Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/90

 might be admonitory,—would be astonishing at least. We must clip one extract from Rushworth’s huge Rag-fair of a Book; the mournfulest torpedo rubbish-heap, of jewels buried under sordid wreck and dust and dead ashes, one jewel to the wagon-load;—and let the reader try to make a visual scene of it as he can. Here, we say, is an old Letter, which ‘old Mr. Chamberlain of the Court of Wards,’ a gentleman entirely unknown to us, received fresh and new, before breakfast, on a June morning of the year 1628; of which old Letter we, by a good chance, have obtained a copy for the reader. It is by Mr. Thomas Alured, a good Yorkshire friend, Member for Malton in that county;—written in a hand which, if it were not naturally stout, would tremble with emotion. Worthy Mr. Alured, called also ‘Al’red’ or ‘Aldred’; uncle or father, we suppose, to a ‘Colonel Alured,’ well known afterwards to Oliver and us: he writes; we abridge and present, as follows.

‘Friday, 6th June 1628. ‘Sir,—Yesterday was a day of desolation among us in Parliament; and this day, we fear, will be the day of our dissolution.

‘Upon Tuesday Sir John Eliot moved that as we intended to furnish his Majesty with money, we should also supply him with counsel. Representing the doleful state of affairs, he desired there might be a Declaration made to the King, of the danger wherein the Kingdom stood by the decay and contempt of religion, by the insufficiency of his Ministers, by the’ etc. etc. ‘Sir Humphrey May, Chancellor of the Duchy, said, “it was a strange language”; yet the House commanded Sir John Eliot to go on. Whereupon the Chancellor desired, “If he went on, he the Chancellor might go out.” They all bade him “begone”: yet he stayed, and heard Sir John out.