The accused members bade defiance to his power in their retreat, for they were idolized by the people. At length poor Charles determined to quit Whitehall for Hampton Court, with his wife and children. Thence he proceeded to Windsor, to prepare for war; for both parties now plainly foresaw that war was inevitable, and began to prepare for it in good earnest, although secretly. It was only delayed because each party wished the other to commence hostilities.

At length the king formally called his subjects to arms, by planting the royal standard at Nottingham. The royal army progressed but slowly, while, on the other hand, that of Parliament, under the command of the Earl Essex, already numbered 20,000, and rapidly increased. The first battle was fought on the 23d Oct., at Edge-Hill near Keynton, in Warwickshire. Both parties claimed the victory. The king established his head-quarters at Oxford. The history of this period of the war is not important, both parties, from a feeling of affinity with their enemies, hesitated at striking a decisive blow, until Cromwell, who began to shine prominently among the great men of the day, began to organize another army.

"The royal cavalry more especially struck terror into the Parliamentary horse; and the cavalry was still, as in the feudal times, the most honored and efficient force. Hampden and Cromwell were talking one day of this inferiority of their party. How can it be otherwise?' asked Cromwell; your horse are, for the most part, superannuated domestics, and people of the soil; theirs are the sons of gentlemen, men of quality. Do you think such poor vagabonds as your fellows have soul enough to stand against gentlemen, full of resolution and honor? Take not my words ill. I know you will not; you must have fellows animated by a spirit that will take them as far as the king's gentlemen, or you'll always be beaten.' 'You are right,' said Hampden; but this cannot be.' I can do something towards it,' said Cromwell; and I will. I will raise men who will have the fear of God before their eyes, and who will bring some conscience to what they do, and I promise you they shall not be beaten.' He accordingly went through the eastern counties, recruiting young men, the greater part known to him, and he to them; all freeholders, or the sons of freeholders. to whom pay was not an object, nor mere idleness a pleasure; all fierce, hostile fanatics, engaging in the war for conscience's sake, and under Cromwell from confidence in him. I will not deceive you,' said he, nor may you believe, as my commission has it, that you are going to fight for the king and Parliament; if the king were before me, I would as soon shoot him as another. If your conscience will not allow you to do as much, go and serve elsewhere.' The majority did not hesitate a moment; and they were no sooner enlisted, than all the comforts of domestic, and all the license of military life, were alike interdicted them; subjected to the most severe discipline, compelled to keep their horses and arms in perfect order, often sleeping in the open air; passing, almost without relaxation, from the duties of military services to the exercises of piety, their leader insisted upon their devoting themselves to their new calling as earnestly as to their cause and that the free energy of fanaticism should, in them, be combined with the disciplined firmness of the soldier. When the campaign opened, fourteen squadrons of such volunteers, forming a body of about a thousand horse, marched under the orders of Cromwell."-Ib. pp. 206, 207.

Such was the secret of Cromwell's success, and such formed the strength of that army, which afterwards gained so much renown. They were soldiers, not from profession or for gain, but from pure conviction, from religious duty. In a day when it was considered imperative upon all to fight for their religion, they buckled on the sword to defend their own homes and the temples of the Most High. Their presence in the battle-field was the result of a deeply-rooted, but steady conviction of the rectitude of their cause, the sacredness of those privileges for which they fought. They were not "fanatics," as M. Guizot designates them, but mostly pious and

determined men, who, in fighting in the army of Cromwell, merely discharged their consciences of what was considered, by all parties, a duty binding upon all-to fight for the religion they professed. Our author has fallen, we conceive, into several mistakes of this kind, which, as we purpose noticing hereafter, we shall not detain our readers to consider, but pass on to notice the leading events of the Revolution.

Skirmishes were daily taking place between straggling parties of the two armies, with alternate success. In one of these, fought on the 18th June, on Chalgrave Common, some distance from Oxford, John Hampden received a wound, from the effects of which he died. The death of this good and great man was, of course, received with very different emotions by the opposing parties. The royalists displayed unequivocal signs of joy, while the Parliament and its adherents bitterly lamented the death of one of their best and bravest champions. Disaster now fell steadily and heavily upon the people. Place after place surrendered to the victorious army of Charles, until they invested Gloucester. Thither Essex repaired, and compelled the royalists to raise the siege. The battle of Newberry shortly afterwards occurred, when the Parliament gained a decisive victory. Among those slain of the king's army was Lord Falkland, one of the very few of the honest adherents of Charles, the account of whose death we extract from our author. After enumerating some of those slain, he adds:

