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trate or mayor, or peer of the upper house, you have another change; a short experience of governing others soon dissipates many of his illusions, and ten to one that he does not end in becoming a confirmed Tory, like a Sir Francis Burdett, a Sir R. Wilson, a Hunt of Radical memory, or a certain ex-Chancellor, whom it would be painful to name. Thus it is, that hope or fear predominating, makes the free man, or the slave-the considerate ruler, or the suspicious tyrant. Our political tendencies may be called an instinct in our nature: it is cognate with every individual. In rude states of society, we see the physically powerful, and active, and daring, lead and rule over the weak and timid. Some sort of chieftainship appears to be the earliest and simplest form of government; then regular monarchy, which, for a long while, is absolute and uncontrolled. Hence arise the ideas of passive obedience, and the divine rights of kings, which become as rooted in the minds of men, as the instinctive monarchy of bees. When these orderly creatures by any misfortune lose their queen, they will receive no stranger monarch till a certain time elapses, nor till all hope of a restoration seems gone. If, after some short absence, the queen does happen to return, there arises a universal hum of joy and congratulation, from the densely peopled hive. Compare this with the loyalty and attachment of the Scottish nation to their Stuarts, even after it had suffered wrongs innumerable from their base natures. Compare the general buzz of the "glorious restoration" of the inglorious Charles II. in England, or of many other sovereigns, to their oft-insulted, yet still fondly-hoping, people. These national political biases show that the feeling is hereditary. That it is so in families is abundantly evident. We see long lines of descendants adopting in succession the views and principles of their ancestors, just as they inherit their outward features; and thus we may easily account for national peculiarities. It would appear, as if certain races, or great families of mankind, inherited certain political peculiarities. Thus the Celtic race are monarchical-the Saxon disposed to republican, or at least democratic monarchy. The Chinese have been monarchical beyond the times of recorded history-the Arabs have been patriarchal and nomadic, averse to concentrate into a regular and systematic government. We could never dream of a democratic movement among the Hindoos, or a republic established among the negroes of central Africa. But man is not always influenced by his instincts; there comes a time when intellect bears sway over mere physical prowess, and reason and reflection subdues the purely instinctive impulse. Hence arose the republican governments of Greece and Rome, and of later times, -few and short-lived, however, in comparison to monarchies.

In the British constitution we have the monarchical and the republican forms of government, as it

were, amalgamated-the instinctive feeling of monarchy combined with the rational and methodical arrangements of a representative government. If any kind of human rule is likely to be permanent, -a circumstance which past history has not yet exhibited, or at least exhibited in the shape of good government, that kind, perhaps, has the greatest probability of endurance which thus combines, as it were, the two extremes of social compact-the instinct of the natural man, and the refined and liberal arrangements of high civilization and intelligence.

Through how many struggles and convulsions has the British constitution passed, ere it has arrived at this degree of modification; and how does it yet oscillate between conflicting forces, like an ever-agitated sea heaved up into foaming waves by the adverse actions of winds and currents. First of all it was the aristocracy defending themselves against the encroachments of the crown, and in their turn curtailing and crushing its prerogatives. Then the people, battling against both for their claims,-for their liberty of conscience, and equal and impartial rights of citizenship,-till at last, from being the third and lowest estate, they have risen to be the predominant party,-publie opinion now almost being the rule and guide of all legisla tion.

How difficult a task to guide this manyheaded monster, where the conflicting elements, already mentioned, enter into its composition, and where each different sect reiterates its own continual string of peculiar opinions, day after day and night after night, like the incessant and insane chant of the monomaniac.

Yet, perhaps, the worst feature of the present time is, the temporary neutralization of party. Formerly there was some show of principle and consistency; now both are tossed to the winds. Formerly, if a certain train of opinions were pertinaciously persisted in, the holders were at least conscientious; now, opinions are changed as a holiday suit, and taken up or laid aside to serve a purpose. Formerly there were certain fixed princiciples, at which public men aimed; now all shoot at random. Such is the inevitable consequence of that transition-state which the constitution has suffered during the last dozen of years. By and bye, opinions will rally, and hope and fear, self-confidence and cautious timidity, the two great antagonist powers-will again muster their forces; and it remains to be seen which will be predominant.

