The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume VII. Cavalier and Puritan.
§ 8. The Fairfax Correspondence
As we pass into the period of the civil war, our attention is claimed, after the letters of Oliver Cromwell already noticed, by The Fairfax Correspondence, and the Memorials of the Civil War which forms the conclusion of the series. Unfortunately, these volumes, which relate the history of a family genuinely English in its temperament and bearing, and include correspondence with many personages prominent in the struggle, are written in the confusing form, popularised by Carlyle, of running narrative interspersed with original letters. The same form is more successfully adopted in one of the most attractive records of family history belonging to the period from the outbreak of the civil war to the revolution of 1688 (and beyond); but, in this instance, the design is carried out with so much of both objectivity and freshness as to leave little room for cavil.