itself to the highest, so contented in repose, so powerful in action.  Almost every part of this virtuous and blameless life which is not hidden from us in modest privacy is a precious and splendid portion of our national history.  Had the private conduct of Hampden afforded the slightest pretence for censure, he would have been assailed by the same blind malevolence which, in defiance of the clearest proofs, still continues to call Sir John Eliot an assassin.  Had there been even any weak part in the character of Hampden, had his manners been in any respect open to ridicule, we may be sure that no mercy would have been shown to him by the writers of Charles’s faction.  Those writers have carefully preserved every little circumstance which could tend to make their opponents odious or contemptible.  They have made themselves merry with the cant of injudicious zealots.  They have told us that Pym broke down in speech, that Ireton had his nose pulled by Hollis, that the Earl of Northumberland cudgelled Henry Martin, that St. John’s manners were sullen, that Vane had an ugly face, that Cromwell had a red nose.  But neither the artful Clarendon nor the scurrilous Denham could venture to throw the slightest imputation on the morals or the manners of Hampden.  What was the opinion entertained respecting him by the best men of his time we learn from Baxter.  That eminent person, eminent not only for his piety and his fervid devotional eloquence, but for his moderation, his knowledge of political affairs, and his skill in judging of characters, declared in the Saint’s Rest, that one of the pleasures which he hoped to enjoy in heaven was the society of Hampden.  In the editions printed after the Restoration, the name of Hampden was omitted.  “But I must tell the reader,” says Baxter, “that I did blot it out, not as changing my opinion of the person. . . .  Mr. John Hampden was one that friends and enemies acknowledged to be most eminent for prudence, piety, and peaceable counsels, having the most universal praise of any gentleman that I remember of that age.  I remember a moderate, prudent, aged gentleman, far from him, but acquainted with him, whom I have heard saying, that if he might choose what person he would be then in the world, he would be John Hampden.”  We cannot but regret that we have not fuller memorials of a man who, after passing through the most severe temptations by which human virtue can be tried, after acting a most conspicuous part in a revolution and a civil war, could yet deserve such praise as this from such authority.  Yet the want of memorials is surely the best proof that hatred itself could find no blemish on his memory.