Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays

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[152] of the army,--to rescue with unequalled energy Newark and York and the besieged heroine of Lathom House,to fight through Newbury and Marston Moor and Naseby, and many a lesser field,--to surrender Bristol and be acquitted by court-martial, but hopelessly condemned by the Kin ;--then to leave the kingdom, refusing a passport, and fighting his perilous way to the seaside;--then to wander over the world for years, astonishing Dutchmen by his seamanship, Austrians by his soldiership, Spaniards and Portuguese by his buccaneering powers, and Frenchmen by his gold and diamonds and birds and monkeys and “richly liveried Blackamoors” ;--then to reorganize the navy of England, exchanging characters with his fellow-commander, Monk, whom the ocean makes rash, as it makes Rupert prudent;--leave him to use nobly his declining years, in studious toils in Windsor Castle, the fulfilment of Milton's dream, outwatching the Bear with thrice-great Hermes, surrounded by strange old arms and instruments, and maps of voyages, and plans of battles, and the abstruse library which the “Harleian Miscellany” still records ;--leave him to hunt and play at tennis, serve in the Hudson's Bay Company and the Board of Trade;--leave him to experiment in alchemy and astrology, in hydraulics, metallurgy, gunpowder, perspective, quadrants, mezzotint, fish-hooks, and revolvers; --leave him to look from his solitary turret over hills and fields, now peaceful, but each the scene of some wild and warlike memory for him;--leave him to die a calm and honored death at sixty-three, outliving every companion of his early days. The busy world, which has no time to remember many, forgets him and recalls only the slain and defeated Hampden. The brilliant renown of the Prince was like the glass toys which record his ingenuity