an exquisite harmony. We shall sooner see ment of the mind. It cannot indeed produce another Shakspeare or another Homer. The perfection, but it produces improvement, and highest excellence, to which any single faculty nourishes that generous and liberal fastidiouscan be brought, would be less surprising than ness, which is not inconsistent with the strongsuch a happy and delicate combination of est sensibility to merit, and which, while it exqualities. Yet the contemplation of imaginary alts our conceptions of the art, does not render models is not an unpleasant or useless employ-us unjust to the artist.

HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1828.]

companion to the traveller or the general than the painting could be, though it were the grandest that ever Rosa peopled with outlaws, or the sweetest over which Claude ever poured the mellow effulgence of a setting sun.

HISTORY, at least in its state of imaginary perfection, is a compound of poetry and philosophy. It impresses general truths on the mind by a vivid representation of particular characters and incidents. But, in fact, the two hostile elements of which it consists have It is remarkable that the practice of separatnever been known to form a perfect amalgama-ing the two ingredients of which history is tion; and at length, in our own time, they have composed has become prevalent on the Contibeen completely and professedly separated. nent as well as in this country. Italy has alGood histories, in the proper sense of the word, ready produced an historical novel, of high merit we have not. But we have good historical ro- and of still higher promise. In France, the mances and good historical essays. The ima- practice has been carried to a length somegination and the reason, if we may use a legal what whimsical. M. Sismondi publishes a metaphor, have made partition of a province grave and stately history, very valuable, and a of literature of which they were formerly little tedious. He then sends forth as a comseised per my et pour tout; and now they hold panion to it a novel, in which he attempts to their respective portions in severalty, instead give a lively representation of characters and of holding the whole in common. manners. This course, as it seems to us, has To make the past present, to bring the dis-all the disadvantages of a division of labour, ant near, to place us in the society of a great and none of its advantages. We understand man, or on the eminence which overlooks the the expediency of keeping the functions of field of a mighty battle, to invest with the reali-cook and coachman distinct-the dinner will ty of human flesh and blood beings whom we be better dressed, and the horses better maare too much inclined to consider as personi-naged. But where the two situations are united, fied qualities in an allegory, to call up our ances- as in the Maître Jaques of Molière, we do not tors before us with all their peculiarities of see that the matter is much mended by the solanguage, manners, and garb, to show us over lemn form with which the pluralist passes from their houses, to seat us at their tables, to rum- one of his employments to the other. mage their old-fashioned wardrobes, to explain We manage these things better in England. the uses of their ponderous furniture-these Sir Walter Scott gives us a novel; Mr. Hallam parts of the duty which properly belongs to the a critical and argumentative history. Both are historian have been appropriated by the histo- occupied with the same matter. But the forDeal novelist. On the other hand, to extract mer looks at it with the eye of a sculptor. His philosophy of history-to direct our judg-intention is to give an express and lively ent of events and men-to trace the connec- image of its external form. The latter is an of causes and effects, and to draw from the anatomist. His task is to dissect the subject to terrences of former times general lessons of its inmost recesses, and to lay bare before us all ral and political wisdom, has become the the springs of motion and all the causes of deness of a distinct class of writers. Of the two kinds of composition into which atory has been thus divided, the one may be mpared to a map, the other to a painted landpe. The picture, though it places the obbefore us, does not enable us to ascertain with accuracy the form and dimensions of its ponent parts, the distances, and the angles. The map is not a work of imitative art. It presents no scene to the imagination; but it gives us exact information as to the bearings of the various points, and is a more useful

cay.