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"-Lord Falkland, the glory of the royalist party-a patriot, though proscribed at London; respected by the people, though a minister at Oxford. There was nothing to call him to the field of battle, and his friends had more than once reproached him for his needless temerity. My office,' he would answer, with a smile, 'is far from being such as to deprive me of the privilege of my age; a secretary at war should know something about war.' For some months past he had sought danger with eagerness; the sufferings of the people, the greater evils he foresaw, the anxiety of his mind, the ruin of his hopes, the continual disquietude of his soul; placed, as he was, among a party whose success he dreaded almost as much as their defeat, everything had contributed to plunge him into utter despondency, His temper was soured; his imagination, naturally brilliant, various and gay, had become fixed and sombre. Inclined by taste and habit to peculiar elegance in toilet, he had of late taken no care, neither of his apparel or of his person; no conversation, no employment had any longer charms for him. Sitting with his friends, his head buried in his hands, he would, after a protracted silence, sorrow, fully murmur, Peace! peace!' The prospect of some negotiation alone revived him. On the morning of the battle, those around him were astonished to find him more cheerful than of late; he seemed to give a long, unwonted attention to his dress. If I be killed to day, said he, I would not that they should find my body in foul linen.' His friends conjured him to stay away; sadness once more stole over his features. No,' he said, I am weary of the times; I foresee much misery to my country, but I believe I shall be out of it before night;' and he joined Lord Byron's regiment as a volunteer. The action had scarcely commenced when a ball hit him in the lower part of the stomach; he fell from his horse, and died without any one having observed him fall; the victim of times too rugged for his pure and sensitive virtue. His body was not found till next day; his friends, Hyde in particular, preserved an inconsolable remembrance of him; the courtiers heard, without much emotion, of the death of a man who was foreign to their ways and feelings. Charles manifested decent regret, and felt himself more at ease in the Council."-Ib. pp. 227, 228.

(To be Continued.)

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MIRABEAU.*

We have just received from Paris the first volume of Lamartine's new work on the French Revolution. The brilliant talents of its illustrious author; the high interest of the subject; above all, the singular fact that these great works, on the same grand topic, appeared simultaneously in Paris in the month of April last, and each one written by the master-spirits of contemporary French literature, Lamartine, Louis Blanc, and Michelet, gives to the present volume under review an attraction even beyond that which necessarily belongs to any production from the accomplished pen of its author.

This splendid book has fallen into our hands only at the last moment, and time is wanting to give it not merely a perusal, but that careful reflection to which its varied materials, and the admirable mode in which they are treated, equally demand. Though it seems to us something like presumption to aspire to sit in judgment over the effusions of genius like those of Lamartine, it is a task far more consonant to the enthusiastic feelings of admiration which inspire us, and which is indeed far more becoming our humble capacity, to content ourselves simply with pointing out to the enjoyment of the reading world such passages as are more particularly worthy their attention, if a perusal of the entire work should not be in their power. To explain the nature and scope of his object, we cannot do better than translate from the preface of the author his remarks on this head. He says:

"This book has not the pretensions of history, and therefore should not affect its solemnity. It is only an intermediate book between history and memoirs. Events occupy less space than men and ideas. Familiar details abound, and details are the physiognomy of character; and it is by them that the imagination is impressed. Distinguished writers have already written the fastes of this evermemorable epoch. Others, besides, will write it soon. injustice to make any comparison. They have drawn, or will draw the picture It would be doing us an of a century; we have given but a sketch of a group of men, and of a few months only of the Revolution."

Thus simply and clearly does Lamartine explain the unpretending nature of his work. It is true, he attempts not the serious duties, nor ventures on the laborious drudgery, of a conscientious and pains-taking historian. Sympathising with the heroic elevation of character which distinguished the ill-fated, but noble-minded Girondist, Lamartine has merely sought to give expression to his fine sentiments of admiration, and, with the modesty of true genius, little dreaming the act was consecrating for ever the memory of his subject.

But we will spare our impatient readers the ennui of longer suspense, and put before them at once the following extract, which is, beyond question, the most powerful portraiture ever drawn of Mirabeau.

The education of Mirabeau was as harsh and cold as the hand of his father, who was called the friend of man, but whose restless spirit and egotistical vanity rendered him the persecutor of his wife and the tyrant of his children. The only virtue inculcated in him was that of honor. Thus it was the fashion of the time to style that ostentatious virtue, which

was frequently but the exterior of probity and the elegance of vice. Having entered the service early, he acquired from military manners only a taste for libertinism and play. His father's hand reached him everywhere, not to raise him, but to crush him still more under the consequences of his errors. His youth was passed in the state prisons; his passions were rendered more intense by solitude; his genius was sharpened against the bars of his prison, and his soul lost there the modesty that rarely survives the infamy of those precocious chastisements. Withdrawn from prison to attempt, according to the avowal of his father, a difficult marriage with Mademoiselle de Marignan, a rich heiress of one of the great houses of Province, he exercised himself like a wrestler in political stratagems and artifices, on the little theatre of Aix. Cunning, seduction, hardihood, in short, all the resources of his nature were displayed to ensure success. Success he attained; but scarcely was he married, when fresh persecutions followed him, and the fortress of Pontaslier opened its gates for his reception. A passion, that the Letters to Sophie have rendered immortal, again opened its gates to him. He carried off Madame de Monnier from her aged spouse. The happy lovers took refuge for a few months in Holland. They were pursued there, separated and imprisoned, the one in a convent, the other under the keys of Vincennes. Love which, like fire in the veins of the earth, always discovers itself in some phase of the destiny of great men, lighted up, in a single and ardent focus, all the passions of Mirabeau. In vengeance, it was outraged love that he satisfied; in liberty, it was love that he rejoined and that he delivered; in study, it was still love that he illustrated. He entered prison an obscure individual; he quitted it a writer, orator and statesman, but perverted, ready for anything, even to sell himself to purchase fortune and celebrity.