For the present, at least, self-confidence seems to hold the supremacy. Formerly we used to be in continual dread and alarm of our Gallic neighbours. Not only did we fear their flat-bottomed boats, and their myriads of mustachiod conscripts, but we feared their very opinions, and rose up in arms against their atheism and deism, as well as their democracy. Formerly, if a stray Frenchman had appeared on our shores, the whole nation would

have mobbed, and tarred and feathered him, while an infidel pamphlet shot across the Channel caused as great a consternation as a bomb, with its fizzing rocket just ready to explode and destroy thousands; and the time was, when Burke, before a trembling House of Commons, displayed a dagger as an emblem of our bloodthirsty neighbours. Now, mark the change, not only do these Gallicans unceremoniously visit us, but their very king takes up his abode as a friendly guest amid the royalties of Windsor.

Formerly the slightest grain that dropped out of the warily adjusted balance of Europe,-the sulks of the Dane,-the treachery of the Spaniard,-or the warlike and encroaching manoeuvres of the Russ, would have turned every cheek in Britain pale, and made every lip quiver. Now we defy them all, and are ready to kick up the whole beam at any time; or, what is better, we fearlessly join in running railroads up to their capitals and the gates of their proud palaces. There was a time when we trembled at the uplifted chop-stick of Kien-Long, Lord of the Celestial Empire,-when we had to crouch before him, and all but performed to this lemon-faced blockhead the ceremony of the Ko-tou. Now we fearlessly go and take this fellow and his mandarins by the nose, and dare them to yield to what demands we choose to impose upon them.

Formerly to hint at unscrewing a peg out of the frame-work of our constitution, would have driven our rulers and half the nation into hysterics,-now statesmen, both old and young, set fearlessly to unscrewing every bit of the machinery, and reconstructing parts, or the whole, to suit their own fancy, just like a curious schoolboy when first intrusted with the keeping of his grandmother's old watch.

Nothing can illustrate these two states of the British mind better than the history of the abominable traffic in slaves. Slavery arose among the dregs of the British nation, it is true, in its remote provinces, and not under the immediate eye of public opinion, but what arose in the selfish tyranny and base cupidity of the few, was sanctioned and perpetuated by the many, till at last a property in human flesh crept in to be part and parcel of the British constitution. The same self-cupidity, and the same tyrannous dread that originated the evil, kept it up for centuries, though unremitting appeals were made to successive administrations,still the dread of offending the slave-masters, in the first instance, and the dread of the vengeance of the poor oppressed slaves themselves, kept these timid and selfish statesmen from doing their duty to themselves and to the nation. When at last the glorious day of slave emancipation dawned, the anticipation of impending evils knew no bounds, and yet what has been the result of this noble and fearless confidence? Increased prosperity in the

former slave countries, and an incalculable amount of present and prospective happiness to the emancipated.

Formerly the British government knew none of its subjects, and cared for none of their interests, either spiritual or temporal, unless they were of the true established church. None could hold an office of any importance, civil or military, or whatever else, but those who could conscientiously, at all events those who would, in any way, sign certain articles of faith, and who, on the spur of the moment, whether they deemed themselves fit or not, would partake of one of the most solemn and sacred rites of religion. Now Jew, Socinian, Roman Catholic, Puritan, Presbyterian, begin to have a civil existence and recognition, although to any of them a university education continues nearly all but impracticable within the wide domains of enlightened England.

Formerly such a fear and dread of foreign food possessed the minds of Britons, or at all events of Britain's statesmen, that strict injunctions were given to admit none such at our sea-ports, unless under a heavy penalty, so that only the wealthy could run the risk of poisoning themselves, if they were so fool-hardy. Now the appetites of the millions are so sharpened, that they clamorously call aloud for a free scramble in every thing, from a sirloin of beef down to the mustard which enhances its taste to the palate. Formerly the ignorant and rabble multitude, instigated by their timid, but nearly as ignorant and narrow-minded superiors, beset the house and burned the library of Priestley, one of Britain's acutest philosophers. Now, the same half-informed rabble read with eagerness and commendation, books and systems, both of science and morality, and pseudo-theology, which Priestley would have looked upon as the dregs of the human intellect. Not that we sup

pose Priestley's notions on theological subjects were always commendable, but he had an acute, an original, and a logical mind, and his speculations were at least worth attending to.