Mr. Hallam is, on the whole, far better qualified than any other writer of our time for the office which he has undertaken. He has great industry and great acuteness. His knowledge is extensive, various. and profound. His mind is equally distinguished by the amplitude of its grasp and by the delicacy of its tact. His speculations have none of that vagueness which is the common fault of political philosophy. On the contrary, they are strikingly practical. They teach us not only the general rule, but the mode of applying it to solve parThe Constitutional History of England, from the Ac-ticular cases. In this respect they often of Beary VII. to the Death of George II. By BY HALLAM. In 2 vols. 1827. mind us of the Discourses of Machiavelli.

scornfully thrown behind them, in a manner | a great artist might produce a portrait of this which may well excite their envy. He has remarkable woman, at least as striking as that constructed out of their gleanings works in the novel of Kenilworth, without employing. which, even considered as histories, are scarce- a single trait not authenticated by ample tesly less valuable than theirs. But a truly great timony. In the mean time, we should see historian would reclaim those materials which arts cultivated, wealth accumulated, the convethe novelist has appropriated. The history❘niences of life improved. We should see the of the government and the history of the peo- keeps, where nobles, insecure themselves, ple would be exhibited in that mode in which spread insecurity around them, gradually alone they can be exhibited justly, in insepa- giving place to the halls of peaceful opulence, rable conjunction and intermixture. We should to the oriels of Longleat, and the stately pinnot then have to look for the wars and votes nacles of Burleigh. We should see towns exof the Puritans in Clarendon, and for their tended, deserts cultivated, the hamlets of fishphraseology in Old Mortality; for one half of ermen turned into wealthy havens, the meal King James in Hume, and for the other half of the peasant improved, and his hut more in the Fortunes of Nigel. commodiously furnished. We should see The early part of our imaginary history those opinions and feelings which produced would be rich with colouring from romance, the great struggle against the house of Stuart, ballad, and chronicle. We should find our- slowly growing up in the bosom of private selves in the company of knights such as families, before they manifested themselves in those of Froissart, and of pilgrims such as Parliamentary debates. Then would come those who rode with Chaucer from the Tabard. the Civil War. Those skirmishes, on which Society would be shown from the highest to Clarendon dwells so minutely, would be told, the lowest-from the royal cloth of state to the as Thucydides would have told them, with den of the outlaw; from the throne of the le- perspicuous conciseness. They are merely gate to the chimney-corner where the begging connecting links. But the great characterfriar regaled himself. Palmers, minstrels, istics of the age, the loyal enthusiasm of the crusaders — the stately monastery, with the brave English gentry, the fierce licentiousness good cheer in its refectory, and the high-mass of the swearing, dicing, drunken reprobates, in its chapel-the manor-house, with its hunt- whose excesses disgraced the royal causeing and hawking—the tournament, with the the austerity of the Presbyterian Sabbaths in heralds and ladies, the trumpets and the cloth the city, the extravagance of the Independent of gold-would give truth and life to the re- preachers in the camp, the precise garb, the presentation. We should perceive, in a thou-severe countenance, the petty scruples, the sand slight touches, the importance of the privileged burgher, and the fierce and haughty spirit which swelled under the collar of the degraded villain. The revival of letters would not merely be described in a few magnificent periods. We should discern, in innumerable particulars, the fermentation of mind, the eager appetite for knowledge, which distinguished the sixteenth from the fifteenth century. In "the Reformation we should see, not merely a The instruction derived from history thus schism which changed the ecclesiastical con- written would be of a vivid and practical chastitution of England, and the mutual relations racter. It would be received by the imaginaof the European powers, but a moral war tion as well as by the reason. It would be not which raged in every family, which set the merely traced on the mind, but branded into father against the son, and the son against the it. Many truths, too, would be learned, which father, the mother against the daughter, and can be learned in no other manner. As the the daughter against the mother. Henry history of states is generally written, the greatwould be painted with the skill of Tacitus. est and most momentous revolutions seem to We should have the change of his character come upon them like supernatural inflictions, from his profuse and joyous youth to his without warning or cause. But the fact is, that savage and imperious old age. We should such revolutions are almost always the conseperceive the gradual progress of selfish and quences of moral changes, which have gratyrannical passions, in a mind not naturally dually passed on the mass of the community, insensible or ungenerous; and to the last we and which ordinarily proceed far, before their should detect some remains of that open and progress is indicated by any public measure. noble temper which endeared him to a people An intimate knowledge of the domestic history whom he oppressed, struggling with the hard-of nations is therefore absolutely necessary to ness of despotism and the irritability of dis- the prognosis of political events. A narrative, ease. We should see Elizabeth in all her defective in this respect, is as useless as a meweakness, and in all her strength, surrounded dical treatise which should pass by all the by the handsome favourites whom she never symptoms attendant on the early stage of a trusted, and the wise old statesmen, whom she disease, and mention only what occurs when never dismissed, uniting in herself the most the patient is beyond the reach of remedies. contradictory qualities of both her parentsthe coquetry, the caprice, the petty malice of nne-the haughty and resolute spirit of nry. We have no hesitation in saying, that

