great enemy of Heaven and man, shall become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ.

J.

Memoirs of the Protector Oliver Cromwell, and of his Sons, Richard and Henry. Illustrated by original Letters, and other Family Papers. By OLIVER CROMWELL, Esq., a Descendant of the Family. With Portraits from original Pictures. London, 1820. 4to. pp. 733.

AN honest old Roman, of quite as much valour as wit, is said to have visited Athens as proconsul; when being very much shocked and coufounded by the incessant disputes which were there carrying on between the different sects of philosophers," who found no end, in wandering mazes lost," he offered a day in which they should all meet before him; and he would sit as arbiter between them, and contribute his friendly aid to settle the whole matter at issue. The same success which was likely to attend this parental offer of the venerable proconsul, we should expect to attend the labour of any one who should hope to settle to the satisfaction of either party, or perhaps of himself, the points in dispute between the Royalists and the Puritans under Charles the First;-"a matter," said the wise Baxter, "which the sickness of men's minds makes it impossible for any but God to do; however otherwise easy the terms of reconciliation might have been between those parties." It is by no means with the vain hope of effecting such an historical reconciliation, (and may it be only a subject of history!), that we sit down to the consideration of the present memoir. Nor is it sim

ply with a view of shewing our readers all that may be said in favour of a character, who has hitherto shared but few smiles from the historic muse; and, unless she be a falsifier of no ordinary cast, has by her been very deservedly "condemned to everlasting fame." Our object is rather, in the first place, to get at facts respecting those very remarkable times, and particularly respecting one who acted in them so very remarkable and conspicuous a part. And having traced a few lineaments with as much justice as possible, by the aid of Cromwell's descendant and biographer, we shall aim, in the second place, for general benefit, to make such observations as may arise on the very extraordinary religious features developed in the Puritan character, and which, with more or less truth and fidelity, were reflected in the person of Oliver Cromwell..

In respect of political worth, not to say also of certain moral traits of character in our view infinitely more important, it has often occurred to us, that King Charles the First, and Oliver Cromwell the Protector, might not improperly stand a cour parison, as the fair representatives of their respective parties. Thus, are you, in reading the history of those times, a Royalist? look at Charles for the monarch you fight for. Are you inclined rather to the side of the Parliament? steadily contemplate the character of Cromwell;-there is the ultimate point towards which you are tending on that side: and every intermediate stage of moderation or excess in the progress of Puritanism may be

considered but as a point in the hill along which the stone is hastening towards its proper limit of motion.

In comparing the traditions of history respecting these two personages, it is a curious coincidence, that each, in his turn, has been accused of having had in his character a portion of insincerity. This is indeed far too slight a term for that distinguishing imputation which has ever overshadowed the memory of Cromwell: and if Charles has been, by his severest enemies, sometimes represented as a mixture of tyranny and duplicity, Cromwell has still more narrowly escaped the universal charge of insolence and hypocrisy. Indeed, it must be allowed, on all hands, that the King has here, even his enemies them selves being judges, infinitely the advantage of the Protector. Charles, through necessity, submitted to subterfuge; and the plea to which his enemies were driven by force, in order to justify his final execution, was, that in very critical moments he dissembled his real sentiments, and watched his opportunity of escape and revenge. Of Cromwell, it is scarcely said by any, with confidence of truth, that perils alone frightened him into dissimulation contrary to natural feelings of conscience and rectitude: but it seems rather conceded, that he proceeded all along upon the broad, palpable, barefaced, downright principle of saying whatever suited his purpose at the time, and using every species of religious trick upon plan, in order to carry with him the opinions of religious people; and, at the same time, accomplish every favourite design of his own, whether religious or irreligious.

If from this last and foul disgrace, it is the design of his descendant and biographer, amongst other things, to defend him, we shall so far further his design at the very outset as to acknowledge that hy pocrisy does not seem to us to be the leading and characteristic trait

of Cromwell himself, and still less of the unfortunate Charles; nor indeed, exclusively at least, of the times themselves. There was truly enough, and more than enough, of dissimulation and hypocrisy on both sides in that most fatal civil discord. Religion was too much inveigled into her "worst abuse, or meanest use," both by Royalists and Republicans. And though we should ever lift our hand and voice against the comparison of Charles himself, (half dissembler as he may on some occasions have been), with the unblenched hypocrisies of some at least of the other party; yet it must be owned that "church and king" might bear, on the one side, a sound not very unlike that of "Covenant and Parliament" on the other: and if Privilege and Presbyterianism were conveniently and politically leagued together by the Republicans, it is not to be denied that Prerogative and Episcopacy were at least equally convenient companions for the Monarch. Religion, in fine, is too sharp and powerful a weapon not to be enlisted on all sides in national, and more particularly in civil, broils. And most especially, where abuses in religion were a part of the grievance, nay, it may be said, formed the largest half of the complaint against existing powers, as in those times it certainly did; it can afford no matter of surprize whatever, that an assumption of religious profession should be a qualification for the battle; and that he who should prove himself, in the common estimation, the most religious, would in all probability likewise turn out the most successful.