Whether all this casting away of fear will end in rashness and folly, or whether it will subside into enlarged and liberal, yet firm, and just, and well-defined policy-that policy which has an eye to a Governor supreme in the destinies of mortals, as well as a disposition to do unto others, even to all mankind, as we would wish to be done by whichever of these alternatives will happen, time will show. We have had too much of mere statesman expediency,-too much of party gladiatorship -and too much self-seeking of individual glory and power, instead of the happiness of the community. How seldom have nations, in any age, had good governors,-governors who made principle and duty the rule of their councils, and thus rarely has such occurred, just because nations themselves did not deserve it.

OLIVER CROMWELL.

CROMWELL'S LETTERS AND SPEECHES, WITH ELUCIDATIONS. BY THOMAS CARLYLE.

CROMWELL was a man who played a mighty part in his day, and whose real character has not a little puzzled posterity to unravel. In fact, like many other remarkable men, he bears two distinct phases to two differently disposed kinds of spectators. To one kind he is a mere earthly-minded mortal,-a man of the world, full of ambition, who starting from an inferior position in life, and with vulgar and even brutal desires, wades through slaughters and deceits, and the most irreverent hypocrisies, up to a throne. To another kind, he is looked upon as a man born and destined for the times, and the times no less suited for the man-as one of those agencies designed by Providence to act some great part in the moral world, while at the same time he subordinately fulfils his own peculiar probationary course of existence. To the one he appears little better than a disturbing and a destroyiug demon-to the other a hero, though not unmarked by the inevitable lines of frail humanity. In such characters even the most friendly eye looks for and expects too much. Can the terrible and wide-sweeping whirlwind be soft and soothing as the summer gale? Can the torrent and flood of waters be like the ripple of a limpid brook? or the dread stalking pestilence sweeping over the earth to weed out iniquity be beheld with feelings in which awe and terror do not predominate? Cromwell, by his contemporaries, was both maligned and lauded. He has received from posterity much the same measure of mingled award-nor has history in his case yet learned to be dispassionate and just.

Oliver Cromwell was born in the town of Huntingdon on the 25th April 1599. His father was Robert Cromwell, younger son of Sir Henry Cromwell, and younger brother of Sir Oliver Cromwell, both knights, who dwelt in the patrimonial inheritance of Hinchinbrook, near the town of Huntingdon. His mother was daughter of William Stewart, an opulent man who was hereditary farmer of the tithes and church lands of Ely; whose ancestors had come from Scotland, and who are reported to have been descended from the royal house of Stewart. Oliver was the fifth child of his parents, and the only son-six daughters and this son arriving at the age of maturity out of a family of ten. The house where Cromwell was born is still familiar to every inhabitant of Huntingdon, but it has been twice rebuilt since hat date. It stands at the upper or northern extremity of the town, beyond the market place, on the left or riverward side of the street. It is at present a solid yellow brick house, with a walled court-yard, the little brook of Hinchin making its way to the house, which is not far ff, still flows through the court-yard, offering a conenience for malting or brewing, and some vague tradiion exists, that such operations were at one time caried on here. Neither Oliver nor his father, however, ollowed this occupation, although his enemies aftervards delighted in casting it in his teeth on equally ,ood grounds as they called Harrison the son of a butcher, because his father had grazing lands in Staffordshire. To such unworthy fabrications does the rage

of party faction too often lead men in all times and under all variety of circumstances.

There can be no doubt, however, that Cromwell's family and connections were people of rank and consequence in the country. In 1603, King James in his progress from the north to take possession of the English crown, lodged two nights at Hinchinbrook, the residence of Oliver's uncle, accompanied by an immense royal retinue, and where he was entertained with great pomp. This to young Cromwell, who was then barely four years old, must have formed a gay vision of regal pomp and grandeur.

