to grapple with the history of the whole world.
The more an investigator finds his materials printed for him, the farther he can go. No doubt it is sometimes desirable, even necessary, to look to some manuscript authority for the clearing-up of a special point; but too often the profession of having perused a great mass of manuscript authorities is an affectation and a pedantry. He who searches for and finds the truth in any considerable portion of history, performs too great an achievement to care for the praise of deciphering a few specimens of difficult handwriting, and revealing the sense hidden in certain words couched in obsolete spelling. If casual discoveries of this kind do really help him to great truths, it is well; but it too often happens that he exaggerates their value, because they are his own game, shot on his own manor. Until he has exhausted all that is in print, the student of history wastes his time in struggling with manuscripts. Hence the value of the services of the book clubs in immensely widening the arena of his immediate materials. To him their volumes are as new tools to the mechanic, or new machinery to the manufacturer. They economise, as it is termed, his labour: more correctly speaking, they increase its productiveness.
These books are fortunately rich in memorials of the great internal contest of the seventeenth century. The notes, for instance, of the proceedings of the Long Parliament, by Sir Ralph Verney, edited for the Camden by Mr Bruce, come upon us fresh from that scene of high debate, carrying with them the very marks of strife. The editor informs us that the manuscript is written almost entirely in pencil on slips of foolscap paper, which seem to have been so folded as to be conveniently placed on the knee, and transferred to the pocket as each was completed. "They are," he says, "full of abrupt terminations, as if the writer occasionally gave up the task of following a rapid speaker who had got beyond him, and began his note afresh. When they relate to resolutions of the House, they often contain erasures, alterations, or other marks of the haste with which the notes were jotted down, and of the changes which took place in the subject-matter during the progress towards completion. On several important occasions, and especially in the instance of the debate on the Protestation [as to the impeachment of Strafford], the confusion and irregularity of the notes give evidence to the excitement of the House; and when the public discord rose higher, the notes become more brief and less personal, and speeches are less frequently assigned to their speakers, either from greater difficulty in reporting, or from an increased feeling of the danger of the time, and the possible use that might be made of notes of violent remarks. On several of the sheets there are marks evidently made by the writer's pencil having been forced upwards suddenly, as if by some one, in a full House, pressing hastily against his elbow while he was in the act of taking his note."
John Spalding.
ooking from the opposite end of the island, and from a totally different social position, another watchful observer recorded the events of the great contest. This was John Spalding, commonly supposed to have been Commissary-Clerk of Aberdeen, but positively known in no other capacity than as author of the book aptly entitled The Troubles, or, more fully, "Memorials of the Troubles in Scotland and in England," from 1624 to 1645. Little, probably, did the Commissary-Clerk imagine, when he entered on his snug quiet office, where he recorded probates of wills and the proceedings in questions of marriage law, that he was to witness and record one of the most momentous conflicts that the world ever beheld—that contest which has been the prototype of all later European convulsions. Less still could he have imagined that fame would arise for him after two hundred years—that vehement though vain efforts should be made to endow the simple name of John Spalding with the antecedents and subsequents of a biographical existence, and that the far-off descendants of many of those lairds and barons, whose warlike deeds he noticed at humble distance, should raise a monument to his memory in an institution called by his name. He was evidently a thoroughly retiring man, for he has left no vestige whatever of his individuality. Some specimens of his formal official work might have been found in the archives of his office—these would have been especially valuable for the identification of his handwriting and the settlement of disputed questions about the originality of manuscripts; but these documents, as it happens, were all burnt early in last century with the building containing them. So ardent and hot has been the chase after vestiges of this man, that the fact was once discovered that with his own hand he had written a certain deed concerning a feu-duty or rent-charge of £25, 7s. 4d., bearing date 31st January 1663; but in spite of the most resolute efforts, this interesting document has not been found.
It is probably to this same unobtrusive reserve, which has shrouded his very identity, that we owe the valuable peculiarities of the Commissary-Clerk's chronicle. He sought no public distinctions, took no ostensible side, and must have kept his own thoughts to himself, otherwise he would have had to bear record of his own share of troubles. In this calm serenity—folding the arms of resignation on the bosom of patience, as the Persians say—he took his notes of the wild contest that raged around him, setting down each event, great or small, with systematic deliberation, as if he were an experimental philosopher watching the phenomena of an eclipse or an eruption. Hence nowhere, perhaps, has it been permitted to a mere reader to have so good a peep behind the scenes of the mighty drama of war. We have plenty of chroniclers of that epoch—marching us with swinging historic stride on from battle unto battle—great in describing in long sentences the musterings, the conflicts, and the retreats. In Spalding, however, we shall find the numbers and character of the combatants, their arms, their dresses, the persons who paid for these, and the prices paid—the amount they obtained in pay, and the amount they were cheated out of—their banners, distinguishing badges, watchwords, and all other like particulars, set down with the minuteness of a bailiff making an inventory of goods on which he has taken execution. He is very specific in what one may term the negative side of the characteristics of war—the misery and desolation it spreads around. The losses of this "gudeman" and that lone widow are stated as if he were their law agent, making up an account to go to a jury for damages for the "spulzie of outside and inside plenishing, nolt, horse, sheep, cocks and hens, hay, corn, peats, and fodder." He specifies all the items of mansions and farm-houses attacked and looted, or "harried," as he calls it—the doors staved in, the wainscoting pulled down—the windows smashed—the furniture made firewood of—the pleasant plantations cut down to build sleeping-huts—the linen, plate, and other valuables carried off: he will even, perchance, tell how they were distributed—who it was that managed to feather his nest with the plunder, and who it was that was disappointed and cheated.
He had opportunities of bestowing his descriptive powers to good purpose. Besides its ordinary share in the vicissitudes and calamities of the war, his town of Aberdeen was twice pillaged by Montrose, with laudable impartiality—once for the Covenanters and once for the Royalists. Here is his first triumphant entry:—
"Upon the morne, being Saturday, they came in order of battle, being well armed both on horse and foot, ilk horseman having five shot at the least, whereof he had ane carbine in his hand, two pistols by his sides, and other two at his saddle-torr; the pikemen in their ranks with pike and sword; the musketeers in their ranks with musket, musket-staff, bandelier, sword, powder, ball, and match. Ilk company, both horse and foot, had their captains, lieutenants, ensigns, sergeants, and other officers and commanders, all for the most part in buff coats and goodly order. They had five colours or ensigns, whereof the Earl of Montrose had one having his motto drawn in letters, 'For Religion, the Covenant, and the Countrie.' The Earl Marechal had one, the Earl of Kinghorn had one, and the town of Dundee had two. They had trumpeters to ilk company of horsemen, and drummers to ilk company of footmen. They had their meat, drink, and other provisions, bag and baggage, carried with them, done all by advice of his Excellency Field-Marshal Leslie, whose counsel General Montrose followed in this business. Then, in seemly order and good array, this army came forward and entered the burgh of Aberdeen about ten hours in the morning, at the Over Kirk gateport, syne came down through the Broadgate, through the Castlegate, over at the Justice Port to the Queen's Links directly. Here it is to be noted that few or none of this haill army wanted are blue ribbon hung about his craig [viz., neck] under his left arm, whilk they called 'the Covenanters' ribbon,' because the Lord Gordon and some other of the Marquis's bairns had ane ribbon, when he was dwelling in the toun, of ane red flesh colour, which they wore in their hats, and called it 'the royal ribbon,' as a sign of their love and loyalty to the King. In dispite or dirision whereof this blue ribbon was worn and called 'the Covenanters' ribbon' by the haill soldiers of this army."