affected accent, the absurd names and phrases which marked the Puritans-the valour, the policy, the public spirit, which lurked beneath these ungraceful disguises, the dreams of the raving Fifth Monarchyman, the dreams, scarcely less wild, of the philosophic republican-all these would enter into the representation, and render it at once more exact and more striking.

An historian, such as we have been attempting to describe, would indeed be an intellectual prodigy. In his mind, powers, scarcely com patible with each other, must be tempered into

liarly valuable. It is impossible not to admire
the evenhanded justice with which he deals
out castigation to right and left on the rival
persecutors.

It is vehemently maintained by some writers
of the present day, that the government of
Elizabeth persecuted neither Papists nor Puri-
tans as such; and occasionally that the severe
measures which it adopted were dictated, not
by religious intolerance, but by political ne-
cessity. Even the excellent account of those
times, which Mr. Hallam has given, has not
altogether imposed silence on the authors of
this fallacy. The title of the Queen, they say,
was annulled by the Pope; her throne was
given to another; her subjects were incited to
rebellion; her life was menaced; every Ca-
tholic was bound in conscience to be a traitor;
it was therefore against traitors, not against
Catholics, that the penal laws were enacted.
That our readers may be the better able to
appreciate the merits of this defence, we will
state, as concisely as possible, the substance
of some of these laws.

As soon as Elizabeth ascended the throne, and before the least hostility to her government had been shown by the Catholic population, an act passed, prohibiting the celebration of the rites of the Romish church, on pain of forfeiture for the first offence, a year's imprisonment for the second, and perpetual imprisonment for the third.

that if any Catholic shall convert a Protestant to the Romish church, they shall both suffer death, as for high treason.

We believe that we might safely content ourselves with stating the fact, and leaving it to the judgment of every plain Englishman. Recent controversies have, however, given so much importance to this subject, that we will offer a few remarks on it.

In the first place, the arguments which are urged in favour of Elizabeth, apply with much greater force to the case of her sister Mary. The Catholics did not, at the time of Elizabeth's accession, rise in arms to seat a Pretender on her throne. But before Mary had given, or could give provocation, the most distinguished Protestants attempted to set aside her rights in favour of the Lady Jane. That attempt, and the subsequent insurrection of Wyatt, furnished at least as good a plea for the burning of Protestants as the conspiracies against Elizabeth furnish for the hanging and embowelling of Papists.

The fact is, that both pleas are worthless alike. If such arguments are to pass current, it will be easy to prove that there was never such a thing as religious persecution since the creation. For there never was a religious persecution, in which some odious crime was not justly or unjustly said to be obviously deducible from the doctrines of the persecuted party. We might say that the Cæsars did not persecute the Christians; that they only punished men who were charged, rightly or wrongly, with burning Rome, and with committing the foulest abominations in their assemblies; that the refusal to throw frankincence on the altar of Jupiter was not the crime, but only evidence of the crime. We might say that the massacre of St. Bartholemew was intended to extirpate, not a religious sect, but a political party. For, beyond all doubt, the proceedings of the Huguenots, from the conspiracy of Amboise to the battle of Moncoutour, had given much more trouble to the French monarchy than the Catholics have ever given to England since the Reformation; and that too with much less excuse.

