Born in 1800, died in 1859; educated at Cambridge; admitted to the bar in 1826; member of Parliament, 1830-34; member of the Supreme Council in India, 1834-38; member of Parliament, 1839-47; Secretary of War, 1839-41; paymaster-general, 1846-47; again in Parliament in 1852; raised to the peerage in 1857; his "History of England" published in 1848-61; his "Lays of Ancient Rome" in 1842. I PURITANS AND ROYALISTS[56] We would speak first of the Puritans, the most remarkable body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced. The odious and ridiculous parts of their character lie on the surface. He that runs may read them; nor have there been wanting attentive and malicious observers to point them out. For many years after the Restoration they were the theme of unmeasured invective and derision. They were exposed to the utmost licentiousness of the press and of the stage, at the time when the press and the stage were most licentious. They were not men of letters; they were, as a body, unpopular; they could not defend themselves; and the public would not take them under its protection. They were therefore abandoned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, their scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. But it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy of history is to be learned. And he who approaches this subject should carefully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule which has already misled so many excellent writers. Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio Che mortali perigli in se contiene Hor qui tener a fren nostro desio, Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene.