"We resolved to retreat back toward

Buckingham... Upon our moving he [Waller] moved too, and advanced along with us on the other side the river, until finding us marching in a supine negligence,

with a tail of five miles and a half severed

from the rest of our body, he takes his advantage, and thrusts over in that empty space, at a pass by [Cropredy Bridge], a great body both of horse and foot, and eleven pieces of cannon; insomuch as it was ten thousand to one but our van and main body had been cut from our rear and all hazarded; had not my Lord Cleveland, being somewhat more advanced than the rest of the horse, charged them without order with his brigade so madly as struck such a terror into them as that their horse, though twice as many, and backed with foot and cannon, thought the devil had come upon them in a cloud of dusk, fled back over the pass, routed their own foot, and left us masters of nine or ten colours and eleven pieces of cannon, and Wemyss, the general of their artillery, before our van could well get the alarm.' (ii. 472.)

At this time Digby was the King's prime adviser. Rupert and he were mutually suspicious of each other, and Digby was using his influence to persuade the King to dismiss Rupert. The truth respecting the actual state of affairs often creeps out in the interesting letters which passed between Rupert and "honest Will Legge." The following occurs in a letter of Prince Rupert, October 1644:-

"Digby and Rupert friends, but I doubt they trust one another alike. Digby makes great professions and vows to Rupert, but it will do no good upon him. Great factions are breeding against Rupert under a pretence of peace; he being, as they report, the only cause of war in this kingdom. This party is found out, but no particulars proved: they will be, and then the King did promise to punish, is resolved to do, since the King's friends or there will be no staying; which else R. are in no very good condition, and he hath promised me fair: it is well if half be performed." (iii. 28.)

So little were the promises of the King depended upon even by those who were nearest to him in kindred, and most zealous in his service.

Naseby is illustrated by some extremely interesting letters between Lord Digby and Will Legge. They fusion and state of utter disorganisation are too long for us to quote. The conwhich ensued on the side of the Royalists are vividly portrayed in several subsequent letters. At one time the King was about to throw himself into Bristol, at another time he designed to join Montrose in Scotland. The latter project was vehemently opposed by Rupert, who counselled a treaty, as the only "way left to preserve his [majesty's] posterity, kingdom, and nobility." (iii. 149.) The King replied in a letter of infinite folly and blindness. It was intercepted by the Parliament, and, being published, did him very great harm.

At this time the bad feeling between Rupert and Digby was at its height. "You do well to wonder," remarks Rupert, writing to Will Legge, "why Prince Rupert is not with the King, but, when you know the Lord Digby's intentions to ruin him, you will then not find it strange." This was written from Bristol on the 29th of July, 1645. Fairfax and Cromwell appeared before that city on the 24th of August. The siege was prosecuted with the vigour which characterised Cromwell's military genius. Mr. Warburton writes, that "the Parliament forces determined upon a blockade; they have no fancy for a storm." Oliver Cromwell no fancy for a storm! What says Tredagh? Even Mr. Warburton's papers tell another tale. "Upon the 10th of September the enemy stormed the line generally about

two in the morning. . . at the same time they stormed Prior-hill fort, and took it, which was the loss of the whole line. . . then the day breaking we found them in full possession of the line and fort." (iii. 175.) This storming at two hours after midnight produced the immediate surrender of the city and castle. These gentlemen, who, in Mr. Warburton's judgment, had "no fancy" for a storm, would have stormed the little that remained in the possession of Prince Rupert within a very few hours; but the Prince, who knew his enemies better than Mr. Warburton, did not wait for their doing 30. Mr. Warburton pronounces that the Prince's instantaneous surrender of the castle, without any attempt at defence, was a compromise of honour. Whether it was so or not, Digby and the rest of the Prince's enemies instantly took advantage of it. Acting upon their advice, the King dismissed the Prince from his service, and desired him "to seek his subsistence" somewhere beyond seas. Digby most atrociously insinuated into the King's mind doubts of Rupert's fidelity, and under their influence the King was foolish enough to place Rupert's friend Will Legge under arrest, and dismiss him from his government of Oxford. Others of the Prince's friends were dismissed at the same time from similar posts. This was more than Rupert could bear. Maurice joined his brother, and, in company with about 120 of their friends, they fought their way through a country crowded with the enemy, and reached the King at Newark. They followed him to Oxford, and there Rupert went "straight into the presence, and without any usual ceremony" demanded an inquiry into his conduct. A council of war was held, the King and Rupert gave their evidence, and finally the council declared that the Prince was "not guilty of any the least want of courage or fidelity to the King or his service." (iii. 202.) But the King did not at first heartily forgive his nephew. Even after his acquittal others of his friends were superseded. They followed their chief's example in demanding an inquiry, but received only their passports. To leave the kingdom was scarcely possible without a pass from the Parliament. Rupert and his friends applied for their consent in

a letter which is here printed. (iii. 287.) A pass was granted on condition that they would never again bear arms against the Parliament. These were terms which they refused, and after a little while the King permitted them to come to him at Oxford. Rupert was apprised of the King's intended departure to the Scots, and strongly dissuaded him from taking a step which he believed to be so dangerous. When his advice failed, he procured from the King a written certificate that his Majesty was acting contrary to the opinion of his nephew. (iii. 225.) Six months afterwards the King wrote a letter to Rupert, which is in some respects creditable to his majesty's heart, although his mind was wandering, as it ever did, in that dreamland in which he could see nothing but a splendid restoration, and the re-acquirement of the power of rewarding all who had suffered in his cause. "Next to my children," he writes, “(I say next,) I shall have most care of you, and shall take the first opportunity either to employ you or have your company." (iii. 248.)

On the surrender of Oxford Prince Rupert passed to the continent. When a part of the Parliament fleet declared for the King, Rupert took the command, and led them away on a buccaneering expedition, in which he levied contributions for the maintenance of the royal exiles. He designed to deliver Charles I. from the Isle of Wight, but could not accomplish it. He visited Ireland, Portugal, the Mediterranean, the Western Islands, and the West Indies. He was several times chased and blockaded by Blake, but ever managed to escape, and finally, in 1653, returned in safety to France, although with the loss of his faithful brother Maurice, whose ship was wrecked and himself drowned off Hispaniola.

The last stage of the life of Prince Rupert is by no means the least interesting. He who from mere exuberance of courage and love of excitement had sought the bubble reputation even in the cannon's mouth, now endeavoured to discover it in the laboratory and the forge. He fabricated a gunpowder of ten times the ordinary strength; like modern inventors of destructive instruments, he had his

way of blowing up rocks in mines or under water. A mode of making hail-shot, an improved quadrant, improved locks for fire-arms, and guns which would discharge bullets with wonderful rapidity, are reckoned among his inventions. His name still lives among us as the first maker of the Prince's Metal, and Mr. Macaulay has reminded us of Rupert's drop, “that curious bubble of glass which has long amused children and puzzled philosophers." But the most memorable invention with which the name of the philosophic hero has been associated is that of mezzotinto. Our readers will remember Mr. Diamond's paper on this subject in the 27th vol. of the Archæologia. Mr. Warburton strives to controvert Mr. Diamond's proofs that the Prince did not invent the art but merely practised the invention of Louis à Siegen. The question stands, we think, where Mr. Diamond left it, but we have not space to do more than allude to it.

After the Restoration Prince Rupert returned to England. Some employments which he coveted were denied him, to his infinite mortification, but he was appointed keeper of Windsor Castle, and there, in the round tower, had his workshop and a library of curious books. He had residences in Barbican and Spring-gardens, and in the latter place Charles II. and Buckingham often lounged away an hour in his workshop, watching his chemical or alchemical experiments. The Dutch war called him to the command of a fleet, and in several engagements his old fiery zeal burnt brightly and successfully. He partook of the amusements of the court, and overjoyed his cousin the King by paying homage to the charms of a certain Mrs. Hughes, one of the actresses belonging to the King's company, by whom he had a daughter named Ruperta. The Prince died on the 29th November, 1682. He was buried in Henry the Seventh's chapel, which Mr. Warburton should have stated. The Duke of Norfolk bought his George and his garter for 3137.; Mr. Charles Griffith gave 1007. for his books, of which there is a catalogue in the Harleian Miscellany; and Nell Gwynne became the owner of "the great pearl necklace" which belonged to the Prince at the sum of 4,5207.

