Falkland became a member of the king's council, and secretary of state.
We approach the end. Falkland "filled his place," says Clarendon, "with great sufficiency, being well versed in languages, to understand any that are used in business and to make himself understood." But in August, 1642, the Civil War broke out. With that departure of the public peace fled forever Falkland's own. He exposed himself at Edge-hill with even more than his ordinary carelessness of danger. As the war continued, his unhappiness grew upon him more and more. But let us quote Clarendon, who is here admirable:—
From his entrance into this unnatural war, his natural cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole upon him which he had never been used to. Yet being one of those who believed that one battle would end all differences, and that there would be so great a victory on one side that the other would be compelled to submit to any conditions from the victor (which supposition and conclusion generally sank into the minds of most men, and prevented the looking after many advantages that might then have been laid hold of), he resisted those indispositions, et in luctu, bellum inter remedia erat. But after the king's return from Brentford, and the furious resolution of the two Houses not to admit any treaty for peace, those indispositions, which had before touched him, grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness. And he who had been so exactly easy and affable to all men that his face and countenance was always present and vacant to his company, and held any cloudliness and less pleasantness of the visage a kind of rudeness or incivility, became on a sudden less communicable, and thence very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected with the spleen. In his clothes and habits, which he had minded before always with more industry and neatness and expense than is usual to so great a soul, he was now not only incurious, but too negligent.
In this mood he came to Newbury. Before the battle he told one of his friends that "he was weary of the times and foresaw much misery to his country, and did believe he should be out of it ere night." But now, as always, the close contact with danger reanimated him.
In the morning, before the battle, as always upon action, he was very cheerful, and put himself into the first rank of the Lord Byron's regiment, then advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers; from whence he was shot with a musket in the lower part of the belly, and in the instant falling from his horse, his body was not found till the next morning; till when there was some hope he might have been a prisoner, though his nearest friends, who knew his temper, received small comfort from that imagination. Thus fell that incomparable young man in the four-and thirtieth year of his age, having so much despatched the true business of life that the eldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocency. Whosoever leads such a life, needs be the less anxious upon how short warning it is taken from him.
He fell on the 20th of September, 1643. His body was carried to Great Tew and buried in the churchyard there. But his grave is unmarked and unknown. The house, too, in which he lived, is gone and replaced by a new one. The stables and dovecote, it is thought, existed in his time; and in the park are oaks and limes on which his eyes may have rested. Falkland left his estates, and the control of his three children, all of them sons, to his wife, with whom he had lived happily and in great affection. But the lands of Tew and Burford have long passed away from his family.
And now, after this review of Falkland's life, let us ask whence arose that exalted esteem of him whereof Lord Carnarvon speaks, and whether it was deserved. In the first place, then, he had certainly, except personal beauty, everything to qualify him for a hero to the imagination of mankind in general. He had rank, accomplishment, sweet temper, exquisite courtesy, liberality, magnanimity, superb courage, melancholy, misfortune, early death. Of his accomplishment we have spoken. And he was accomplished, nay learned, "with the most dexterity and address," says Clarendon, "and the least pedantry and affectation, that ever man who knew so much was possessed with, of what quality soever." Of his amenity we have spoken also; of "his disposition so gentle and obliging, so much delighting in courtesy, that all mankind could not but admire and love him;" of "his gentleness and affability so transcendent and obliging, that it drew reverence, and some kind of compliance, from the roughest and most unpolished and stubborn constitutions, and made them of another temper of debate, in his presence, than they were in other places." Equally charming was his generosity and delicacy to all who stood in need of help, but especially to those "whose fortunes required, and whose spirits made them superior to, ordinary obligations." Such is Clarendon's euphe-
