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Whitelocke’s “Memorials” is a diary full of important public matters; and the noble editor, the Earl of Anglesea, observes, that “our author not only served the state, in several stations, both at home and in foreign countries, but likewise conversed with books, and made himself a large provision from his studies and contemplation, like that noble Roman Portius Cato, as described by Nepos. He was all along so much in business, one would not imagine he ever had leisure for books; yet, who considers his studies might believe he had been always shut up with his friend Selden, and the dust of action never fallen on his gown.” When Whitelocke was sent on an embassy to Sweden, he journalised it; it amounts to two bulky quartos, extremely curious. He has even left us a History of England.

Yet all is not told of Whitelocke; and we have deeply to regret the loss, or at least the concealment, of a work addressed to his family, which apparently would be still more interesting, as exhibiting his domestic habits and feelings, and affording a model for those in public life who had the spirit to imitate such greatness of mind, of which we have not many examples.–Whitelocke had drawn up a great work, which he entitled, “Remembrances of the Labours of Whitelocke in the Annales of his Life, for the instruction of his Children.” To Dr. Morton, the editor of Whitelocke’s “Journal of the Swedish Ambassy,” we owe the notice of this work; and I shall transcribe his dignified feelings in regretting the want of these MSS. “Such a work, and by such a father, is become the inheritance of every child, whose abilities and station in life may at any time hereafter call upon him to deliberate for his country,–and for his family and person, as parts of the great whole; and I confess myself to be one of those who lament the suppression of that branch of the Annales which relates to the author himself in his private capacity; they would have afforded great pleasure as well as instruction to the world in their entire form. The first volume, containing the first twenty years of his life, may one day see the light; but the greatest part has hitherto escaped my inquiries.” This is all we know of a work of equal moral and philosophical curiosity. The preface, however, to these “Remembrances,” has been fortunately preserved, and it is an extraordinary production. In this it appears that Whitelocke himself owed the first idea of his own work to one left by his father, which existed in the family, and to which he repeatedly refers his children. He says, “The memory and worth of your deceased grandfather deserves all honour and imitation, both from you and me; his ‘Liber Famelicus,’ his own story, written by himself, will be left to you, and was an encouragement and precedent to this larger work.” Here is a family picture quite new to us; the heads of the house are its historians, and these records of the heart were animated by examples and precepts, drawn from their own bosoms; and, as Whitelocke feelingly expresses it, “all is recommended to the perusal and intended for the instruction of my own house; and almost in every page you will find a dedication to you, my dear children.”

The habit of laborious studies, and a zealous attention to the history of his own times, produced the Register and Chronicle of Bishop Kennett. “Containing matters of fact, delivered in the words of the most authentic papers and records, all daily entered and commented on:” it includes an account of all pamphlets as they appeared. This history, more valuable to us than to his own contemporaries, occupied two large folios, of which only one has been printed: a zealous labour, which could only have been carried on from a motive of pure patriotism. It is, however, but a small part of the diligence of the bishop, since his own manuscripts form a small library of themselves.