ous to press any
thing that might promote it; and Clarendon observes, "That after a
deep silence, when he was sitting amongst his friends, he would with a
shrill voice, and sad accent, repeat the words Peace! Peace! and would
passionately say, that the agony of the war, the ruin and bloodshed in
which he saw the nation involved, took his sleep from him, and would
soon break his heart."

This extream uneasiness seems to have hurried him on to his
destruction; for the morning before the battle of Newbery, he called
for a clean shirt, and being asked the reason of it, answered, "That
if he were slain in the battle, they should not find his body in foul
linen." Being persuaded by his friends not to go into the fight, as
being no military officer, "He said he was weary of the times, foresaw
much misery to his country, and did believe he should be out of it
e're night." Putting himself therefore into the first rank of the Lord
Byron's regiment, he was shot with a musket in the lower part of his
belly, on the 20th of September 1643, and in the instant falling from
his horse, his body was not found till next morning.

Thus died in the bed of honour, the incomparable Lord Falkland, on
whom all his contemporaries bestowed the most lavish encomiums, and
very deservedly raised altars of praise to his memory. Among all his
panegyrists, Clarendon is the foremost, and of highest authority; and
in his words therefore, I shall give his character to the reader. "In
this unhappy battle, (says he) was slain the Lord viscount Falkland,
a person of such prodigious parts, of learning and knowledge, of that
inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, and so flowing and
obliging a humanity and goodness to mankind, and of that primitive
simplicity and integrity of life, that if there were no other brand
upon this odious and accursed civil war, than that single loss, it
must be most infamous and execrable to all posterity. He was a great
cherisher of wit and fancy, and good parts in any man; and if he found
them clouded with poverty and want, a most liberal and bountiful
patron towards them, even above his fortune." His lordship then
enumerates the unshaken loyalty and great abilities of this young
hero, in the warmth of a friend; he shews him in the most engaging
light, and of all characters which in the course of this work we met
with, except Sir Philip Sidney's, lord Falkland's seems to be the most
amiable, and his virtues are confesse