such was the disposition of his son. Miss Aikin, the historical writer, has now in her possession a letter, written by an ancestor of one of the most respectable families of Devonshire, wherein the cause and course of the quarrel which ensued are given, as described by the daughter of Mr. Moyle himself, a witness not likely to be unjustly partial to sir John Eliot. This is the statement of that letter. - Mr. Moyle having acquainted sir John Eliot's father with some extravagances in his son's expenses, and this being reported with some aggravating circumstances, young Eliot went hastily to Mr. Moyle's house and remonstrated. What words passed she knows not, but Eliot drew his sword, and wounded Mr. Moyle in the side. ""On reflection,' continues Mr. Moyle's daughter, he soon detested the fact; and from thenceforward became as remarkable for his private deportment, in every view of it, as his public conduct. Mr. Moyle was so entirely reconciled to him, that no person, in his time, held him in higher esteem."

That this hasty ebullition of will occurred in extreme youth, I am now prepared to prove. I find, from documents of the time, that Eliot's father died in 1609.2 He was buried in the church of St. Germains, on the 24th of June in that year. Anthony Wood (the best authority on such a point, though on such only) tells us that young Eliot entered college in 1607, and continued there three years. It is evident, therefore, that at the time of the quarrel with Moyle, Eliot could not have been more than seventeen, or-assuming (which is most unlikely) that it occurred in a college vacation of his first year eighteen years old. This will be con

sidered as established beyond further doubt. It is con

firmed still more by a remarkable document which has been found among the Eliot papers 1, " An apologie," addressed to Mr. Moyle by young Eliot, for the "greate injury" he had done him, and witnessed by names, some of which were afterwards greatly distinguished in the parliamentary history of the time. The terms of it are highly curious, and indicate the writer clearly. It is an atonement which marks the characteristic impulse of a young and generous mind, anxious to repair an unpremeditated wrong. " Mr. Moyle," so runs the apology, " I doe acknowledge I have done you a greate injury, which I wish I had never done, and doe desire you to remit it; and I desire that all unkindnesse may be forgiven and forgotten betwixt us, and henceforward I shall desire and deserve your love in all friendly offices, as I hope you will mine. Jo. ELYOTTE."

That this apology was honestly meant, and strictly redeemed, that the writer did desire the love of him whom he had hastily injured, and deserve it, and, moreover, obtain it - we are fortunately not without ample proof. In the volume of Eliot papers already referred to, exist two letters, written, many years after this event, by sir John to this very Mr. Moyle, granting him solicited favours. It was a saying of shrewd severity, that few natures exist capable of making compensation to those whom they may have injured, or even of ceasing to follow them with resentment. Assuredly, however, rare and virtuous as such natures are, John Eliot's was one of them. He held himself the constant and willing debtor of the man he had unwillingly offended. am sorry," he says, in one of his letters, after granting Moyle what he had asked, "this return is not better to the occasion you have given me; it may serve for an expression of my power, though my affection be beyond it. I can command corruption out of no man, but in

"I

mine own heart have a clear will to serve you, and shall faithfully remain your true friend." In the other, written some months after, in answer to an intercession by Moyle for an offending tenant of sir John's, the following passage occurs: - "In answer to your love, I will give orders to my servant Hill, at his return into the country, to repay him the money that's received, and so to leave him to his old interest for the tenement, in which he must acknowledge your courtesy and favour, for whose satisfaction it is done by your most affectionate friend."1

Taken in connection with the statements I have given, this incident assumes, in my mind, a more than ordinary interest, and becomes, indeed, an important feature in the life of Eliot. It is the line drawn between his passing youth and coming manhood. Whatever may have been the turbulence of his boyhood, whatever the struggle of its uncurbed passions, this event startled him into a perfect and sober self-control. His "private deportment," says Mr. Moyle's daughter, was as remarkable ever after, as that of his public conduct. In the latter, his temper never ceased to be ardent for the general good, and against the wrongful oppressor. In private, it was ardent in kindness, in busy purposes and affections for those around him. To the "last right end," he stood

and so his biographer must delineate him, apart from all preconceived affections or prejudices.

Immediately after the quarrel with Mr. Moyle, it is probable that young Eliot left his home for the university of Oxford. Anthony Wood states that he "became a gentleman-commoner of Exeter college, in Michaelmas term anno 1607, aged 15."1 The same authority tells us that he left the university, without a degree, after he had continued there about three years.2 That his time, however, was not misspent at that venerable seat of study, he afterwards well proved. He had naturally a fine imagination; and when, on the lapse of a few years, it burst forth in the house of commons, it was surrounded with the pomp of Greek and Roman learning. In the studies of his youth, in those invaluable treasures of thought and language which are placed within the reach of every scholar, he had strengthened himself for great duties. And more than this. In his youthful contemplation of the ancient school philosophy, he had provided for his later years the enjoyment of those sublime reveries, which, we shall have occasion to see, were his chief consolations in a dungeon. Little, probably, did he then imagine, as he was first making the acquaintance of Seneca, of Plato, and the Stagyrite, that they would stand him in the stead of friends, when prison bars had shut out every other.

The sudden interruption to his studies, at the expiration of three years, appears to have originated in his desire to obtain some acquaintance with the common law of England. This knowledge began then to be considered a necessary accomplishment for one who aspired to the honours of parliament, with the view of supporting the principles of the rising country party. Eliot was one of these; and, as Wood informs us, after leaving the university, "went to one of the inns of court, and became a barrister."3 The lapse of a year or two introduces us to a new incident in his private life, of which a malignant advantage has, as usual, been taken by his political opponents.

His disposition, never less active than meditative, induced him to visit the continent. At precisely the same period, the discerning lady Villiers had sent her famous son to grace the beauty of his face, and the handsomeness of his person (his only birthright), by the advantages of foreign travel. Eliot and Villiers met, and the courtesies of English travellers in a foreign country ensued between them. They journeyed together; and it is not surprising that a generous warmth in the disposition of Eliot should have suited well with the bold address and sprightliness of temper, for which alone, at that time, George Villiers was remarkable. It is said they became intimate. In all probability they did so, if we may judge from a circumstance that shall in due course be noticed.

Meanwhile, I have another misrepresentation to clear away. After his return from the continent, Eliot married. It has been reserved for the writer before referred to-Mr. D'Israeli, whose ingenuity of research, and pleasant attractiveness of style, are only outstripped by his violent political tendencies, and his most amusing professions of philosophical impartiality - to fasten upon even this domestic, and most private, incident in the