l. ii. p. 198.

He wanted that consolation which commonly supports those who perish by
the stroke of injustice and oppression: he was not buoyed up by glory,
nor by the affectionate compassion of the spectators; yet his mind,
erect and undaunted, found resources within itself, and maintained its
unbroken resolution amidst the terrors of death, and the triumphant
exultations of his misguided enemies. His discourse on the scaffold was
full of decency and courage. "He feared," he said, "that the omen was
bad for the intended reformation of the state, that it commenced with
the shedding of innocent blood." Having bid a last adieu to his brother
and friends who attended him, and having sent a blessing to his nearer
relations who were absent, "And now," said he, "I have nigh done! One
stroke will make my wife a widow, my dear children fatherless, deprive
my poor servants of their indulgent master, and separate me from my
affectionate brother and all my friends! But let God be to you and them
all in all!" Going to disrobe and prepare himself for the block, "I
thank God," said he, "that I am nowise afraid of death, nor am daunted
with any terrors; but do as cheerfully lay down my head at this time as
ever I did when going to repose!" With one blow was a period put to his
life by the executioner.[*]

Thus perished, in the forty-ninth year of his age, the earl of
Strafford, one of the most eminent personages that has appeared in
England. Though his death was loudly demanded as a satisfaction to
justice, and an atonement for the many violations of the constitution,
it may safely be affirmed, that the sentence by which he fell was an
enormity greater than the worst of those which his implacable enemies
prosecuted with so much cruel industry. The people, in their rage,
had totally mistaken the proper object of their resentment. All the
necessities, or, more properly speaking, the difficulties by which the
king had been induced to use violent expedients for raising supply, were
the result of measures previous to Strafford's favor; and if they arose
from ill conduct, he at least was entirely innocent. Even those
violent expedients themselves, which occasioned the complaint that the
constitution was subverted, had been, all of them, conducted, so far as
appeared, without his counsel or assistance. And whatever his private
advice might be,[**] this salutary maxim he failed not often and
publicly to inculcate in the king's presence, tha