A law was next made, in 1562, enacting, that
all who had ever graduated at the Universities,
or received holy orders, all lawyers, and all ma-
gistrates, should take the oath of supremacy
when tendered to them, on pain of forfeiture,
and imprisonment during the royal pleasure.
After the lapse of three months, it might again be
tendered to them; and, if it were again refused,
the recusant was guilty of high treason. A
prospective law, however severe, framed to
exclude Catholics from the liberal professions,
would have been mercy itself compared with
this odious act. It is a retrospective statute;
it is a retrospective penal statute; it is a retro-
spective penal statute against a large class.
We will not positively affirm that a law of this
description must always, and under all circum- The true distinction is perfectly obvious.
stances, be unjustifiable. But the presumption To punish a man because he has committed a
against it is most violent; nor do we remem-crime, or is believed, though unjustly, to have
ber any crisis, either in our own history, or in committed a crime, is not persecution. To
the history of any other country, which would punish a man because we infer from the na-
have rendered such a provision necessary. ture of some doctrine which he holds, or from
But in the present, what circumstances called the conduct of other persons who hold the same
for extraordinary rigour? There might be doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime,
disaffection among the Catholics. The prohi-is persecution; and is, in every case, foolish
bition of their worship would naturally pro-and wicked.

duce it. But it is from their situation, not from When Elizabeth put Ballard and Babington
their conduct; from the wrongs which they to death, she was not persecuting. Nor should
had suffered, not from those which they had
committed, that the existence of discontent
among them must be inferred. There were
libels, no doubt, and prophecies, and rumours,
and suspicions; strange grounds for a law in-
ficting capital penalties, ex post facto, on a
large order of men.

we have accused her government of persecu
tion for passing any law, however severe,
against overt acts of sedition. But to argue
that because a man is a Catholic he must
think it right to murder an heretical sovereign,
and that because he thinks it right he will at
tempt to do it, and then to found on this con-
clusion a law for punishing him as if he had
done it, is plain persecution.

Eight years later, the bull of Pius deposing
Elizabeth produced a third law. This law, to
which alone, as we conceive, the defence now If, indeed, all men reasoned in the
nder our consideration can apply, provides, I manner on the same data, and always d

they thought it their duty to do, this mode of dispensing punishment might be extremely judicious. But as people who agree about premises often disagree about conclusions, and as no man in the world acts up to his own standard of right, there are two enormous gaps in the logic by which alone penalties for opinions can be defended. The doctrine of reprobation, in the judgment of many very able men, follows by syllogistic necessity from the doctrine of election. Others conceive that the Antinomian and Manichean heresies directly follow from the doctrine of reprobation; and it is very generally thought that licentiousness and cruelty of the worst description are likely to be the fruits, as they often have been the fruits, of Antinomian and Manichean opinions. This chain of reasoning, we think, is as perfect in all its parts as that which makes out a Papist to be necessarily a traitor. Yet it would be rather a strong measure to hang the Calvinists, on the ground that if they were spared they would infallibly commit all the atrocities of Matthias and Knipperdoling. For, reason the matter as we may, experience shows us that a man may believe in election without believing in reprobation, that he may believe in reprobation without being an Antinomian, and that he may be an Antinomian without being a bad citizen. Man, in short, is so inconsistent a creature, that it is impossible to reason from his belief to his conduct, or from one part of his belief to another.

who would have admitted in theory the depos ing power of the Pope, but who would not have been ambitious to be stretched on the rack, even though it were to be used, according to the benevolent proviso of Lord Burleigh, "as charitably as such a thing can be;" or to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, even though, by that rare indulgence which the queen, of her especial grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, sometimes extended to very mitigated cases, he were allowed a fair time to choke before the hangman began to grabble in his entrails.

