Cary, Lucius

, eldest son of the preceding, was born, as is supposed, at Burford in Oxfordshire, about 1610. He received his academical learning at Trinity college in Dublin, and St. John’s college in Cambridge* Before he came to be twenty years of age, he was muster of an ample | fortune, which descended to him by the gift of a grandfather, without passing through his father and mother, who were then alive. Shortly after that, and before he was of age, he went into the Low Countries, with a resolution of procuring a command; but was diverted from it by the complete inactivity of that summer. On his return to England, he entered upon a very strict course of study. We are informed by lord Clarendon, that his house being within a little more than ten miles of Oxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite and accurate men of that university, who found such an immenseness of wit, and such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a fancy, bound in by most exact reasoning, such a vast knowledge, that he was not ignorant in any thing, yet. such an excessive humility, as if he had known nothing, that they frequently resorted, and dwelt with him, as in a college situated in a purer air; so that his house was a university in a less volume, whither they came, not so much for repose, as study; and to examine and refute those grosser propositions which laziness and consent made current in vulgar conversation. Before he was twenty-three years of age, he had read over all the Greek and Latin fathers, and was indefatigable in looking over all books, which with great expence he caused to be transmitted to him from all parts. About the time of his father’s death, in 1633, he was made one of the gentlemen of the privy-chamber to Charles I. In 1639 he was in the expedition against the Scots, and afterwards went a volunteer with the earl of Essex. He was chosen, in 1640, a member of the house of commons for Newport in the isle of Wight, in the parliament which began at Westminster April 13, the same year. The debates being there managed with all imaginable gravity and sobriety, he contracted such a reverence for parliaments, that he thought it really impossible they could ever procjiice mischief or inconvenience to the kingdom, or that the kingdom could be tolerably happy in the intermission of them. From the unhappy and unseasonable dissolution of that parliament, he probably harboured some jealousy and prejudice to the court, towards which he was not before immoderately inclined. He was chosen again for the same place in that parliament which began the 3d of November following;, and in the beginning of it declared himself very sharply and severely against those exorbitances of the court, which Vo*. Viij, Z | had been most grievous to the state. He was so rigid an observer of established laws and rules, that he could not endure a breach or deviation from them; and thought no mischief so intolerable, as the presumption of ministers of state to break positive rules for reasons of state, or judges to transgress known laws upon the plea of conveniency or necessity. This made him so severe against the earl of Strafford and the lord Finch, contrary to his natural gentleness and temper. He likewise concurred in the first bill to take away the votes of bishops in the house of lords. This gave occasion to some to believe that he was no friend to the church, and the established government of it; it also caused many in the house of commons to imagine and hope that he might be brought to a further compliance with their designs. Indeed the great opinion he had of the uprightness and integrity of those persons who appeared most active against the court, kept him longer from suspecting any design against the peace of the kingdom; and though he differed from them commonly in conclusions, he believed their purposes were honest. When better informed what was law, and discerning in them a desire to controul that law by a vote of one or both houses, no man more opposed those attempts, and gave the adverse party more trouble, by reason and argumentation. About six months after passing the above-mentioned bill for taking away the bishops’ votes, when the same argument came again into debate, he changed his opinion, and gave the house all the opposition he could, insomuch that he was by degrees looked upon as an advocate for the court; to which he contributed so little, that he declined those addresses, and even those invitations which he was obliged almost by civility to entertain. He was so jealous of the least imagination of his inclining to preferment, that he affected even a moroseness to the court and to the courtiers, and left nothing undone which might prevent and divert the king’s or queen’s favour towards him, but the deserving it. When the king sent for him once or twice to speak to him, and to give him thanks for his excellent comportment in those councils which his majesty termed doing him service, his answers were more negligent, and Jess satisfactory, than might be expected; as if he cared only that his actions should be just, not that they should be acceptable: and he took more pains, and more forced his nature to actions unagreeable and unpleasant to it, | that he might not be thought to incline to the court, than most men have done to procure an office there: not that he was in truth averse from receiving public employment, for he had a great devotion to the king’s person* and had before used some small endeavour to be recommended to him for a foreign negotiation, and had once a desire to be sent ambassador into France; but he abhorred an imagination or doubt should sink into the thoughts of any man, that in the discharge of his trust and duty in parliament he had any bias to the court; or that the king himself should apprehend that he looked for a reward for being honest. For this reason, when he heard it first whispered, that the king had a purpose to make him a privy-counsellor, for which there was in the beginning no other ground but because he was known to be well qualified, he resolved to decline it, and at last suffered himself to be over-ruled by the advice and persuasion of his friends to submit to it. Afterwards, when he found that the king intended to make him secretary of state, he was positive to refuse it, declaring to his friends that he was most unfit for it, and that he must either do that which would be great disquiet to his own nature, or leave that undone which was most necessary to be done by one that was honoured with that place; for the most just and honest men did, every day, that which he could not give himself leave to do. He was so exact and strict an observer of justice and truth, that he believed those necessary condescensions and applications to the weakness of other men, and those arts and insinuations which are necessary for discoveries and prevention of ill, would be in him a declension from his own rules of life, though he acknowledged them fit, and absolutely necessary to be practised in those employments. However, he was at last prevailed upon to submit to the king’s command, and became his secretary: but two things he could never bring himself to whilst he continued in that office (which was to his death), for which he was contented to be reproached, as for omissions in a most necessary part of his place. The one, employing of spies, or giving any countenance or entertainment to them; not such emissaries, as with danger would venture to view the enemy’s camp, and bring intelligence of their number* or quartering, or any particulars that such an observation can comprehend; but those who, by communication of guilt, or dissimulation of manners, | wind themselves into such trusts and secrets, as enable them to make discoveries. The other, the liberty of opening letters, upon a suspicion that they might contain matter of dangerous consequence. For the first, he would say such instruments must be void of all ingenuity and common honesty, before they could be of use and afterwards they could never be fit to be credited and that no single preservation could be worth so general a wound and corruption of human society, as the cherishing such persons would carry with it. The last he thought such a violation of the law of nature, that no qualification by office could justify him in the trespass; and though he was convinced by the necessity and iniquity of the time, that those advantages of information were not to be declined, and were necessarily to be practised, he found means to put it off from himself, whilst he confessed he needed excuse and pardon for the omission. In all other particulars he filled his place with great sufficiency, being well versed in languages, and with the utmost integrity, being above corruption of any kind.

