Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland

There was a strong middle party forming in both Houses in the nation, desirous of a compromise in which episcopacy should be in some way modified by arranging that the bishops should share their authority with the ministers of their diocese.

Foremost among the new party of moderates was the gentle and amiable Lucius Carey, Lord Falkland.

In early life Falkland had tried and abandoned a soldier's life, and had retired to a country life and to his books.

His reputation for learning rapidly grew.

He was of so stupendous learning in all kinds and in all languages that a man would have thought that he had been entirely conversant with books and had never spent an hour but in reading and writing.

Yet his humanity, courtesy, and affability were such that he would have been thought to have been bred in the best courts, but that his good nature, charity, and delight in doing good and communicating all he knew exceeded that breeding.

But it is neither from his learning nor from his benevolence that Falkland is best remembered.

His house at Great Chew, a few miles from Oxford, was the gathering place of a company of wise and witty men who would have been content to follow Laud in his opposition to the dogmatism of the Puritans, but who abhorred Laud's despotic enforcement of uniformity.

They seem to have moved back to England in about 1628.

Um, Sibthorp, um, certainly had courted, uh, Falkland's favor, um, and obviously after Falkland's fall, um, his fortunes seem to have, um, evaporated somewhat.

Again, there's a rather interesting letter that Southwell writes to Falkland in the Folger manuscript.

Mary Louise Coolahan and Mark Empey suggest that the books in the trunks are additional to those in the book list in the Folger manuscript.

Whitney Trettien observes that the collection, quote, "Is that of a woman with literary interests rather than a scholar or gentleman.

But fools the good alone unhappy call, for ills or accidents that chance to all.

See Falkland dies, the virtuous and the just; see godlike Turenne prostrate on the dust; see Sidney bleeds amid the martial strife; was this their virtue, or contempt of life? Say, was it virtue, more tho' Heaven ne'er gave, lamented Digby sunk thee to the grave? Tell me, if virtue made the son expire, why, full of days and honor, lives the sire? Why drew Marseilles' good bishop purer breath, when nature sickened, and each gale was death? Or why so long (in life, if long can be) lent Heaven a parent to the poor and me? What makes all physical or moral ill? There deviates nature, and here wanders will.

God sends not ill: if rightly understood, or partial ill is universal good; or change admits, or nature lets it fall, short, and but rare, till man improved it all.

We just as wisely might of Heaven complain, that righteous Abel was destroyed by Cain, as that the virtuous son is ill at ease, when his lewd father gave the dire disease.

So are Clarendon's portraits of Hampton, who was of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out or wearied by the most laborious, and of parts not to be imposed on by the most subtle and sharp, and of a personal courage equal to his best parts.

Of Falkland, who was so severe an adorer of truth that he could as easily have given himself leave to steal as to dissemble.

We cannot read Plutarch without a tingling of the blood, and I accept the saying of the Chinese Mencius, As age is the instructor of a hundred ages, when the manners of Lu were heard of, the stupid become intelligent, and the wavering determined.

This is the moral of biography.

At this time also must be chiefly referred his intercourse with the remarkable group affectionately commemorated by Clarendon.

Its most attractive member was Lord Falkland, who has won the regard of posterity by the charm of his character rather than by any special achievement.

He lived at Tew, a few miles from Oxford, and according to Clarendon's account, kept open house for all the most distinguished members of the university.

Among the men who could drop in and make free use of his table and library were the divines Sheldon and Morley, afterwards bishops, and Hammond and Chillingworth, who died before the Restoration, while occasional wits and poets came over from London.

Whether Hobbes was ever of the party does not appear.

Falkland, however, according to Aubrey, was his great friend and admirer, and besides Clarendon himself, one who afterwards gave substantial proof of his regard was Sidney Godolphin, a poet of some reputation.

If Hobbes joined the circle, he would not find its opinions altogether congenial.

There was not much love lost between him and actual or potential bishops, and Morley Sheldon and Hammond would be too strictly orthodox for his taste.