We have left ourselves no room to dilate on his character. He was brave, honest, active, enterprising, and utterly without fear; but too often rash, and, in the conduct of war, unless he is much belied, sadly devoid of humanity. He was a daring soldier, but not a great one. His birth, rather than his talents, conducted him to the position which he held in the army of Charles I. It would have been happy for that sovereign if the circumstances of the country had permitted him to employ his nephew in the naval service, in which it is probable he would have been more successful. In peace the Prince is said to have made himself extremely popular, in spite of his roughness of manners and somewhat secluded life. Old people in Berkshire, as we are told, long remembered him with regret; but small courtesies proceeding from a man of commanding person and noble bearing-the_son, nephew, and cousin of a king, and the Constable of Windsor Castle-are very highly estimated by his inferiors in rank. The great error of his life seems to have been a want of consideration for the feelings and opinions of others; its greatest merit, his blunt and downright honesty.

The collection of letters which is here attached to his name is of unquestionable value. Would we had more such letters. But even the editor, when he considers the subject, will agree with us, that such jewels as the letter from Lord Cornbury to the Duchess of Beaufort (vol. iii. p. 461), giving an account of the reception of Queen Catherine by Charles II., and many others that we could point out, are but little benefitted by his incomplete and hastily manufactured setting.

granting leases of their lands, under the quaint designation of "Her Majesty's Poor and Devout Chaplains," according to the terms of their charter. Besides these, who were commonly called the senior vicars, or old vicars, there were also inferior clerks, styled junior vicars, or young vicars, whose number appears not to have been fixed by the statutes of the cathedral; and whose maintenance depended chiefly on fees, and the hospitality of the canons-residentiary, who usually kept very liberal tables. Since the Reformation, the senior vicars have been reduced to four, to which number the residentiary canons have also diminished. They have long since ceased to live in common, as their Catholic predecessors used to do; but each one has his own house in the Vicars' Court. The junior vicars are now five in number, and, being laymen, their collegiate buildings have been let out on leases, made under the authority of the dean and chapter, as they are not incorporated by law, and have no common seal.

The Vicars' College, or Court as it is usually denominated, was begun in the reign of Edward the First, when a piece of vacant ground adjoining the episcopal palace, immediately eastward of the old city wall, was granted to them by the dean and chapter. Oliver Sutton, then Bishop of Lincoln, is said to have erected a hall, a kitchen, and certain chambers, but not sufficient for the whole number of the vicars. These

buildings, being unfinished at the time of the good prelate's decease in 1299, were completed by the executors of his will. About a century afterwards Dr. John Bokingham, another Bishop of Lincoln, appears to have been a considerable benefactor to the vicars, as his arms, a cross botonée, are sculptured on shields in different parts of the buildings. This coat, with the royal bearings of old France and England quarterly, and the arms of Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, remain over the gateway of the north front, facing the minster.* The situation of these buildings, on the side of the hill, obliged them to be arranged on different levels, those that stand more towards the south being placed below the lines of the northern portions, in the same manner as had been done in the erection of the bishop's palace. The southern side of the principal quadrangle was part of Bishop Sutton's buildings. It is an interesting specimen of old domestic architecture, and its massy front, with two turrets, and several buttresses and projecting chimneys standing high above the gardens and grounds before it, has quite the character of a castle. The vicars' hall adjoined to the east end of this range of building, but this has been totally demolished, as also have the buttery, cellars, and kitchen, which connected the hall with the building shewn in the accompanying Plate.