class that graduated at Harvard College,--a man of extraordinary
talents and wonderful fortunes. After finishing his collegiate
course, in 1642, he studied divinity, probably under the direction of
Hugh Peters; went to the West Indies, acting as chaplain in the
vessel; preached and received calls to settle in several places; went
on to England; entered the parliamentary service as chaplain to a
regiment; was rapidly drawn into notice, and promoted from point to
point, until he became scoutmaster-general in Cromwell's army. This
office seems to have combined the functions of inspector and
commissary-general, and head of the reconnoitering department. In
1654, he was married to Frances, sister of Viscount Morpeth,
afterwards Earl of Carlisle; thus uniting himself with "the blood of
all the Howards," one of the noblest families in England. The nuptials
were celebrated with great pomp, an epithalamium in Latin, &c. All
this, within eleven years after he took his degree at Harvard, is
surely an extraordinary instance of rising in the world. He was a
member of Parliament for Scotland. Cromwell sent him to France on
diplomatic business, and his correspondence in Latin from that court
was the beginning of a career of great services in that line. He was
soon commissioned ambassador to the Hague, then the great court in
Europe. Thurlow's state papers show with what marvellous vigilance,
activity, and efficiency he conducted, from that centre, the
diplomatic affairs of the commonwealth. At the restoration of the
monarchy, he made the quickest and the loftiest somersault in all
political history. It was done between two days. He saw Charles the
Second at the Hague, on his way to England to resume his crown: and
the man who, up to that moment, had been one of the most zealous
supporters of the commonwealth, came out next morning as an equally
zealous supporter of the king. He accompanied this wonderful exploit
by an act of treachery to three of his old associates,--including