Of his youth and youthful studies, little certain is known. Doubtless, his mental training was sufficiently well attended to. His teacher, Dr Beard, he afterwards ranked among his firends, and his own family were of that serious meditative class, who gave an impress to the times under the name of Puritans. From school, Cromwell went at the age of eighteen to the University of Cambridge, where, however, he only remained one term, the sudden death of his father calling him to discharge other duties at home. After this, he appears to have spent some time in London, it is said studying law. Here too, he became acquainted with the family of Sir James Bourchier, a city merchant, whose daughter he married in 1620, and soon after returned with his wife to his paternal home. His widowed mother, and his remaining unmarried sisters, he took under his charge, nor did he cease to be a dutiful son and indulgent brother to them throughout all his fortunes. His fondly cherished mother died in the palace of Whitehall, at the advanced age of ninety-four. In this country retreat he continued for about ten years, farming lands, and doing the duties of a country gentleman, as his father had done before him, and attending to the cares of an increasing family, till more important events called him into a sphere of active and conspicuous exertion.

One of those great changes in the history of nations was at hand in Britain. Increasing intelligence, growing wealth and independence, and a turning of the mind selfwards to speculate on subjects beyond the mere forms of things without and around, had gradually been advancing among the middle and lower classes of society. This, instead of being met with, pruned, directed, and judiciously encouraged by the higher classes, was opposed, repressed, and persecuted with a blind infatuation. Weak, and imbecile, and unprincipled rulers were surrounded by as weak and rapacious, and unprincipled advisers, and the simple requests which fear, and selfishness, and obstinacy at first refused, grew by degrees into stern demands, to which there were no well defined bounds or measures of consistency. The first requests of the Puritans would seem to us in these times, very simple and just "That there should be a more correct translation of the bible, (granted) and increased means and zeal of teaching (omitted.) That lay impropriations (tithes snatched from the old church by laymen) might be made to yield a seventh part of their amount towards maintaining ministers in dark regions which had none

(refused.) That the clergy in districts might be allowed

to meet together and strengthen one another's hands as in old times, (passionately refused.) That pious straightened preachers might not be cast out of their parishes for genuflexions, white surplices, and such like, but allowed some Christian liberty in mere external things."

To repress these demands, the terror of the Starchamber, the vexatious regulations of that stickler for mere outward forms and ceremonies, Archbishop Laud, fine, imprisonment, pillory, and banishment beyond seas, were all sedulously and unremittingly practised. What would the so-called dissenters of the present day say if their leaders were treated like "William Prynne, a learned young gentleman, a graduate of Oxford and barrister of Lincoln's Inn, well read in English law, and full of zeal for religion." On 30th June 1637, in Old Palace Yard, he and other two gentlemen of education, a physician and a parish clergyman of London, were set on three pillories, stood openly as the scum of malefactors, for certain hours there, and there had their ears cut off with bare knives, and on their cheeks were stamped with hot branding irons, the initials S L., seditious libeller, in the sight of a great crowd "silent mainly and looking pale." The wife of one of these sufferers, we are told, received her husband's ears in her lap and kissed them. Prynne's ears the executioner rather sawed than cut. "Cut me, tear me," cried Prynne, “I fear thee not, I fear the fire of hell, not thee!" The summer sun had shone out on their faces. Burton, who had discoursed eloquent religion all the while, said, when they carried him near fainting into a house in King Street, "It is too hot to last." Too hot indeed! For at this time the famous Jenny Geddes, in St Giles', Edinburgh, hurled her stool at the head of one of Laud's surpliced bishops.

Such events, as well as others of a secular nature, roused the Puritans to resistance, and roused Oliver Cromwell from his quiet farming operations at St Ives. He had already been troubled with melancholy fits,those depressions of spirit which come across all deep and serious thinkers, from St Paul downwards. He had also now firmly adopted the creed of the Puritans, and had those varied mental experiences, of the nature of which the world in general cannot conceive.

