Scotchmen:--


DIVINES.

ALEXANDER HENDERSON: since 1639 one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and
since 1640 Rector of the University of Edinburgh (annually re-elected).
_aetat._ 60.--As Henderson has appeared again and again in this
History, I have only to add here that my researches have more and more
convinced me that he was, all in all, one of the ablest and best men of
his age in Britain, and the greatest, the wisest, and most liberal, of
the Scottish Presbyterians. They had all to consult him; in every strait
and conflict he had to be appealed to, and came in at the last as the man
of supereminent composure, comprehensiveness, and breadth of brow.
Although the Scottish Presbyterian rule was that no churchman should have
authority in State affair's, it had to be practically waived in his case:
he was a Cabinet Minister without office. The tradition in Scotland is
perfectly just which recollects him as the second founder of the Reformed
Church in that part of the island, its greatest man after Knox. Such is
the tradition; and yet you may look in Encyclopaedias and such-like works
of reference published of late years in Scotland, and not find
Henderson's name. The less wonder that he has never received justice in
general British History! I undertake, however, that any free-minded
English historian, investigating the course of even specially English
History from 1638 to 1646, will dig up the Scottish Henderson for himself
and see reason to admire him.--Henderson, it will be remembered, had been
in London, on the Anglo-Scottish business, before. But his stay then had
been for but seven months (Nov. 1640-June 1641). Now, as Scottish
Commissioner to the Westminster Assembly, he was to remain in England for
the best part of three years (Aug. 1643--Aug. 1646). It was the easier