He was one of the lords, who, June 5, 1642, signed a declaration, wherein they professed they were fully persuaded that his majesty had no intention to raise war upon his parliament. About the same time he subscribed to levy twenty horse for his majesty’s service. Upon which, and other accounts, he was excepted from the parliament’s favour in the instructions given by the two houses to their general the earl of Essex. Whilst he was with the king at Oxford, his majesty went one day to see the public library, where he was shewed among other books a Virgil, nobly printed and exquisitely bound. The lord Falkland, to divert the king, would have his majesty make a trial of his fortune by the Sortes Virgiliana?, an usual kind of divination in ages past, made by opening a Virgil. The king opening the book, the passage which happened to come up, was that part of Dido’s imprecation against ^Lneas, iv. 615, &c. which is thus translated by Dryden

Oppressed with numbers in the unequal field, His men discouraged, and himself expell’d; Let him for succour sue from place to place, Torn from his subjects and his son’s embrace, &c.

King Charles seeming concerned at this accident, the lord Falkland, who observed it, would likewise try his own fortune in the same manner; hoping he might fall upon some passage that could have 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 stumbled upon was yet more suited to his destiny, than the other had been to the king’s; being the following expressions of Evander, upon the untimely death of his son Pallas, JEn. xi. 152.

Pallas! thou hast failed thy plighted word, To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword:

1 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, in dangers, raw to war. O curst essay of arms, disastrous doom, Prelude of bloody fields, and fights to come!

From the beginning of the civil war his natural cheerfulness and vivacity greW clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him, which he had never been used to: yet being among those who believed that one battle would end all differences, and that there would be so great a victory on one side, that the other would be compelled to submit to any conditions from the victor (which supposition and conclusion generally sunk into the minds of most men, and prevented the looking after many advantages that might then have been laid hold of), he re sisted those indispositions, “et in luctu bellum inter remedia erat.” But after the resolution of the two houses, not to admit any treaty for peace, those indispositions, which had before touched him, grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he, who had been so exactly easy and affable to all men, became on a sudden less communicable, sad, pale, and exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had minded before always with more neatness and industry and expence than is usual to so great a soul, he was now not only incurious, but too negligent; and in his reception of suitors, and the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quick and sharp, and severe, that there wanted not some men (strangers to his nature and disposition) who believed him proud and imperious. When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would be more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press any thing which he thought might promote it: and sitting among his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent sighs, would, with a shrill and sad accent, repeat the word Peace, Peace; | and’would passionately profess, that the very agony of the war, and the view of the calamities and desolation the kingdom did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would shortly break his heart. This made some think, or pretend to think, that he was so much enamoured of peace, that he would have been glad the king should have bought it at any price; which was a most unreasonable calumny yet it made some impression on him, or at least he used it for an excuse of the daringness of his spirit; for at the siege of Gloucester, when his friend passionately reprehended him for exposing his person unnecessarily to danger (for he delighted to visit the trenches and nearest approaches, and to discover what the enemy did) as being so. much beside the duty of his place, that it might be understood rather to be against it, he would say merrily, “That his office could not take away the privilege of his age; and that a secretary in war might be present at the greatest secret of danger:” but withal alleged seriously, “That it concerned him to be more active in enterprises of hazard than other men, that all might see that his impatience for peace proceeded not from pusillanimity, or tear to adventure his own person.” In the morning before the first battle of Newbury *, as always upon action, he was very cheerful; and putting himselt into the first rank of the lord Byron? s regiment, advanced upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musqueteers; from whence he was shot with a musquet in the lower part of the belly, and in the instant falling from his horse, his body was not found till the next morning. Thus fell that incomparable young man, Sept. 20, 1643, 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 not into the world with more innocency.

