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Updated: June 15, 2025
If there were any village Hampdens, or mute, inglorious Miltons among my playmates, they gave no present indications. I found the girls considerably older than I expected, the boys less interesting than I hoped; but they all welcomed me with that grave, unemotional hospitality of the village, and we talked, far into the shadows, of our schooltime, the day that is never dead while memory endures.
He would have saved Monmouth if he could, but after all, Monmouth aspired to a throne and must take the risks; the people, on the other hand, had nothing to win and everything to lose, and, although Crosby would not take up arms with them, he was quite ready to sacrifice himself on their behalf. He was of that stock which had bred the Pyms and Hampdens of the Civil War.
No nation will be long ungrateful for eminent public services, even if he who rendered them was stained by grave defects; for it is services which make men immortal. Much more will posterity reverence those benefactors whose private lives were in harmony with their principles, the Hales, the L'Hôpitals, the Hampdens of the world. To this class Burke undeniably belonged.
Being remotely connected with the Hampdens, he claims John Hampden as one of his family, and keeps a portrait of him in a conspicuous place. "A summer-house on the grounds was erected by Lady Elizabeth Lee, and some verses inscribed on its walls, written by her, show that the Lees have not always been fools. "But Dr. Lee has his way of doing good.
But the curse of a life of pleasure is its aversion to useful activity. Talk of the genius that lies crushed and obscure in poverty! Wealth and station have also their mute Miltons and inglorious Hampdens. Alas! how much of deep and true wisdom do we meet among the triflers of the world!
It is, therefore, madame, through your means, and the well-known friendship you have ever evinced for the Royal Family, and the general welfare of the French nation, that I wish to obtain a private audience of Her Majesty, the Queen, in order to induce her to exert the never-failing ascendency she has ever possessed over the mind of our good King, in persuading him to the sacrifice of a small proportion of his power, for the sake of preserving the monarchy to his heirs; and posterity will record the virtues of a Prince who has been magnanimous enough, of his own free will, to resign the unlawful part of his prerogatives, usurped by his predecessors, for the blessing and pleasure of giving liberty to a beloved people, among whom both the King and Queen will find many Hampdens and Sidneys, but very few Cromwells.
A few days of laborious weakness, spent in letter-writing to urge upon Parliament something of that military energy which, if earlier adopted, might have saved his life, and we see a last, funereal procession winding beneath the Chiltern hills, and singing the 90th Psalm as the mourners approach the tomb of the Hampdens, and the 43d as they return.
It is, therefore, madame, through your means, and the well-known friendship you have ever evinced for the Royal Family, and the general welfare of the French nation, that I wish to obtain a private audience of Her Majesty, the Queen, in order to induce her to exert the never-failing ascendency she has ever possessed over the mind of our good King, in persuading him to the sacrifice of a small proportion of his power, for the sake of preserving the monarchy to his heirs; and posterity will record the virtues of a Prince who has been magnanimous enough, of his own free will, to resign the unlawful part of his prerogatives, usurped by his predecessors, for the blessing and pleasure of giving liberty to a beloved people, among whom both the King and Queen will find many Hampdens and Sidneys, but very few Cromwells.
'There are some determined village Hampdens still, but I think the fellow-feeling it has excited has done good. I have not been able to go among them since, but they have indefatigably come to inquire for me. The first Sunday I was able to come down-stairs, I found the hall door beset with them in their best, looking like a synod of Methodist preachers.
The remains of the Hampden estate are in this neighbourhood, and as we were speaking of our wish to see the place in which the patriot lived, Mr. Hales observed that it is curious how the spirit of dislike to kings had run in the blood of the Hampdens some centuries before Charles' time: they lost three manors in this county, forfeit for a Hampden having struck the Black Prince.
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