beautiful windows of cathedrals; Quakers seen but intoxication. Soon, however, plenty riding naked through the market-place; Fifth- teaches discretion; and, after wine has been monarchy men shouting for King Jesus; for a few months their daily fare, they beagitators lecturing from the tops of tubs on come more temperate than they had ever been the fate of Agag; all these, they tell us, were in their own country. In the same manner, the offspring of the Great Rebellion. the final and permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, moderation and mercy. Its immediate effects are often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors, skepticism on points the most clear, dogmatism on points the most mysterious. It is just at this crisis that its enemies love to exhibit it. They pull down the scaffolding from the half-finished edifice: they point to

Be it so. We are not careful to answer in this matter. These charges, were they infinitely more important, would not alter our opinion of an event which alone has made us to differ from the slaves who crouch beneath despotic sceptres. Many evils, no doubt, were produced by the civil war. They were the price of our liberty. Has the acquisition the flying dust, the falling bricks, the combeen worth the sacrifice? It is the nature of the Devil of tyranny to tear and rend the body which he leaves. Are the miseries of continued possession less horrible than the struggles of the tremendous exorcism?

ง

Many politicians of our time are in the habit | his two daughters. When we reflect on all of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, these things, we are at a loss to conceive how that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learnt to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.

the same persons who, on the fifth of November, thank God for wonderfully conducting his servant William, and for making all opposition fall before him until he became our King and Governor, can, on the thirtieth of January, contrive to be afraid that the blood of the Royal Martyr may be visited on themselves and their children.

We disapprove, we repeat, of the execution of Charles; not because the constitution exempts the King from responsibility, for we know that all such maxims, however excellent, have their exceptions; nor because we feel any peculiar interest in his character, for we think that his sentence describes him with perfect justice as “ a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy; " but because we are convinced that the measure was most injurious to the cause of freedom. He whom it

heir, to whom the allegiance of every Royal-
ist was instantly transferred, was at large.
The Presbyterians could never have been per-
fectly reconciled to the father: they had no
such rooted enmity to the son.
The great

Therefore it is that we decidedly approve of the conduct of Milton and the other wise and good men who, in spite of much that was ridiculous and hateful in the conduct of their associates, stood firmly by the cause of Public Liberty. We are not aware that the poet has been charged with personal participation in any of the blamable excesses of that time. The favorite topic of his enemies is the line of conduct which he pursued with regard to the execution of the King. Of that celebrated proceeding we by no means approve. Still we must say, in justice to the many eminent removed was a captive and a hostage: his persons who concurred in it, and in justice more particularly to the eminent person who defended it, that nothing can be more absurd than the imputations which, for the last hundred and sixty years, it has been the fashion to cast upon the Regicides. We have, through- body of the people, also, contemplated that out, abstained from appealing to first princi- proceeding with feelings which, however unples. We will not appeal to them now. We reasonable, no government could safely ventrecur again to the parallel case of the Revolu-ure to outrage. tion. What essential distinction can be drawn between the execution of the father and the deposition of the son? What constitutional maxim is there which applies to the former and not to the latter? The King can do no wrong. If so, James was as innocent as Charles could have been. The minister only ought to be responsible for the acts of the Sovereign. If so, why not impeach Jefferies and retain James? The person of a King is sacred. Was the person of James con-mitting the act would have led us, after it sidered sacred at the Boyne? To discharge cannon against an army in which a King is known to be posted is to approach pretty near to regicide. Charles, too, it should always be remembered, was put to death by men who had been exasperated by the hostilities of sev-erty, we should also have wished the people eral years, and who had never been bound to him by any other tie than that which was common to them with all their fellow-citizens. Those who drove James from his throne, who seduced his army, who alienated his friends, who first imprisoned him in his palace, and then turned him out of it, who broke in upon his very slumbers by imperious messages, who pursued him with fire and sword from one part of the empire to another, who hanged, drew, and quartered his adherents, and attainted his innocent heir, were his nephew and

But though we think the conduct of the Regicides blamable, that of Milton appears to us in a very different light. The deed was done. It could not be undone. The evil was incurred; and the object was to render it as small as possible. We censure the chiefs of the army for not yielding to the popular opinion; but we cannot censure Milton for wishing to change that opinion. The very feeling which would have restrained us from com

had been committed, to defend it against the ravings of servility and superstition. For the sake of public liberty, we wish that the thing had not been done, while the people disapproved of it. But, for the sake of public lib

to approve of it when it was done. If anything more were wanting to the justification of Milton, the book of Salmasius would furnish it. That miserable performance is now with justice considered only as a beacon to wordcatchers, who wish to become statesmen. The celebrity of the man who refuted it, the

66

Æneæ magni dextra," gives it all its fame with the present generation. In that age the state of things was different. It was not then fully understood how vast an interval separates the mere classical scholar from the polit

ical philosopher. Nor can it be doubted that course which he had marked out for himself a treatise which, bearing the name of so emi- by the almost irresistible force of circumnent a critic, attacked the fundamental prin- stances, though we admire, in common with ciples of all free governments, must, if suf- all men of all parties, the ability and energy fered to remained unanswered, have produced of his splendid adminstration, we are not a most pernicious effect on the public mind. pleading for arbitrary and lawless power, even We wish to add a few words relative to an- in his hands. We know that a good constituother subject, on which the enemies of Milton tion is infinitely better than the best despot. delight to dwell, his conduct during the ad- But we suspect, that at the time of which we ministration of the Protector. That an en- speak the violence of religious and political thusiastic votary of liberty should accept of- enmities rendered a stable and happy settlefice under a military usurper seems, no doubt, ment next to impossible. The choice lay, not at first sight, extraordinary. But all the cir- between Cromwell and liberty, but between. cumstances in which the country was then Cromwell and the Stuarts. That Milton chose placed were extraordinary. The ambition of well, no man can doubt who fairly compares Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He never the events of the protectorate with those of seems to have coveted despotic power. He at the thirty years which succeeded it, the darkfirst fought sincerely and manfully for the est and most disgraceful in the English annals. parliament, and never deserted it, till it had Cromwell was evidently laying, though in an deserted its duty. If he dissolved it by force, irregular manner, the foundations of an adit was not till he found that the few members mirable system. Never before had religious who remained after so many deaths, seces-liberty and the freedom of discussion been ensions, and expulsions, were desirous to appro-joyed in a greater degree. Never had the napriate to themselves a power which they held only in trust, and to inflict upon England the curse of a Venetian oligarchy. But even when thus placed by violence at the head of affairs, he did not assume unlimited power. He gave the country a constitution far more perfect than any which had at that time been known in the world. He reformed the representative system in a manner which has extorted praise even from Lord Clarendon. For himself he demanded indeed the first place in the commonwealth; but with powers scarcely so great as those of a Dutch stadtholder, or an Ameri-vived him, and that his arbitrary practice can president. He gave the parliament a voice in the appointment of ministers, and left to it the whole legislative authority, not even reserving to himself a veto on its enactments; and he did not require that the chief magistracy should be hereditary in his family. Thus far, we think, if the circumstances of the time and the opportunities which he had of aggrandizing himself be fairly considered, he will not lose by comparison with Washington or Bolivar. Had his moderation been met with corresponding moderation, there is no reason to think that he would have overstepped the line which he had traced for himself. But when he found that his parliaments questioned the authority under which they met, and that he was in danger of being deprived of the restricted power which was absolutely necessary to his personal safety, then, it must be acknowledged, he adopted a more arbitrary policy.

Yet, though we believe that the intentions of Cromwell were at first honest, though we believe that he was driven from the noble

tional honor been better upheld abroad, or the seat of justice better filled at home. And it was rarely that any opposition which stopped short of open rebellion provoked the resentment of the liberal and magnanimous usurper. The institutions which he had established, as set down in the Instrument of Government, and the Humble Petition and Advice, were excellent. His practice, it is true, too often departed from the theory of these institutions. But, had he lived a few years longer, it is probable that his institutions would have sur

would have died with him. His power had not been consecrated by ancient prejudices. It was upheld only by his great personal quali ties. Little, therefore, was to be dreaded from a second protector, unless he was also a second Oliver Cromwell. The events which followed his decease are the most complete vindication of those who exerted themselves to uphold his authority. His death dissolved the whole frame of society. The army rose against the parliament, the different corps of the army against each other. Sect raved against sect. Party plotted against party. The Presbyterians, in their eagerness to be revenged on the Independents, sacrificed their own liberty, and deserted all their old principles. Without casting one glance on the past, or requiring one stipulation for the future, they threw down their freedom at the feet of the most frivolous and heartless of tyrants.

Then came those days, never to be recalled without a blush, the days of servitude without loyalty and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of

cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age | surface. He that runs may read them; nor of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The have there been wanting attentive and maliKing cringed to his rival that he might tramcious observers to point them out. For many ple on his people, sank into a viceroy of years after the Restoration they were the France, and pocketed, with complacent in- theme of unmeasured invective and derision. famy, her degrading insults, and her more They were exposed to the utmost licentiousdegrading gold. The caresses of harlots, and ness of the press and of the stage, at the time the jests of buffoons, regulated the policy of when the press and the stage were most licenthe state. The government had just ability tious. They were not men of letters; they enough to deceive, and just religion enough were as a body, unpopular; they could not deto persecute. The principles of liberty were fend themselves; and the public would not the scoff of every grinning courtier, and the take them under its protection. They were Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. therefore abandoned, without reserve, to the In every high place, worship was paid to tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists. Charles and James, Belial and Moloch; and The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, England propitiated those obscene and cruel their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their idols with the blood of her best and bravest stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew children. Crime succeeded to crime, and names, the Scriptural phrases which they indisgrace to disgrace, till the race accursed troduced on every occasion, their contempt of of God and man was a second time driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, and to be a by-word and a shaking of the head to the nations.

human learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. But it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy of history is to be learnt. And he who approaches this subject should carefully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule which has already mis

"Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio
Che mortali perigli in se contiene:
Hor qui tener a fren nostro desio,

Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene."

Most of the remarks which we have hitherto made on the public character of Milton, apply to him only as one of a large body. We shall proceed to notice some of the peculiarities led so many excellent writers. which distinguished him from, his contemporaries. And, for that purpose, it is necessary to take a short survey of the parties into which the political world was at that time divided. We must premise, that our obser- Those who roused the people to resistance. vations are intended to apply only to those who directed their measures through a long who adhered, from a sincere preference, to one series of eventful years, who formed, out of or to the other side. In days of public the most unpromising materials, the finest commotion, every faction, like an Oriental army that Europe had ever seen, who tramarmy, is attended by a crowd of camp-fol- pled down King, Church, and Aristocracy, lowers, an useless and heartless rabble, who who, in the short intervals of domestic sediprowl round its line of march in the hope of tion and rebellion, made the name of England picking up something under its protection, but terrible to every nation on the face of the desert it in the day of battle, and often join to earth, were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their exterminate it after a defeat. England, at absurdities were mere external badges, like the time of which we are treating, abounded the signs of freemasonry, or the dresses of with fickle and selfish politicians, who trans- friars. We regret that these badges were not ferred their support to every government as more attractive. We regret that a body to it rose, who kissed the hand of the King in whose courage and talents mankind has owed 1640, and spat in his face in 1649, who shouted inestimable obligations had not the lofty elewith equal glee when Cromwell was inaugu-gance which distinguished some of the adherrated in Westminster Hall, and when he was dug up to be hanged at Tyburn, who dined on calves' heads, or stuck up oak-branches, as circumstances altered, without the slightest shame or repugnance. These we leave out of the account. We take our estimate of parties from those who really deserved to be called partisans.

We would speak first of the Puritans, the most remarkable body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced. The odious and ridiculous parts of their character lie on the

ents of Charles the First, or the easy goodbreeding for which the court of Charles the Second was celebrated. But, if we must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious caskets which contain only the Death's head and the Fool's head, and fix on the plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure.

The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging,

in general terms, an overruling Providence, | had been rent, that the dead had risen, that they habitually ascribed every event to the all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of will of the Great Being, for whose power her expiring God. nothing was too vast, for whose inspection Thus the Puritan was made up of two difnothing was too minute. To know him, to ferent men, the one all self-abasement, peniserve him, to enjoy him, was with them the tence, gratitude, passion, the other proud, great end of existence. They rejected with calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated contempt the ceremonious homage which himself in the dust before his Maker: but he other sects substituted for the pure worship set his foot on the neck of his king. In his of the soul. Instead of catching occasional devotional retirement, he prayed with conglimpses of the Deity through an obscuring vulsions, and groans, and tears. He was veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolera- half-maddened by glorious or terrible illuble brightness, and to commune with him sions. He heard the lyres of angels or the face to face. Hence originated their con- tempting whispers of fiends.

Like

He caught a tempt for terrestrial distinctions. The differ- gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screamence between the greatest and the meanest ing from dreams of everlasting fire. of mankind seemed to vanish, when com- Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the pared with the boundless interval which sep- sceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetarated the whole race from him on whom wood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul their own eyes were constantly fixed. They that God had hid his face from him. But recognized no title to superiority but his when he took his seat in the council, or girt favor; and, confident of that favor, they de- on his sword for war, these tempestuous spised all the accomplishments and all the workings of the soul had left no perceptible dignities of the world. If they were unac-trace behind them. People who saw nothing quainted with the works of philosophers and of the godly but their uncouth visages, and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of heard nothing from them but their groans and God. If their names were not found in the their whining hymns, might laugh at them. registers of heralds, they were recorded in But those had little reason to laugh who enthe Book of Life. If their steps were not ac- countered them in the hall of debate or in the companied by a splendid train of menials, le- field of battle. These fanatics brought to gions of ministering angels had charge over civil and military affairs a coolness of judgthem. Their palaces were houses not made ment and an immutability of purpose which with hands; their diadems crowns of glory some writers have thought inconsistent with which should never fade away. On the rich their religious zeal, but which were in fact and the eloquent, on nobles and priests they the necessary effects of it. The intensity of looked down with contempt: for they es- their feelings on one subject made them tranteemed themselves rich in a more precious quil on every other. One overpowering sentreasure, and eloquent in a more sublime lan-timent had subjected to itself pity and hatred, guage, nobles by the right of an earlier crea- ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors tion, and priests by the imposition of a and pleasure its charms. They had their mightier hand. The very meanest of them smiles and their tears, their raptures and was a being to whose fate a mysterious and their sorrows, but not for the things of this terrible importance belonged, on whose slight-world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics, est action the spirits of light and darkness had cleared their minds from every vulgar looked with anxious interest, who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account. For his sake empires and trampling down oppressors, mingling had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks

passion and prejudice, and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went through the world, like Sir Artegal's iron man Talus with his flail, crushing

with human beings, but having neither part or lot in human infirmities, insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain, not to be pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier.

Such we believe to have been the character of the Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of their manners, We dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic habits. We acknowl