His contemporaries, particularly lord Clarendon, from whom, and in whose words, most of the preceding account is given, assure us, he was a man of prodigious parts, both natural and acquired, of a wit so sharp, and a nature so sincere, that nothing could be more lovely; of great inWhitelock says, that in the morn- friends to go intp the fight, as haying

ing before the battle, he called for a no call to it, and being no military

Clean shirt, and being asked the reason officer, he said, "He was weary of

of it, answered, " That if he were slain the times, and foresaw much misery

in battle, they should not find his body to his uwn country, and did believe he

in foul linen.“Being dissuaded by his should be out of it ere night.‘ 7 | genuity and honour, of the most exemplary manners, and singular good nature, and of the most unblemished integrity; of that inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of so flowing and obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive simplicity and integrity of life, as was scarce ever equalled. His familiarity and friendship, for the most part, was with men of the most eminent and sublime parts, and of untouched reputation in point of integrity. He was a great cherisher of wit and ianc}’, and good parts, in any man; and, if he found them clouded with poverty or want, a most liberal and bountiful patron towards them, even above his fortune. As he was of a most incomparable gentleness, application, and even submission, to good and worthy, and entire men, so he was naturally (which could not but be more evident in his place of secretary of state, which subjected him- to another conversation and intermixture than his own election would have done) adversus malos injucundus, unpleasant to bad men; and was so ill a dissembler of his dislike and disinclination to ill men, that it was not possible for such not to discern it. There was once in the house of commons such a declared acceptation of the good service an eminent member had done to them, and, as they said, to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being present,” That the speaker might, in the name of the whole house, give him, thanks; and then, that every member might, as a testimony of his particular acknowledgement, stir or move his hat towards him:“the which (though not ordered) when very many did, the lord Falkland, who believed the service itself not to be of that moment, and that an honourable and generous person could not have stooped to it for any recompense, instead of moving his hat, stretched both his arms out, and clasped his hands together upon the crown of his hat, and held it close down to his head, that all men might see how odious that flattery was to him, and the very approbation of the person, though at that time most popular. He was constant and pertinacious in whatsoever he resolved to do, and not to be wearied by any pains that were necessary to that end. And therefore having once resolved not to see London, which he loved above all places, till he had perfectly learned the Greek tongue, he went to his own house in the country, and pursued it with that indefatigable industry, that it will not be believed in how short a time he was r master of it, and accurately react | all the Greek historians. He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and so far from fear, that he seemed not without some appetite of danger; and therefore, upon any occasion of action, he always engaged his person in those troops which he thought, by the forwardness of the commanders, to be most like to he farthest engaged; and in all such encounters he had about him an extraordinary cheerfulness, without at all affecting the execution that usually attended them; in which he took no delight, but took pains to prevent it, where it was not by resistance made necessary. At Edge-hill, when the enemy was routed, he was like to have incurred great peril, by interposing to save those who had thrown away their arms, and against whom, it may be, others were more fierce for their having thrown them away: so that a man might think he came into the field, chiefly out of curiosity to see the face of danger, and charity to prevent the shedding of blood. Yet in his natural inclination, he acknowledged he was addicted to the profession of a soldier. Many attempts were made upon him, by the instigation of his mother (who was a lady of another persuasion in religion, and of a most masculine understanding, allayed with the passion and infirmities of her own sex) to pervert him in his piety to the church of England, and to reconcile him to that of Rome; which they prosecuted with the more confidence, because he declined no opportunity or occasion of conference with those of that religion, whether priests or laics; diligently studied the controversies, and, as was observed before, exactly read all, or the choicest of the Greek and Latin fathers; and having a memory so stupendous, that he remembered, on all occasions, whatsoever he read. He was so great an enemy to that passion and uncharitableness which he saw produced by difference of opinion in matters of religion, that in all those disputations with priests and others of the Roman church, he affected to manifest all possible civility to their persons, and estimation of their parts but this charity towards them was much lessened, and any correspondence with them quite declined, when by sinister arts they had corrupted his two younger brothers, being both children, and stolen them from his house, and transported them beyond seas, and perverted his sisters: upon which occasion he wrote two large discourses against the principal positions of that religion, with that sharpness of wit and full weight of reason, | that the church, says lord Clarendon, is deprived of great jewels in the concealment of them, and that they are not published to the world. As to his person he was little, and of no great strength: his hair was blackish, and somewhat flaggy; and his eye black and lively. His body was buried in the church of Great Tew. His usual saying was,” I pity unlearned gentlemen in a rainy day."