But the laws passed against the Puritans had not even the wretched excuse which we have been considering. In their case the cruelty was equal, the danger infinitely less. In fact the danger was created solely by the cruelty. But it is superfluous to press the argument. By no artifice of ingenuity can the stigma of persecution, the worst blemish of the English church, be effaced or patched over. Her doctrines we well know do not tend to intolerance. She admits the possibility of salvation out of her own pale. But this circumstance, in itself honourable to her, aggravates the sin and the shame of those who persecuted in her name. Dominic and De Monfort did not at least murder and torture for differences of opinion which they considered as trifling. It was to stop an infection which, as they believed, hurried to perdition every soul which it seized that they employed their fire and steel. The measures We do not believe that every Englishman of the English government with respect to the who was reconciled to the Catholic church Papists and Puritans sprang from a widely would, as a necessary consequence, have different principle. If those who deny that the thought himself justified in deposing or assas- supporters of the Established Church were sinating Elizabeth. It is not sufficient to say guilty of religious persecution mean only that that the convert must have acknowledged the they were not influenced by religious motives, authority of the Pope, and that the Pope had we perfectly agree with them. Neither the issued a bull against the queen. We know penal code of Elizabeth, nor the more hateful through what strange loopholes the human system by which Charles the Second attemptmind contrives to escape, when it wishes to ed to force Episcopacy on the Scotch, had an avoid a disagreeable inference from an admit-origin so noble. Their cause is to be sought ted proposition. We know how long the Jansenists contrived to believe the Pope infallible in matters of doctrine, and at the same time to believe doctrines which he pronounced to be heretical. Let it pass, however, that every Catholic in the kingdom thought that Elizabeth might be lawfully murdered. Still the old maxim, that what is the business of every body is the business of nobody, is particularly likely to hold good in a case in which a cruel death is the almost inevitable consequence of making any attempt.

in some circumstances which attended the Reformation in England-circumstances of which the effects long continued to be felt, and may in some degree be traced even at the present day.

In Germany, in France, in Switzerland, and in Scotland, the contest against the Papal power was essentially a religious contest. In all these countries, indeed, the cause of the Reformation, like every other great cause, attracted to itself many supporters influera he no conscientious principle, many who Of the ten thousand clergymen of the Church the Established Church only becaus of England, there is scarcely one who would thought her in danger, many who were not say that a man who should leave his coun- of her restraints, and many who were try and friends to preach the gospel among for her spoils. But it was not by the savages, and who should, after labouring inde-herents that the separation was there co fatigably without any hope of reward, terminate his life by martyrdom, would deserve the warmest admiration. Yet we doubt whether ten of the ten thousand ever thought of going on such an expedition. Why should we suppose that conscientious motives, feeble as they are constantly found to be in a good cause, should be omnipotent for evil? Doubtless ere was many a jolly Popish priest in the i manor-houses of the northern counties,

ed. They were welcome auxiliaries; the
port was too often purchased by un
compliances; but, however exalted in rai
power, they were not the leaders in the
prise. Men of a widely different descr.
men who redeemed great infirmities and
by sincerity, disinterestedness, energy, and
rage; men who, with many of the vices
volutionary chiefs and of polemic divines
ed some of the highest qualities of apostles

were the real directors. They might be vio- | the sense of Mr. Hallam, and to comment on lens in innovation, and scurrilous in contro- it thus: If we consider Cranmer merely as a versy. They might sometimes act with inex- statesman, he will not appear a much worse cusable severity towards opponents, and some- man than Wolsey, Gardiner, Cromwell, or Sotimes connive disreputably at the vices of merset. But when an attempt is made to set powerful allies. But fear was not in them, him up as a saint, it is scarcely possible for nor hypocrisy, nor avarice, nor any petty self- any man of sense, who knows the history of ishness. Their one great object was the de- the times well, to preserve his gravity. If the molition of the idols, and the purification of the memory of the archbishop had been left to sanctuary. If they were too indulgent to the find its own place, he would soon have been failings of eminent men, from whose patronage lost among the crowd which is mingled they expected advantage to the church, they "A quel cattivo cero never flinched before persecuting tyrants and hostile armies. If they set the lives of others at nought in comparison of their doctrines, they were equally ready to throw away their own. Such were the authors of the great schism on the continent and in the northern part of this island. The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of Condé and the King of Navarre, Moray and Morton, might espouse the Protestant opinions, or might pretend to espouse them; but it was from Luther, from Calvin, from Knox, that the Reformation took its character.

