Oppess'd with numbers in th' unequal field.
His men discouraged and himself expell'd,
Let him for succour sue from place to place,
Torn from his subjects, and his sons embrace.
His Majesty seemed much concerned at this accident. Lord Falkland who observed it, would likewise try his own fortune in the same manner, hoping he might fall upon some passage that had no relation to his case, and thereby divert the king's thoughts from any impression the other might make upon him; but the place Lord Falkland opened was more suited to his destiny than the other had been to the King's, being the following expressions of Evander, on the untimely death of his son Pallas. Æneid. b. ii. verse 152, &c.
Non hæc, O Palla, dederas promissa Parenti, &c.
Thus translated by Mr. Dryden:
O Pallas! thou hast failed thy plighted word,
To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword;
I warn'd thee, but in vain; for well I knew,
What perils youthful ardour would pursue:
That boiling blood would carry thee too far;
Young as thou wert to dangers, raw to war!
O curst essay of arms, disastrous doom
Prelude of bloody fields, and fights to come[5].
Upon the beginning of the civil war, his natural chearfulness and vivacity was clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him. After the resolution of the two houses not to admit any treaty of peace, those indispositions which had before touched him, grew into a habit of gloominess; and he who had been easy and affable to all men, became on a sudden less communicable, sad, and extremely affected with the spleen. In his dress, to which he had formerly paid an attention, beyond what might have been expected from a man of so great abilities, and so much business, he became negligent and slovenly, and in his reception of suitors, so quick, sharp, and severe, that he was looked upon as proud and imperious.
When there was any hope of peace, his former spirit used to return and he appeared gay, and vigorous, and exceeding sollicitous to press any thing that might promote it; and Clarendon observes, "That after a deep silence, when he was sitting amongst his friends, he would with a shrill voice, and sad accent, repeat the words Peace! Peace! and would passionately say, that the agony of the war, the ruin and bloodshed in which he saw the nation involved, took his sleep from him, and would soon break his heart."
This extream uneasiness seems to have hurried him on to his destruction; for the morning before the battle of Newbery, he called for a clean shirt, and being asked the reason of it, answered, "That if he were slain in the battle, they should not find his body in foul linen." Being persuaded by his friends not to go into the fight, as being no military officer, "He said he was weary of the times, foresaw much misery to his country, and did believe he should be out of it e're night." Putting himself therefore into the first rank of the Lord Byron's regiment, he was shot with a musket in the lower part of his belly, on the 20th of September 1643, and in the instant falling from his horse, his body was not found till next morning.
Thus died in the bed of honour, the incomparable Lord Falkland, on whom all his contemporaries bestowed the most lavish encomiums, and very deservedly raised altars of praise to his memory. Among all his panegyrists, Clarendon is the foremost, and of highest authority; and in his words therefore, I shall give his character to the reader. "In this unhappy battle, (says he) was slain the Lord viscount Falkland, a person of such prodigious parts, of learning and knowledge, of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, and so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand upon this odious and accursed civil war, than that single loss, it must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity. He was a great cherisher of wit and fancy, and good parts in any man; and if he found them clouded with poverty and want, a most liberal and bountiful patron towards them, even above his fortune." His lordship then enumerates the unshaken loyalty and great abilities of this young hero, in the warmth of a friend; he shews him in the most engaging light, and of all characters which in the course of this work we met with, except Sir Philip Sidney's, lord Falkland's seems to be the most amiable, and his virtues are confessed by his enemies of the opposite faction. The noble historian, in his usual masterly manner, thus concludes his panegyric on his deceased friend. "He fell in the 34th year of his age, having so much dispatched the true business of life, that the eldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter into the world with more innocency: whosoever leads such a life, needs be less anxious upon how short warning it is taken from him."——As to his person, he was little, and of no great strength; his hair was blackish, and somewhat flaggy, and his eyes black and lively. His body was buried in the church of Great Tew. His works are chiefly these:
First Poems.——Next, besides those Speeches of his mentioned above,