In the biography of her husband she relates faithfully his services to Charles the First at the head of an army which he himself had raised; his final defeat near York by the Parliamentary forces; and his escape to the continent in 1644. Then followed his sixteen years of exile in Paris, Rotterdam, and Antwerp, where "he lived freely and nobly," entertaining many persons of quality, although he was often in extreme poverty, and could obtain credit merely by the love and respect which his presence inspired. What a sad picture is given of the return of the exiles to their estates, which had been laid waste in the Civil War and later confiscated by Cromwell! But how the greatness of the true gentleman shines through it all, who, as he viewed one of his parks, seven of which had been completely destroyed, simply said, "He had been in hopes it would not have been so much defaced as he found it." In the closing chapter the Duchess gives _Discourses Gathered from the Mouth of my noble Lord and Husband_. These show both sound sense and a broad view of affairs. She writes: "I have heard My Lord say, I "That those which command the Wealth of a Kingdom, command the hearts and hands of the People. * * * * * XXXIII "That many Laws do rather entrap than help the subject." Clarendon, who thought but poorly of the Duke's abilities as a general, gives the same characterisation of him: a man of exact proportion, pleasant, witty, free but courtly in his manner, who loved all that were his friends, and hated none that were his enemies, and who had proved his loyalty to his king by the sacrifice of his property and at the risk of his life. Perhaps the Duchess of Newcastle has unwittingly drawn a true representation of the great body of English cavaliers, and has partly removed the stain which the immoralities of the court afterward put upon the name. These biographies give a story of marital felicity with all the characteristics of the domestic novel. At this time the English novel was a crude, formless thing, without dignity in literature. The Duchess of Newcastle, who aspired to be ranked with Homer and Plato, would have spurned a place among writers of romance, although her genius was primarily that of the novelist. She constantly thought of plots, which she jotted down at random, her common method of composition. She has described characters, and has left many bright pictures of the manners and customs of her age. Her style of writing is better than that of many of her more scholarly contemporaries, who studied Latin models and strove to imitate them. She wrote as she thought and felt, so that her style is simple when not lost in the mazes of philosophical speculation. She had all the requisites necessary to write the great novel of the Restoration.