committed, to defend it against the which had at that time been known in ravings of servility and superstition. the world. He reformed the represenFor the sake of public liberty, we wish tative system in a manner which has that the thing had not been done, while extorted praise even from Lord Clathe people disapproved of it. But, for rendon. For himself he demanded the sake of public liberty, we should indeed the first place in the commonalso have wished the people to approve wealth; but with powers scarcely so of it when it was done. If any thing great as those of a Dutch stadtholder, more were wanting to the justification or an American president. He gave of Milton, the book of Salmasius would the parliament a voice in the appointfurnish it. That miserable perform- ment of ministers, and left to it the ance is now with justice considered whole legislative authority, not even only as a beacon to word-catchers, who reserving to himself a veto on its enactwish to become statesmen. The cele-ments; and he did not require that the brity of the man who refuted it, the chief magistracy should be hereditary "Æneæ magni dextra," gives it all its in his family. Thus far, we think, if fame with the present generation. In the circumstances of the time and the that age the state of things was dif- opportunities which he had of aggranferent. It was not then fully under-dising himself be fairly considered, he stood how vast an interval separates the will not lose by comparison with Washmere classical scholar from the political ington or Bolivar. Had his moderation philosopher. Nor can it be doubted been met by corresponding moderation, that a treatise which, bearing the name there is no reason to think that he of so eminent a critic, attacked the fundamental principles of all free governments, must, if suffered to remain unanswered, have produced a most pernicious effect on the public mind. We wish to add a few words relative to another subject, on which the enemies of Milton delight to dwell, his conduct during the administration of the Protector. That an enthusiastic votary of liberty should accept office under a military usurper seems, no doubt, at first sight, extraordinary. But all the circumstances in which the country was then placed were extraordinary. The ambition of Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He never seems to have coveted despotic power. He at first fought sincerely and manfully for the Parliament, and never deserted it, till it had deserted its duty. If he dissolved it by force, it was not till he found that the few members who remained after so many deaths, secessions, and expulsions, were desirous to appropriate 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 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 course which he had marked out for himself by the almost irresistible force of circumstances, though we admire, in common with all men of all parties, the ability and energy of his splendid administration, we are not pleading for arbitrary and lawless power, even in his hands. We know that a good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot. But we suspect, that at the time of which we speak, the violence of religious and political enmities rendered a stable and happy settlement next to impossible. The choice lay, not between Cromwell and liberty, but between Cromwell and the Stuarts. That Milton chose well, no man can doubt who fairly compares the events of the protectorate with those of the thirty years which succeeded it, the darkest and most disgraceful in the English | pocketed, with complacent infamy, her annals. Cromwell was evidently lay-degrading insults, and her more deing, though in an irregular manner, the grading gold. The caresses of harlots, foundations of an admirable system. and the jests of buffoons, regulated the Never before had religious liberty and policy of the state. The government the freedom of discussion been enjoyed had just ability enough to deceive, and in a greater degree. Never had the just religion enough to persecute. The national honour been better upheld principles of liberty were the scoff of abroad, or the seat of justice better every grinning courtier, and the Anafilled at home. And it was rarely that thema Maranatha of every fawning any opposition which stopped short of dean. In every high place, worship open rebellion provoked the resentment was paid to Charles and James, Belial of the liberal and magnanimous usurper. and Moloch; and England propitiated The institutions which he had estab- those obscene and cruel idols with the lished, as set down in the Instrument of blood of her best and bravest children. Government, and the Humble Petition Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace and Advice, were excellent. His prac- to disgrace, till the race accursed of tice, it is true, too often departed from God and man was a second time driven the theory of these institutions. But, forth, to wander on the face of the had he lived a few years longer, it is earth, and to be a by-word and a shakprobable that his institutions would ing of the head to the nations. have survived him, and that his arbitrary practice would have died with him. His power had not been consecrated by ancient prejudices. It was upheld only by his great personal qualities. Little, therefore, was to be dreaded from a second protector, unless he were 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 of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The King cringed to his rival that he might trample on his people, sank into a viceroy of France, and 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 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 observations are intended to apply only to those who adhered, from a sincere preference, to one or to the other side. In days of public commotion, every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended by a crowd of camp-followers, an useless and heartless rabble, who prowl round its line of march in the hope of picking up something under its protection, but desert it in the day of battle, and often join to exterminate it after a defeat. England, at the time of which we are treating, abounded with fickle and selfish politicians, who transferred their support to every government as it rose, who kissed the hand of the King in 1640, and spat in his face in 1649, who shouted with equal glee when Cromwell was inaugurated 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 deserve to be called partisans. were mere external badges, like the signs of freemasonry, or the dresses of friars. We regret that these badges We would speak first of the Puritans, were not more attractive. We regret the most remarkable body of men, that a body to whose courage and perhaps, which the world has ever pro- talents mankind has owed inestimable duced. The odious and ridiculous obligations had not the lofty elegance parts of their character lie on the sur- which distinguished some of the adface. He that runs may read them; herents of Charles the First, or the easy nor have there been wanting attentive good-breeding for which the court of and malicious observers to point them Charles the Second was celebrated. But, out. For many years after the Res- if we must make our choice, we shall, toration, they were the theme of un-like Bassanio in the play, turn from the measured invective and derision. They specious caskets which contain only the were exposed to the utmost licentious Death's head and the Fool's head, and ness of the press and of the stage, at the fix on the plain leaden chest which