England has no such names to show; not that she wanted men of sincere piety, of deep learning, of steady and adventurous courage. But these were thrown into the back-ground. Elsewhere men of this character were the principals. Here they acted a secondary part. Elsewhere worldliness was the tool of zeal. Here zeal was the tool of worldliness. A king, whose character may be best described by say. ing that he was despotism itself personified, unprincipled ministers, a rapacious aristocracy, a servile parliament-such were the instruments by which England was delivered from the yoke of Rome. The work which had been begun by Henry, the murderer of his wives, was continued by Somerset, the murderer of his brother, and completed by Elizabeth, the murderer of her guest. Sprung from brutal passion, nurtured by selfish policy, the Reformation in England displayed little of what had in other countries distinguished it-unflinching and unsparing devotion, boldness of speech, and singleness of eye. These were indeed to be found; but it was in the lower ranks of the party which opposed the authority of Rome, in such men as Hooper, Latimer, Rogers, and Taylor. Of those who had any important share in bringing the alteration about, the excellent Ridley was perhaps the only person who did not consider it as a mere political job. Even idley did not play a very prominent part. Among the statesmen and prelates who principally give the tone to the religious changes there is one, and one only, whose conduct partiality itself can attribute to any other than interested motives. It is not strange, therefore, that his character should have been the subject of fierce controversy. We need not say that we speak of Cranmer.

Mr. Hallam has been severely censured for saying, with his usual placid severity, that "if we weigh the character of this prelate in an equal balance, he will appear far indeed removed from the turpitude imputed to him by his enemies; yet not entitled to any extraordinary veneration." We will venture to expand

Degli angeli, che non furon ribelli, Ne fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se furo." And the only notice which it would have been necessary to take of his name, would have been

"Non ragioniam di lui; ma guarda, e passa." But when his admirers challenge for him a place in the noble army of martyrs, his claims require fuller discussion.

The shameful origin of his history, common enough in the scandalous chronicles of courts, seems strangely out of place in a hagiology. Cranmer rose into favour by serving Henry in a disgraceful affair of his first divorce. He promoted the marriage of Anne Boleyn with the king. On a frivolous pretence he pronounced it null and void. On a pretence, if possible, still more frivolous, he dissolved the ties which bound the shameless tyrant to Anne of Cleves. He attached himself to Cromwell, while the fortunes of Cromwell flourished. He voted for cutting off his head without a trial, when the tide of royal favour turned. He conformed backwards and forwards as the king changed his mind. While Henry lived, he assisted in condemning to the flames those who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. When Henry died, he found out that the doctrine was false. He was, however, not at a loss for people to burn. The authority of his station, and of his gray hairs, was employed to overcome the disgust with which an intelligent and virtuous child regarded persecution.

Intolerance is always bad. But the sanguinary intolerance of a man who thus wavered in his creed, excites a loathing to which it is difficult to give vent without calling foul names. Equally false to political and to religious obligations, he was first the tool of Somerset, and then the tool of Northumber land. When the former wished to put his own brother to death, without even the form of a trial, he found a ready instrument in Cranmer. In spite of the canon law, which forbade a churchman to take any part in matters of blood, the archbishop signed the warrant for the atrocious sentence. When Somerset had been in his turn destroyed, his destroyer received the support of Cranmer in his attempt to change the course of the succession.

The apology made for him by his admirers only renders his conduct more contemptible. He complied, it is said, against his better judgment, because he could not resist the entreaties of Edward! A holy prelate of sixty, one would think, might be better employed by the