Lord Orford, in his “Royal and Noble Authors,” is the only writer of any credit that has ventured to attack the character of lord Falkland, and that with as much confidence as if he had not only witnessed his actions, but had known his motives. The opinion of lord Orford, however, cannot be expected to weigh much against that of Clarendon, and almost every writer who lived in those times. Lord Falkland’s failing appears to have been timidity and irresolution; he loved both his country and his king he probably saw the errors of both, and hovered between fluctuating principles in an age when no principle was settled, and when his honesty made him unserviceable to his friends, and the dupe of his enemies.

Lord Falkland wrote, 1. “A Speech on ill Counsellors about the king.” 2. “Speech against the Lord Keeper Finch and the Judges.” 3. “A Speech against the Bishops, Feb. 9, 1640.” 4. “A draught of a speech concerning Episcopacy,” found among his papers, printed at Oxford 1644. 5. “A Discourse on the Infallibility of the Church of Rome,” 1645, written in an easy and familiar style, without the least affectation of learning. Swift, in his “Letter to a young gentleman lately entered into holy orders,” informs us, that lord Falkland, in some of his writings, when he doubted whether a word were perfectly intelligible, used to consult one of his lady’s chambermaids, and by her judgment was guided whether to receive or reject it. 6. “A View of some exceptions made against the preceding discourse,” 1646. This objector was one George Holland, a popish priest. 7. “A Letter to F. M. anno 1636,” printed at the end of Charles Gataker’s (his chaplain’s) “Answer to five captious questions, propounded by a factor for the Papacy,” &c. 1673, 4to. 8. “A Letter to Dr. Beale, master of St. John’s College, Cambridge.” From bishop Barlow’s Remains, p. 329, we learn that he assisted Chillmgworth in his “Religion of Protestants;” and he wrote some verses on the death of Ben Jonson, published in the collection called “Jonsonus Virbius.” | Some other verses are mentioned by Mr. Park, but they cannot be allowed much praise.

Something yet remains to be said of lady Falkland, who was the daughter of sir Richard Morison, of Tooley Park, in Leicestershire, knt. When her husband was killed, she sought relief in the consolations of religion. After the tumults of her grief had subsided, and her mind was restored to its former tranquillity, she began to experience that happiness to which all are strangers but the truly religious. She was constant in the public and private exercises of devotion, spent much of her time in family prayer, in singing psalms, and catechising her children and domestics. She frequently visited her poor neighbours, especially in their sickness, and would sometimes condescend to read religious books to them, while they were employed in spinning. She distributed a great many pious tracts. Lord Falkland left her all that he was possessed of by will; and committed his three sons, the only children he had, to her care. She died Feb. 1646, in her thirty-fifth year. In 1648 was published, “The holy Life and Death of the lady Lettice, viscountess Falkland, &c.” By John Duncon, 12mo. Of this a third edition appeared in 1653; and it has since been reprinted in Gibbons’ s “Memoirs of Pious Women.”

Henry Lucius, eldest son of lord Falkland, and third of the title, is said to have inherited the virtues of his father; having rendered himself eminent at court, in the senate, and in the county of Oxford, of which he was lord lieutenant. Being brought early into the house of commons, and a grave senator objecting to his youth, “and to liis not looking as if he had sowed his wild oats;” he replied with great quickness, “If I have not, I may sow them in the house, where are geese enow to pick them up.” He was cut off in the prime of his years. One play was written by him, entitled, “The Marriage Night.” Mr. Walpole styles ifc a comedy; but Langbaine, the “Poetical Register,” and the “Companion to the Playhouse,” represent it as a tragedy; and yet, at the same time, the authors of the two last publications say, that it contains a great deal of true wit and satire.

Anthony Cary, the fourth lord Falkland, was the author of a prologue, “intended for the” Old Batchelor;“but which seems to have had too little delicacy even for that | play, and that age. He wrote likewise, a prologue to Otway’s” Soldier’s Fortune." ¹