tres of Brandenburg and Braganza. Many evils, no doubt, were produced by the civil war. They were the price of our liberty. Has the acquisition been 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? If it were possible that a people, brought up ander an intolerant and arbitrary system, could ubvert that system without acts of cruelty and olly, half the objections to despotic power would be removed. We should, in that case, compelled to acknowledge that it at least roduces no pernicious effects on the intellecal and moral character of a people. We delore the outrages which accompany revoluions. But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was neary. The violence of those outrages will ways be proportioned to the ferocity and igerance of the people: and the ferocity and morance of the people will be proportioned the oppression and degradation under which ey have been accustomed to live. Thus it as in our civil war. The rulers in the church d state reaped only that which they had They had prohibited free discussioney had done their best to keep the people unquainted with their duties and their rights. The retribution was just and natural. If they fered from popular ignorance, it was bese they had themselves taken away the key knowledge. If they were assailed with blind Fry, it was because they had exacted an tally blind submission. form of a foul and poisonous snake. Those who injured her during the period of her disguise, were forever excluded from participa tion in the blessings which she bestowed. But to those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her, she afterwards revealed herself in the beautiful and celestial form which was natural to her, accompanied their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses with wealth, made them happy in love, and victorious in war.* Such a spirit is Liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But wo to those who in disgust shall venture to crush her! And happy are those who, having dared to receive her in her de graded and frightful shape, shall at length be rewarded by her in the time of her beauty and her glory. There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces-and that cure is freedom! When a prisoner leaves his cell, he cannot bear the light of day;-he is unable to discriminate colours, or recognise 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 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 opinion subsides. Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to conflict, 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 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 learnt to swim! If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may Indeed wait forever. k is the character of such revolutions that always see the worst of them at first. Till en have been for some time free, they know how to use their freedom. The natives of naoe countries are always sober. In climates Bere wine is a rarity, intemperance abounds. newly liberated people may be compared to northern army encamped on the Rhine or Xeres. It is said that, when soldiers in ch a situation first find themselves able to Therefore it is that we decidedly approve dulge without restraint in such a rare and of the conduct of Milton and the other wise pensive luxury, nothing is to be seen but in- and good men who, in spite of much that was dication. Soon, however, plenty teaches dis- ridiculous and hateful in the conduct of their tion; and after wine has been for a few associates, stood firmly by the cause of public ths their daily fare, they become more liberty. We are not aware that the poet has perate than they had ever been in their been charged with personal participation in country. In the same manner the final any of the blamable excesses of that time. permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, The favourite topic of his enemies is the line ederation, and mercy. Its immediate effects of conduct which he pursued with regard to often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors, the execution of the king. Of that celebrated pticism on points the most clear, dogma- proceeding we by no means approve. Still on points the most mysterious. It is just we must say, in justice to the many eminent this crisis that its enemies love to exhibit persons who concurred in it, and in justice They pull down the scaffolding from the more particularly to the eminent person who f-finished edifice; they point to the flying defended it, that nothing can be more absurd st, the falling bricks, the comfortless rooms, than the imputations which, for the last hunbrightful irregularity of the whole appear-dred and sixty years, it has been the fashion to ance; and then ask in scorn where the pro- cast upon the regicides. We have throughout mised splendour and comfort are to be found? abstained from appealing to first principlesIf such miserable sophisms were to prevail, we will not appeal to them now. We recur there would never be a good house or a good again to the parallel case of the Revolution. nce fa ec off. Fovernment in the world. What essential distinction can be drawn be Anosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, tween the execution of the father and the me mysterious law of her nature, was demned to appear at certain seasons in the * Orlando Furioso, Canto 43.) B deposition of the son! What constitutional had not been done, while the people dis maxim is there, which applies to the former approved of it. But, for the sake of public and not to the latter? The king can do no liberty, we should also have wished the people wrong. If so, James was as innocent as to approve of it when it was done. If any Charles could have been. The minister only thing more were wanting to the justification ought to be responsible for the acts of the of Milton, the book of Salmasius would furnish sovereign. If so, why not impeach Jeffries it. That miserable performance is now with and retain James? The person of a king is justice considered only as a beacon to wordsacred. Was the person of James considered catchers who wish to become statesmen. The sacred at the Boyne? To discharge cannon celebrity of the man who refuted it, the “Encæ against an army in which a king is known to magni dextra," gives it all its fame with the be posted, is to approach pretty near to regi- present generation. In that age the state of cide. Charles too, it should always be re- things was different. It was not then fully membered, was put to death by men who had understood how vast an interval separates the been exasperated by the hostilities of several mere classical scholar from the political philoyears, and who had never been bound to him sopher. Nor can it be doubted, that a treatise by any other tie than that which was common which, bearing the name of so eminent a to them with all their fellow-citizens. Those critic, attacked the fundamental principles of who drove James from his throne, who seduced all free governments, must, if suffered to rehis army, who alienated his friends, who first main unanswered, have produced a most perimprisoned him in his palace, and then turned nicious effect on the public mind. 