In 1628 he served as member of Parliament for his native place; and we find him thus early the bold defender of the suffering oppressed, and the challenger of abuses. A dozen of years after, he is thus described by Sir P. Warwick, one of the cavalier party: "The first time I ever took notice of Mr Cromwell, was in the very beginning of the Parliament of 1640, when I, member for Radnor, vaiuly thought myself a courtly young gentleman-for we courtiers valued ourselves much upon our good clothes,-I came into the house one morning, well clad, and perceived a gentleman speaking, whom I knew not, very ordinarily apparelled, for it was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been ill made, by a country tailor; his linen was plain and not very clean, and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which was not much larger than his collar; his hat was without a hat-band, his stature was of a good size, his sword stuck close to his side,-his countenance swollen and reddish,-his voice sharp and untunable,

and his eloquence full of fervour; for the subjectmatter would not bear much reason, it being on behalf of a servant of Mr Prynne's, who had dispersed libels. I profess it lessened much my reverence unto that great council, for this gentleman was very much hearkened unto."

In 1642, we find Cromwell a captain of militia at the battle of Edge Hill, exercising the same energy of action and purpose in this new and hitherto untried life of the soldier, as he showed as a parliamentary member. This battle was undecisive, victory being claimed by both sides. Captain Cromwell told Cousin Hampden that they never would get on with a set of poor tapsters and town-apprentice people fighting against men of honour. To cope with men of honour they must have men of religion. To this Mr Hampden answered, that it was a good motion if it could be executed. It was executed in due time, and Cromwell became first a lieutenant-general, and then commander-in-chief of such an army as had not figured in the field of Mars for many lustrums. When once this country farmer took up the sword, it is marvellous with what effect and pertinacity he continued to wield it. He cast to the winds all scruples or vain misgivings in this, the most terrible of all kinds of warfare, that of brother and kinsman fighting against brother. In one of his early battles, he routes the forces of General Cavendish, and pursues this brave young nobleman into a morass; his captain-lieutenant slew him "with a thrust under his short ribs." This, Cromwell coolly details, while the fall of this royalist caused a great sensation in the country. With equal firmness and determination he weeds the army of incompetent generals, even though these were noblemen of rank and connexions. On his thus superseding the Earl of Manchester and others, he is reported to have said "there never would be a good time in England till we had done with Lords." The same reports make him declare" that if he met the King in battle he would fire his pistol at him as at another."

His exertions during the ten years' civil war were unwearied. He never flagged, and was ever animated with a hope and confidence in the guidance of an overruling Providence. He was such a man as was destined to be the leader of men in bold and trying enterprises; he seemed endowed with an intuitive notion of war,was famous at sieges,—in arranging battles, and in preserving the discipline and gaining the full confidence of his men. He was present everywhere,-in Scotland, in Ireland, in Wales, and in every corner of England. A determined and unrelenting conqueror he was, yet just and generous to the conquered,-always ready to introduce laws and regulations for the better management and well-being of the provinces over which he bore sway. Nor was he less dexterous in managing foreign policy, and in the regulation of trade and sumptuary laws. In short, when, after the trial and execution of the unfortunate and misguided Charles,-from which unhappy affair too he did not shrink, he was called to be protector of the nation,-there was no man in it at the time who better deserved the trust reposed in him. His first introduction to the Parliament in this capacity, took place on the 16th December 1653. With all the garniture of supreme power, he was escorted by the authori

