THE YOUTH'S INSTRUCTER AND GUARDIAN. APRIL, 1853. THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF ARUNDEL. THERE was neither sufficient force of intellect nor of moral principle in this nobleman, to entitle him to a place on the pages of history. His name appears there because of its accidental association with striking events in the history of our country. In the year 1603, soon after his accession to the throne, King James restored Thomas Howard from the effects of the attainder of his ancestor, the Duke of Norfolk, executed by Henry VIII., except that he was not allowed the dukedom, but only the earldom of Arundel and Surrey. In a few years he became a member of the Privy Council, but sustained a small share only of the cares of state. Instead of devoting himself to the welfare of his country, he travelled in Italy, enjoying the luxury and licentiousness of that country. He was little capable of maintaining a spirit of patriotism at a time when Italian counsels were not only hostile to this country because of the natural opposition that must ever exist so long as the Prince-Priest reigns at Rome, and a Protestant Sovereign in London, but specially violent, and identified with treasons of the deepest turpitude. But this did not prevent James I. from giving him his confidence. In perusing the history of this and the succeeding reign, we find the Earl of Arundel in most unfortunate positions. Without any military skill, and without a spark of patriotism, he is placed high in military rank, and made EarlMarshal of England. Without any change of heart, and VOL. XVII. Second Series. H probably without any change of opinion, he changed his profession of religion, and passed over from the Church of Rome to the Church of England. When Charles I. made war on the Scottish Covenanters, as if the infatuation of that unhappy King were to be manifest in every particular of his conduct, the Earl of Arundel, utterly unable to perform the duties of a General, was placed in command of a numerous army that just saw the faces of the brave Scots, on the banks of the Tyne, and fled homeward with their courtly General at their heels. It was he who signed, by commission, the Bill of attainder of the Earl of Strafford, whom Charles sacrificed to popular fury for the faults of his own government. It was he, also, who gave the like signature to the Bill which declared that Parliament could never be dissolved but by its own consent; thus lending himself to subvert the British constitution, sacrificing the royal prerogative after it had been abused, instead of using his high position in the state to prevent that abuse. His name is kept before our memory by means of a collection of marbles now preserved at Oxford, consisting of statues, busts, mutilated figures, inscriptions, &c., which were presented to that University by his grandson, Henry Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk. Mortified by a refusal of Charles to restore him to the dukedom, Arundel, the collector of those marbles, withdrew from England in disgust, wandered in various countries, and died in Padua, on the 4th of October, 1646. His body was brought to England, and buried at Arundel. He is noted here merely as one of the personages who moved on the theatre of public life at a period towards which we have glanced in some preceding papers, but now leave, purposing to present our readers henceforth with sketches of other subjects; and here borrow, as more authentic than anything that could now be written, a description of his personal character from the pen of Clarendon, a contemporary. "The Earl of Arundel was the next officer of state, who, in his own right and quality, preceded the rest of the Council. He was generally thought to be a proud man, who lived always within himself, and to himself, conversing little with any who were in common conversation; so tha the seemed to live, as it were, in another nation, his house being a place to which all people resorted, who resorted to no other place; strangers, or such as affected to look like strangers, and dressed themselves accordingly. He resorted sometimes to the Court, because there only was a greater man than himself; and went thither the seldomer, because there was a greater man than himself. He lived towards all favourites (of the King) and great officers, without any kind of condescension; and rather suffered himself to be ill-treated by their power and authority-for he was often in disgrace, and once or twice prisoner in the Tower-than to descend in making any application to them. "And upon these occasions he spent a great interval of his time in several journeys into foreign parts, and, with his wife and family, had lived some years in Italy, the humour and manners of which nation he seemed most to like and approve, and affected to imitate. He had a good fortune by descent, and a much greater from his wife, who was the sole daughter upon the matter-for neither of the two sisters left any issue of the great house of Shrewsbury; but his expenses were without any measure, and always exceeded very much his revenue. He was willing to be thought a scholar, and to understand the most mysterious parts of antiquity, because he made a wonderful and costly purchase of excellent statues, whilst he was in Italy and in Rome,-some whereof he could never obtain permission to remove from Rome, though he had paid for them,-and had a rare collection of the most curious medals. "As to all parts of learning, he was most illiterate, and thought no other part of history so considerable as what related to his own family; in which, no doubt, there had been some very memorable persons. It cannot be denied that he had in his person, in his aspect, and countenance, the appearance of a great man, which he preserved in his gait and motion. He wore and affected a habit very different from that of the time, such as men had only beheld in the pictures of the most considerable men; all which drew the eyes of most, and the reverence of many, towards him, as the image and representative of the primitive nobility and native gravity of the nobles, when they had been most |