le of contradictory or even of superficially
compatible characteristics. Secondly, Clarendon is at his best an
incomparable narrator. Many of his battles, though related with apparent
coolness, and without the slightest attempt to be picturesque, may rank as
works of art with his portraits, just as the portraits and battle pieces of
a great painter may rank together. The sober vivid touches, the little bits
of what the French call _reportage_ or mere reproduction of the actual
words and deeds of the personages, the elaborate and carefully-concealed
art of the composition, all deserve the highest praise. Here, for instance,
is a fair average passage, showing Clarendon's masterly skill in summary
narration and his equally masterly, though, as some hold, rather
unscrupulous faculty of insinuating depreciation:--

"Since there will be often occasion to mention this gentleman,
Sir Richard Granvil, in the ensuing discourse, and because many
men believed that he was hardly dealt with in the next year,
where all the proceedings will be set down at large, it will not
be unfit in this place to say somewhat of him, and of the manner
and merit of his entering into the king's service some months
before the time we are now upon. He was of a very ancient and
worthy family in Cornwall which had in several ages produced men
of great courage, and very signal in their fidelity to and
service of the crown; and was himself younger brother (though in
his nature or humour not of kin to him) to the brave Sir Basil
Granvil who so courageously lost his life at the battle of
Lansdowne. Being a younger brother and a very young man, he went
into the Low Countries to learn the profession of a soldier; to
which he had devoted himself under the greatest general of that
age, Prince Maurice, and in the regiment of my Lord Vere, who was
general of all the English. In that service he was looked upon as
a man of courage and a diligent officer, in the quality of a
captain, to which he attained after four years' service. About
this time, in the end of the reign of King James, the war broke
out between England and Spain; and in the expedition to Cadiz
this gentleman served as a major to a regiment of foot, and
continued in the same command in the war that shortly after
followed against France; and at the Isle of Rhe insinuated
himself i