ties from Whitehall, where he had taken up his residce, to the Chancery Court, in Westminster Hall • His Highness was in a rich but plain suit, black veivet, with eoak of the same, about his hat a broad band of gl Does the raler see him! A rather likely fire, stalls some five feet ten inches-a man of strong solid stature, and dignified, now partly military carriage, with an expression of valour and devout intelligence, a look of energy, and at the same time a delicacy and simplicity of demeanour. Fifty-four years old, his hair and moustache brown, passing into grey,—a figure of sufficient expressiveness, with no pretensions to beauty or regularity of features of massive stature,big massive head, of somewhat leonine aspect, wart ou chin and above the right eyebrow; nose of blunt aquiline form, Em, well-formed lips, full of all tremulous sens.bilities, and also, if need were, of ali fierceness and vigour,-deep soft eyes, that would look grave or stern from beneath ampie overhanging eyebrows,-his flowing hair parted from the middle of his ample forehead, after the fashion of the times. He now found it, however, even a more difficult matter to govern a nation than to subdue it. The dissensions of party,—the varieties of opinion,—the plots, cabals, and threatened assassination from his enemies, all exercised his utmost ingenuity, patience, and we may add, magnanimity, to subdue. He has been accused of disingenuity, duplicity, and mystification, in his conduct to his parliaments. He certainly, on some occasions, carried matters with a high hand, and more in a military style than as a constitutional ruler; but the unsettled nature of the period, and the emergencies of the tunes, are all to be taken into account. His speeches, as collated and arranged by his pains-taking editor, certainly read better and express more direct and reasonable meaning than we were before led to expect from them. They are exceedingly characteristic, and our li ..its will only permit a reference to them in the volume before us. At last his followers, not satisfied with making him Protector, would press upon him the title of King also. This, after much coquetting, after many interviews and delays, and many long and equivocal speeches, he at last had the good sense to decline. Personally, we daresay he would have had no great objection to the thing. It was not out of the way of his Scriptural reading and notions. He frequently in the discussion alluded to David and other sacred doings, but his clear intellect saw that it would be displeasing to many of his army friends, to many in the country, and that it might possibly, after he was gone, give trouble to his family. For the welfare of the latter, he had now and ever entertained the most anxious and paternal solicitude. Many interesting traits of his affection are scattered through these volumes.

But his days were numbered his appointed time was now fast drawing to a close. His last public address to his parliament in 1657 concludes, "God be judge between you and me." Though only fifty-nine years of age, and his looks good, yet his health had been but uncertain-his anxious course of life had not been favourable to health.-" A burden too heavy for man!" as he himself with a sigh would sometimes say. To public cares now succeeded family afflictions. The

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Lady Claypole, his favourite daughter-a favourite of all the world-had fallen sich, and now lay at the point of death. She had great sufferings, and great exereises of spirit! For the last fourteen days his highness has been by her bed side at Hampton Court, unable to attend to any public business whatever. Be still, my child; trast thou yet in God; in the waves of the dark river there too is he a God of help. On the 6th of August she lay dead-at rest for ever. My young, my beautiful, my brave! she is taken from me, I am left bereaved of her. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; Llessed be the name of the Lord." At Hampton Court, in the words of Maidstone, a few days after the death of the Lady Elizabeth, which "touched him nearly, being then himself under bodily distempers, forerunners of that sickness which was to be his death, and in bis bed chamber he called for his Bible, and desired an honourable and godly person there with others present to read to him that passage in Philippians—not that I speak in respect to want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased and how to abound. Every where, and by all things I am instructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abouad and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me;" which read-said he, to use his own words as near as I can remember them, This Scripture did once save my life when my eldest son poor Oliver died, which went as a dagger to my heart,-indeed it did." Thus be went on for several days, deriving consolation from various passages of Scripture repeated by himself or read to him by others. On the Monday of the week in which he died there roared and howled all day a mighty storm of wind. It was on this day during the hurricane that some official persons entered to enquire who, in case of the worst, was to be his successor. The successor had been named in a sealed paper, deposited in Hampton Court more than a year before; but this paper could not now be found. To these inquiries, however, he was understood to respond,-Richard. About this time too he uttered aloud the following prayer, as taken down by his attendants:

“Lord, though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in covenant with thee through grace. And I may, I will come to thee for thy people. Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and thee service; and many of them have set too high a value upon me, though others wish and would be glad of my death. Lord, however thou do dispose of me, continue and go on to do good for them. Give them consistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual love, and go on to deliver them, and with the work of reformation; and make the name of Christ glorious in the world. Teach those who look too much on thy instruments, to depend more upon thyself. Pardon such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor worm; for they are thy people too. And pardon the folly of this short prayer, even for Jesus Christ's sake. And give us a good night, if it be thy pleasure. Amen.”

Thursday, he frequently ejaculated, “God is good! I would be willing to live to be farther serviceable to God and his people; but my work is done." He was very restless most part of the night, speaking often

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