discriminate colors, or recognize faces. But the remedy is, not to remand him into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The

blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and 5 bewilder nations which have become half blind in

the house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able to bear it.

In a few years men learn to reason. The extreme violence of

opinions subsides. Hostile theories correct each 10 other. The scattered elements of truth cease to

contend, and begin to coalesce. And at length a system of justice and order is educed out of the chaos.

Many politicians of our time are in the habit of 15 laying it down as a self-evident proposition, 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 learned to swim. If men are to 20 wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.

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 25 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 30 enemies is the line of conduct which he pursued

means

5

with regard to the execution of the King. Of
that celebrated proceeding we by no
approve. Still we must say, in justice to the
many eminent 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, throughout, abstained from appealing to first principles. We 10 will not appeal to them now. We recur again to the parallel case of the Revolution. 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 15 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 Jeffreys and retain 20 James? The person of a King is sacred. Was the person of James considered 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 25 always be remembered, was put to death by men who had been exasperated by the hostilities of several 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 30

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 5 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 his two daughters. When we reflect on all 10 these things, we are at a loss to conceive how 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, 15 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 20 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 25 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 removed was a captive and a hostage: his

heir, to whom the allegiance of every Royalist was 30 instantly transferred, was at large. The Presby

the son.

terians could never have been perfectly reconciled to the father; they had no such rooted enmity to

The great body of the people, also, contemplated that proceeding with feelings which, however unreasonable, no government could safely 5 venture to outrage.

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 10 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 15 committing the act, would have led us, after it 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 20 sake of public liberty, we should also have wished the people 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 25 considered only as a beacon to word-catchers who wish to become statesmen. The celebrity of the man who refuted it, the "Æneæ magni dextra," gives it all its fame with the present generation. In that age the state of things was different. It 30

a

was not then fully understood how vast an interval separates the mere classical scholar from the political philosopher. Nor can it be doubted that a

treatise which, bearing the name of so eminent a 5 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 10 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. 15 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, 20 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 25 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 30 which had at that time been known in the world.