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 his two daughters! When we reflect on all 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 King 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 wish to add a few words relative tc 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 accep office under a military usurper, seems, ne doubt, at first sight, extraordinary. But all the circumstances in which the country was ther placed were extraordinary. The ambition of Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He never seem to have coveted despotic power. He at firs fought sincerely and manfully for the parlia ment, and never deserted it, till it had deserte its duty. If he dissolved it by force, it wa not till he found that the few members, wh remained after so many deaths, secession: We do not, we repeat, approve of the execu- and expulsions, were desirous to appropriat tion of Charles; not because the constitution to themselves a power which they held onl exempts the king from responsibility, for we in trust, and to inflict upon England th know that all such maxims, however excellent, curse of a Venetian oligarchy. But eve. have their exceptions; nor because we feel when thus placed by violence at the heal any peculiar interest in his character, for we of affairs, he did not assume unlimited powe think that his sentence describes him with He gave the country a constitution far mor perfect justice as a "tyrant, a traitor, a mur-perfect than any which had at that time bee derer, 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 instantly transferred, was at large. The Presbyterians could never have been perfectly reconciled to the father. They had no such rooted enmity to the sun. The great body of the people, also, contemplated that proceeding with feelings which, however unreasonable, no government could safely 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 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 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 known in the world. He reformed the repr 7 Yet, though we believe that the intentionsvernment, which had just ability enough to of Cromwell were at first 'honest, though we deceive, and just religion enough to persecute, believe that he was driven from the noble The principles of liberty were the scoff of every course which he had marked out for himself grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranaby the almost irresistible force of circum- tha of every fawning dean. In every high stances, though we admire, in common with place, worship was paid to Charles and James all men of all parties, the ability and energy-Belial and Moloch; and England propitiated of his splendid administration, we are not those obscene and cruel idols with the blood pleading for arbitrary and lawless power, even of her best and bravest children. Crime sucin his hands. We know that a good constitu- ceeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till tion is infinitely better than the best despot. the race, accursed of God and man, was a But we suspect, that, at the time of which we second time driven forth, to wander on the speak, the violence of religious and political face of the earth, and to be a by-word and a enmities rendered a stable and, happy settle- shaking of the head to the nations. ment 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 annals. Cromwell was evidently laying, though in an irregular manner, the foundations of an admirable system. Never before had religious liberty and the freedom of discussion been enjoyed in a greater degree. Never had the national honour 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 survived him, and that his arbitrary practice would have died with him. His power had not been consecrated by any 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. For 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, sunk into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infamy, her degrading insults and her more degrading guld. The caresses of harlots and the jests of buffoons regulated the measures of a go 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. At a period of public commotion, every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended by a crowd of camp followers, a 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 such fickle and selfish politicians, who transferred their support to every government as it rose,-who kissed the hand of the king in 1640, and spit 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 on broiled rumps, and cut down oak branches or stuck them up 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 surface. He that runs may read them; nor have there been wanting attentive and malicious observers to point them out. For many years after the Restoration, they were the theme of unmeasured invective and derision. They were exposed to the utmost licentiousness of the press and of the stage, at the time when the press and the stage were most licentious. They were not men of letters; they were, as a body, unpopular; they could not defend themselves; and the public would not take them under its protection. They were therefore abandoned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff pos ture, their long graces, their Hebrew names the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of polite amu ments, 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 a desio, Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene."* Those who roused the people to resistancewho 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 with hands: their diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away! On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt: for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand, The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged-on whose slightest actions the anxious interest-who had been destined, bespirits of light and darkness looked with fore heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven which short-sighted politicians ascribed to and earth should have passed away. Events count. and rebellion, made the name of England ter-earthly causes had been ordained on his ac rible to every nation on the face of the earth, flourished, and decayed. For his sake the For his sake empires had risen, and were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their absurdities were mere external badges, like the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen signs of freemasonry or the dresses of friars. He had been rescued by no common deliverer of the evangelist and the harp of the prophet We regret that these badges were not more from the grasp of no common foe, He had attractive. We regret that a body, to whose been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar courage and talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations, had not the lofty elegance It was for him that the sun had been darkened, agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. which distinguished some of the adherents of that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had Charles I., or the easy good breeding for which the court of Charles II. was celebrated. But, arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the suf ferings of her expiring God! if we must make our choice, we shall, like Thus the Puritan was made up of two differ Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious caskets which contain only the Death's head ent men, the one all self-abasement, penitence, and the Fool's head, and fix our choice on the gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure. The Puritans were men whose minds had the dust before his Maker; but he'set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional rederived a peculiar character from the daily tirement, he prayed with convulsions, and contemplation of superior beings and external interests. Not content with acknowledging, in groans, and tears. He was half maddened by general terms, an overruling Providence, they lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the habitually ascribed every event to the will of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific the Great Being, for whose power nothing was Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought himminute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy self intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial him, was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitter ness of his soul that God had hid his face from homage which other sects substituted for the him. But when he took his seat in the counpure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on the intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest and 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 felt assured that they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made Gerusalemme Liberata, xv. 57. cil, or girt on his sword for war, these tem- 1 of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went through the world like Sir Artegale'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 w 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 acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often injured by straining after things too high for mortal reach. And we know that, in spite of their hatred of Popery, they too often fell into the worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and extravagant austerity-that they had their anchorites and their crusades, their Dunstans and their De Montforts, their Dominics and their Escobars. Yet when all circumstances are taken into consideration, we do not hesitate to pronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest, and a useful body. The Puritans esponsed 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 co-operated 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. Heated 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. machines for destruction dressed up in uniforms, caned 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 possessed, in a far greater degree than their adversaries, those qualities which are the grace of private life. With many of the vices of the Round Table, they had also many of its virtues, courtesy, generosity, veracity, tenderness, and respect for woman. They had far more both of profound and of polite learning than the Puritans. Their manners were more engaging, their tempers more amiable, their tastes more elegant, and their households more cheerful. Milton did not strictly belong to any of the classes which we have described. He was not a Puritan. He was not a Freethinker. He was not a Cavalier. In his character the noblest qualities of every party were combined in harmonious union. From the parliament and from the court, from the conventicle and from the Gothic cloister, from the gloomy and sepulchral circles of the Roundheads and from the Christmas revel of the hospitable Cavalier, his nature selected and drew to itself whatever was great and good, while it rejected all the base and pernicious ingredients by which those fine elements were defiled. Like the Puritans, he lived “As ever in his great Taskmaster's eye.” We now come to the Royalists. We shall attempt to speak of them, as we have spoken of their antagonists, with perfect candour. We shall not charge upon a whole party the profligacy and baseness of the horseboys, gamblers, Like them, he kept his mind continually fixed and bravoes, whom the hope of license and on an Almighty Judge and an eternal reward. plunder attracted from all the dens of White- And hence he acquired their contempt of exfriars to the standard of Charles, and who dis-ternal circumstances, their fortitude, their graced their associates by excesses which, tranquillity, their inflexible resolution. But under the stricter discipline of the Parliament- not the coolest sceptic or the most profane ary armies, were never tolerated. We will scoffer was more perfectly free from the conselect a more favourable specimen. Thinking, tagion of their frantic delusions, their savage as we do, that the cause of the king was the manners, their ludicrous jargon, their scorn oi cause of bigotry and tyranny, we yet cannot science, and their aversion to pleasure. Hating refrain from looking with complacency on the tyranny with a perfect hatred, he had nevercharacter of the honest old Cavaliers. We feel theless all the estimable and ornamental qualia national pride in comparing them with the ties, which were almost entirely monopolized instruments which the despots of other coun- by the party of the tyrant. There was none tries are compelled to employ, with the mutes who had a stronger sense of the value of litewho throng their antechambers, and the Janis- rature, a finer relish for every elegant amusesaries who mount guard at their gates. Our ment, or a more chivalrous delicacy of honour royalist countrymen were not heartless, dan- and love. Though his opinions were demo. gling courtiers, bowing at every step, and sim-cratic, his tastes and his associates were su pering at every word. They were not mere as harmonize best with monarchy and ari |