contime when the press and the stage were ceals the treasure. most licentious. They were not men The Puritans were men whose minds of letters; they were, as a body, un- had derived a peculiar character from popular; they could not defend them- the daily contemplation of superior selves; and the public would not take beings and eternal interests. Not them under its protection. They were content with acknowledging, in genetherefore abandoned, without reserve, ral terms, an overruling Providence, to the tender mercies of the satirists they habitually ascribed every event and dramatists. The ostentatious sim- to the will of the Great Being, for plicity of their dress, their sour aspect, whose power nothing was too vast, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, for whose inspection nothing was too their long graces, their Hebrew names, minute. To know him, to serve him, the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of 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 misled so many excellent writers. "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." Those who roused the people to resistance, who directed their measures through a long series of eventful years, who formed, out of the most unpromising materials, the finest army that Europe had ever seen, who trampled down King, Church, and Aristocracy, who, in the short intervals of domestic sedition and rebellion, made the name of England terrible to every nation on the face of the earth, were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their absurdities to enjoy him, was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the whole race from him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognised no title to superiority but his favour; and, confident of that favour, they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering | ness of his soul that God had hid his But when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate or in the field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics, had cleared their minds from every vulgar 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 and trampling down oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having neither part nor 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. Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, the one all selfabasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in Such we believe to have been the the dust before his Maker: but he set character of the Puritans. We perceive his foot on the neck of his king. In the absurdity of their manners. We his devotional retirement, he prayed dislike the sullen gloom of their dowith convulsions, and groans, and mestic habits. We acknowledge that tears. He was half-maddened by glo- the tone of their minds was often inrious or terrible illusions. He heard jured by straining after things too high the lyres of angels or the tempting for mortal reach: and we know that, whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam in spite of their hatred of Popery, they of the Beatific Vision, or woke scream- too often fell into the worst vices of that ing from dreams of everlasting fire. bad system, intolerance and extravaLike Vane, he thought himself intrusted gant austerity, that they had their with the sceptre of the millennial year. anchorites and their crusades, their Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitter-Dunstans and their De Montforts, their The Puritans espoused the cause of civil liberty mainly because it was the cause of religion. There was another party, by no means numerous, but distinguished by learning and ability, which acted with them on very different principles. We speak of those whom Cromwell was accustomed to call the Heathens, men who were, in the phraseology of that time, doubting Thomases or careless Gallios with regard to religious subjects, but passionate worshippers of freedom. IIeated by the study of ancient literature, they set up their country as their idol, and proposed to themselves the heroes of Plutarch as their examples. They seem to have borne some resemblance to the Brissotines of the French Revolution. But it is not very easy to draw the line of distinction between them and their devout associates, whose tone and manner they sometimes found it convenient to affect, and sometimes, it is probable, imperceptibly adopted. Dominics and their Escobars. Yet, dangling courtiers, bowing at every when all circumstances are taken into step, and simpering at every word. consideration, we do not hesitate to They were not mere machines for depronounce them a brave, a wise, an struction dressed up in uniforms, caned honest, and an useful body. into skill, intoxicated into valour, defending without love, destroying without hatred. There was a freedom in their subserviency, a nobleness in their very degradation. The sentiment of individual independence was strong within them. They were indeed misled, but by no base or selfish motive. Compassion and romantic honour, the prejudices of childhood, and the venerable names of history, threw over them a spell potent as that of Duessa; and, like the Red-Cross Knight, they thought that they were doing battle for an injured beauty, while they defended a false and loathsome sorceress. In truth they scarcely entered at all into the merits of the political question. It was not for a treacherous king or an intolerant church that they fought, but for the old banner which had waved in so many battles over the heads of their fathers, and for the altars at which they had received the hands of their brides. Though nothing could be more erroneous than their political opinions, they We now come to the Royalists. We possessed, in a far greater degree than shall attempt to speak of them, as we their adversaries, those qualities which have spoken of their antagonists, with are the grace of private life. With perfect candour. We shall not charge many of the vices of the Round Table, upon a whole party the profligacy and they had also many of its virtues, courbaseness of the horseboys, gamblers and tesy, generosity, veracity, tenderness, bravoes, whom the hope of license and and respect for women. They had far plunder attracted from all the dens of more both of profound and of polite Whitefriars to the standard of Charles, learning than the Puritans. Their manand who disgraced their associates by ners were more engaging, their tempers excesses which, under the stricter dis-more amiable, their tastes more elegant, cipline of the Parliamentary armies, and their households more cheerful. were never tolerated. We will select a Milton did not strictly belong to any more favourable specimen. Thinking of the classes which we have described. as we do that the cause of the King was He was not a Puritan. He was not a the cause of bigotry and tyranny, we freethinker. He was not a Royalist. yet cannot refrain from looking with In his character the noblest qualities of complacency on the character of the every party were combined in harmo honest old Cavaliers. We feel a national nious union. From the Parliament pride in comparing them with the in- and from the Court, from the convenstruments which the despots of other ticle and from the Gothic cloister, from countries are compelled to employ, with the gloomy and sepulchral circles of the mutes who throng their ante- the Roundheads, and from the Christchambers, and the Janissaries who mas revel of the hospitable Cavalier, mount guard at their gates. Our his nature selected and drew to itself royalist countrymen were not heartless, whatever was great and good, while it |