18G LIFE, TIMES, AND SCIENTIFIC LABOURS [1040-7. 



CHAPTER XL 



THE MARQUIS OF WORCESTER AN EXILE ; RESIDES IN 



FRANCE. 



THE Earl of Glamorgan, succeeding to his father s 

 title and honours in December, 1646, while he was yet 

 in Ireland, very soon after, as we have seen, went to 

 France, a voluntary exile. His countrymen had heaped 

 on him (in common with the entire Eoman Catholic 

 adherents to the royal cause) all the acrimonious abuse 

 which political and religious intolerance is always too 

 ready to disseminate, with a zealous ardour which defies 

 discrimination. His fate, it is true, was the general fate 

 of hundreds of noble families, condemned in like manner 

 to suffer for their loyalty. While we are prone to praise 

 what is gained by a rebellion, we are apt to overlook 

 whether the civil war entered upon for effecting it, 

 might not have been avoided ; and while lauding times 

 which bring to light some great military and naval 

 spirits or still greater statesmen, we overlook entirely 

 the possibility of altogether destroying the mental 

 energies of men of brighter intellects, doomed to fall 

 in the flower of their age on the field of battle. 

 The blessings of good government all readily admit, 

 but sad indeed is it, when wholesome changes in a state 

 have to be effected through convulsions that paralyse a 

 nation s advance in civilization. 



It is clear, on a retrospect, that much has been 

 delayed, much missed, and more possibly lost that other- 