On this account, were we to look for a specific lesson to be learnt either from the Puritanical times is general, or from the conduct of Cromwell in particular, it would not be the impropriety of abusing a religious profession for secular and selfish purposes; for we believe thus much of human nature, that it will always, according to its opportuni

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best reason, deny. They appear, in general, to have known little, if any thing, even of their own intention. They seem to have been guided by no fixed principle, but that of an undistinguishing and unextinguishable spirit of party, an eager desire of the prevalence of their own private and party views, the lust of their own uncontrollable dominion. "Magnà cæcâque libidine ducti." They were nominally Presbyterians, Independents, freethinkers, and what not; but they were essentially and at heart Republicans; that is, attached to a form where each might play the tyrant on an equality with the rest, and all should have the pleasure of ruling by their own law. "You have taken the whole machine of government to pieces," said Charles in a discourse to the Parliament; "a practice frequent with skilful artists, when they desire to clear the wheels from any rust, which may have grown upon them. The engine," continued he, "may again be restored to its former use and motion, provided it be put up entire, so as not a pin of it be wanting." "But this was far," says Mr. Hume, in his comment on those words, "from the intention of the Commons. The machine, they thought with some reason, was incumbered with many wheels and springs which retarded and crossed its operations, and destroyed its utility. Happy! had they proceeded with moderation, and been contented in the plenitude of their power to remove such parts only as might be justly deemed superfluous and incongruous." Moderation from men in the plenitude of power! Contentment in a party strong enough to take the whole machine of government to pieces! We should as soon expect a delirious patient to prescribe satisfactorily for his own disorder; or send our watches to be repaired by some brainsick mechanic in St. Luke's.

To the spirit of party we un

questionably trace almost all the disorders and dislocations of those agitated times. It is not our intention to trace back, as we might, even to the Reformation itself, the various and concurring circumstances which led to heighten and inflame that spirit in preceding reigns, till, through fresh concurrences and stronger mixtures, it arrived at length at the point of explosion in the time of King Charles. We shall only observe further upon it, by way of a little palliating its enormous excesses,— 1. That it did arise on a religious ground, and consequently partook in all the vehemence incident to men, when they have at issue a stake of the greatest and most lasting concern. 2. That it arose at a period when different parties had comparatively a slight knowledge of each other, for want of that ready and familiar intercourse which is the privilege of modern times; and by consequence were led to stigmatize each other as unprincipled and worthless, as having neither head nor heart. 3. That this, however, happened at a time when new light had just burst upon the Christian world in a sufficient degree to give to each party in the community the clearest pos sible view of its own opinions, and to furnish the strongest arguments by which they might be supported. Hence they were at once both keeneyed and dogmatical. 4. That there was as yet necessarily too little of precision in the arguments, or of definition in the actual rights, on either side; so that it was really within the reach of moderate faculties to prove, on the one hand, every prerogative to be an abuse, and, on the other, all opposition to be rebellion. The contending parties had no fixed criteria, no star or compass properly to guide them. The monarch, in carrying up his claims towards arbitrary power, had only the example of his forefathers to plead; and the people, in pursuing their rights to the iron rule

of democracy, rushed as it were unconsciously over every just but ill-defined boundary of fair selfdefence. Each side did that which was right in its own eyes; and the most vehement excesses of partyspirit appeared, to the persons concerned, to admit of justification upon some plausible pretences, arising out of the partial and varying views which were taken of an unsettled and still fermenting constitution.

The quarrel of Charles the First with his Parliament was hereditary. Their language had long been such as neither he nor his fathers were willing to tolerate. So far from his own disposition leading him in dividually to a tyrannical excess, it could be easily shewn, by instances, that the language of James, his father, and of Queen Elizabeth, had been very far more arbitrary than bis, and perhaps therefore more successful. Indeed, it was he who, in the disastrous strife between King and Parliament, commenced the retreat and had he possessed but the skill of Xenophon with the ten thousand in ancient times, or of Moreau in modern warfare, half the honest intentions he undoubtedly possessed would have brought off the constitution, and his own head too, safe from the conflict. If there was one man free from the universal mania of party in those times, one who was by nature disposed to take a calm and rational view of affairs, and to consult the good both of his own and the opposite party, it was that unfortunate monarch, who became at length the victim of both. His great, aud for those times, singular error, consisted in a distrust of his own judgment, which was naturally excellent; in a candour which admitted far too much in opposition to that judgment, not only from his adherents, but from the opposite party; in a moderation, and even a tenderness, which spared when it was the proper time to strike, while, as not unusually it happens, he

often acted energetically and rashly when the time for effective ope rations was gone by. He had further a strong and settled sentiment of religion. Conscientious motives were uppermost in his mind; a fact respecting which, however different parties may be disposed to reason, we do not believe there is any cautious investigator of historical evidence who will now venture to express a doubt.

The enumeration of these qualities of Charles brings us nearer to our present subject; because it leads us to the consideration of two circumstances in his case, which appear to us to have constituted his peculiar misfortune: either of which was sufficient to have shaken the foundations of any monarchy, and both of which will afford a clue to the elevation of Cromwell upon the ruins of Charles's throne. These were-1. His being surrounded with wretched counsellors, imbued with the worst party-phrenzy of the times and, 2. His permitting those counsellors to mix up the most affecting questions of re ligion with the political dissentions then afloat. Thus it was, in reference to the first mentioned circumstance, that, with the haughty Buckingham at his side, he dismissed successively those early parliaments in his reign, of which Clarendon himself confesses in substance, that no set of men were better qualified to judge of the existing abuses in church and state, or endued with better tempers for carrying a moderate reform into due execution. It was under the instigation of a much shrewder and more distinguished statesman, the lofty Strafford-once the splenetic partizan of republican privilege, but easily transformed into the uncompromising advocate of royal prerogative-that, in the absence of parliaments, he stretched his constitutional powers of taxation to an extent which it might easily have been foreseen would neither answer his own purpose, nor comport with the most moderate claims,