The drama of life was conceived in his head; he only required a scene, and time prepared it for him. In the interval of a few years that elapsed between his exit from the keys of Vincennes to the tribune of the National Assembly, he piled up a number of polemic works that would have wearied any other man, and that only served to keep him in breath. The bank of St. Charles, the institution of Holland, the work on Prussia, and the contest with Beaumarchais-his style and his rôle—those grand pleadings on questions of war, the European balance and finances-those biting invectives, those duels of words with the ministers or the popular men of the moment, already smacked of the Roman forum in the days of Claudius and Cicero. One perceived the ancient in controversies of quite a modern nature. It seemed as if the first yells of those popular tumults which were about to burst forth, had become audible, and that his voice was destined to dominate over them. At the first elections of Aix, rejected with contempt by the nobility, he rushed amongst the people, sure of inclining the balance wherever he threw the weight of his genius and boldness. Marseilles disputed with Aix the great plebeian. His two elections, the speeches that he pronounced there, the addresses that he drew up, and the energy that he displayed, occupied the attention of the whole of France. His wide echoing words became the proverbs of the revolution. In comparing himself in his high sounding phraseology to the ancients, he placed himself, in the imagination of the people, on the height of the rôles that he wished to recall. The people became accustomed to confound him with the names that he cited. He made a great noise to prepare the public mind for great commotions; he announced himself proudly to the nation in that sublime apostrophe of his address to the people of Marseilles. When the last of the Gracchi ex

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pired, he cast dust towards the sky, and from that dust was born Marius ! Marius, less great for having exterminated the Cimbres than for having lowered in Rome the aristocracy of birth."

On entering the National Assembly, he filled it. The whole people belonged to him alone. His gestures were orders, his motions were coups. d'etat. He placed himself on a level with the throne. The nobility felt themselves vanquished by the force which had issued from their own body. The clergy of the people, who wished to replace the democracy in the Church, lent him its force to crush the double aristocracy of the nobility and the bishops. In the course of a few months all the parts had fallen of what it had taken centuries to build up and cement. Mirabeau alone recognised himself in the midst of the wreck. His rôle of tribune ceased, that of statesman began. He was still greater in the latter than in the former. When all the world felt their way, he hit the mark, and walked straight to his object. The revolution in his head was no longer the fruit of anger; it was a plan. The philosophy of the eighteenth century, moderated by the prudence of politics, flowed in well digested form from his lips. His eloquence, imperative as the law, was now only the talent of giving greater force to reason. His words threw light upon and cleared up everything; almost alone from that moment, he had the courage to remain alone. He braved envy, hatred and murmurs, supported by the consciousness of his superiority. He dismissed with contempt the passions that had followed him until then. He would no more of them from the day when his cause had no longer need of them; he now only spoke to men in the name of his genius. This title sufficed him to be obeyed. The assent that truth finds in the soul constituted his power. He raised himself amongst all parties and above all. All detested him, because he commanded them; and all flattered him, because he could destroy or save them. He gave himself to none; he negotiated with all. He placed unmoved upon the tumultuous elements of that assembly, the basis of the reformed constitution. Legislation, finances, diplomacy, war, religion, political economy, the balance of power, he approached and solved all these questions, not as an utopist but as a politician. The solution that he brought to them was always the exact medium between the ideal and the practical. He placed reason within the range of manners and institutions, in conformity with established habits. He wished for a throne to support the democracy; he wished for liberty in the chambers, and the will of the nation one and irresistible in the government. The character of his genius, so often defined and so little understood, was less that of boldness than justice. He had, under the majesty of expression, the infallibility of good sense. Even his vices could not prevail over the clearness and the sincerity of his intellect. At the foot of the tribune he was a man without shame and without virtue; in the tribune he was an honest man. Abandoned to his private excesses, bargained for by foreign powers, sold to the court to gratify his expensive tastes, he preserved in this shameful traffic of his character, the incorruptibility of his genius; with all the power of a great man over his age, he wanted but honesty. The people were not a religion with him, but an instrument; his God was glory; his faith posterity; his conscience was confined to his mind; the fanaticism of his ideas was purely human; the cold materialism of his age took from his soul the motive, the force, and the aim of imperishable things. He died, saying, "envelop me in perfumes and crown me with flowers, to enter into eternal sleep." He belonged wholly to his times; he impressed on his work nothing of the infinite. He consecrated neither his character,