had been given up. The Star Cham-heritance and by recent purchase, inber had been abolished. Provision fringed by the perfidious king who had had been made for the frequent con-recognised them. At length circumvocation and secure deliberation of stances compelled Charles to summon parliaments. Why not pursue an end another parliament: another chance confessedly good by peaceable and was given to our fathers were they to regular means? We recur again to throw it away as they had thrown away the analogy of the Revolution. Why the former? Were they again to be was James driven from the throne? cozened by le Roi le veut? Were they Why was he not retained upon con- again to advance their money on ditions? He too had offered to call a pledges which had been forfeited over free parliament and to submit to its and over again? Were they to lay a decision all the matters in dispute. second Petition of Right at the foot of Yet we are in the habit of praising our the throne, to grant another lavish aid forefathers, who preferred a revolution, in exchange for another unmeaning a disputed succession, a dynasty of ceremony, and then to take their de strangers, twenty years of foreign and parture, till, after ten years more of intestine war, a standing army, and a fraud and oppression, their prince national debt, to the rule, however should again require a supply, and restricted, of a tried and proved tyrant. again repay it with a perjury? They The Long Parliament acted on the were compelled to choose whether they same principle, and is entitled to the would trust a tyrant or conquer him. same praise. They could not trust the We think that they chose wisely and King. He had no doubt passed salu-nobly. tary laws; but what assurance was there that he would not break them? He had renounced oppressive prerogatives; but where was the security that he would not resume them? nation had to deal with a man whom no tie could bind, a man who made and broke promises with equal facility, a man whose honour had been a hundred times pawned, and never re

deemed.

The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all contro. The versy about the facts, and content themselves with calling testimony to character. He had so many private virtues! And had James the Second no private virtues? Was Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, destitute of private virtues? And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to Charles? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son, and fully as weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household decencies which half the tombstones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. A good father! A good husband! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood!

Here, indeed, the Long Parliament stands on still stronger ground than the Convention of 1688. No action of James can be compared to the conduct of Charles with respect to the Petition of Right. The Lords and Commons present him with a bill in which the constitutional limits of his power are marked out. He hesitates; he evades; at last he bargains to give his assent for five subsidies. The bill receives his solemn assent; the subsidies are voted; but no sooner is the tyrant relieved, than he returns at once to all the arbitrary measures which he had bound himself to abandon, and violates all the clauses of the very Act which he had been paid to pass.

For more than ten years the people had seen the rights which were theirs by a double claim, by immemorial in

We charge him with having broken his coronation oath; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow! We accuse him of having given up his people to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates; and the defence is, that he took his little son on his knee and kissed him! We censure him for having violated the articles of the Pe

C

tition of Right, after having, for good | It is a case of which the simplest stateand valuable consideration, promised ment is the strongest.

neration.

to observe them; and we are informed The enemies of the Parliament, inthat he was accustomed to hear prayers deed, rarely choose to take issue on the at six o'clock in the morning! It is great points of the question. They to such considerations as these, to- content themselves with exposing some gether with his Vandyke dress, his of the crimes and follies to which public handsome face, and his peaked beard, commotions necessarily give birth. that he owes, we verily believe, most They bewail the unmerited fate of of his popularity with the present ge- Strafford. They execrate the lawless violence of the army. They laugh at the Scriptural names of the preachers. Major-generals fleecing their districts; soldiers revelling on the spoils of a ruined peasantry; upstarts, enriched by the public plunder, taking possession of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees of the old gentry; boys smashing the beautiful windows of cathedrals; Quakers riding naked through the market-place; Fifth-monarchy-men shouting for King Jesus; agitators lecturing from the tops of tubs on the fate of Agag;-all these, they tell us, were the offspring of the Great Rebellion.

For ourselves, we own that we do not understand the common phrase, a good man, but a bad king. We can as easily conceive a good man and an unnatural father, or a good man and a treacherous friend. We cannot, in estimating the character of an individual, leave out of our consideration his conduct in the most important of all human relations; and if in that relation we find him to have been selfish, cruel, and deceitful, we shall take the liberty to call him a bad man, in spite of all his temperance at table, and all his regularity at chapel.

We cannot refrain from adding a few words respecting a topic on which the defenders of Charles are fond of dwelling. If, they say, he governed his people ill, he at least governed them after the example of his predecessors. If he violated their privileges, it was because those privileges had not been accurately defined. No act of oppression has ever been imputed to him which has not a parallel in the annals of the Tudors. This point Hume has laboured, with an art which is as discreditable in a historical work as it would be admirable in a forensic address. The answer is short, clear, and decisive. Charles had assented to the Petition of Right. He had renounced the oppressive powers said to have been exercised by his predecessors, and he had renounced them for money. He was not entitled to set up his antiquated claims against his own recent release.

These arguments are so obvious, that it may seem superfluous to dwell upon them. But those who have observed how much the events of that time are misrepresented and misunderstood will not blame us for stating the case simply.

Be it so. We are not careful to answer in this matter. These charges, were they infinitely more important, would not alter our opinion of an event which alone has made us to differ from the slaves who crouch beneath despotic sceptres. 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 under an intolerant and arbitrary system could subvert that system without acts of cruelty and folly, half the objections to despotic power would be removed. We should, in that case, be compelled to acknowledge that it at least produces no pernicious effects on the intellectual and moral character of a nation. We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary. The violence of those outrages will always be proportioned to the ferocity and igno

rance of the people; and the ferocity Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, and ignorance of the people will be who, by some mysterious law of her proportioned to the oppression and nature, was condemned to appear at degradation under which they have certain seasons in the form of a foul been accustomed to live. Thus it was and poisonous snake. Those who inin our civil war. The heads of the jured her during the period of her dischurch and state reaped only that guise were for ever excluded from parwhich they had sown. The govern- ticipation in the blessings which she ment had prohibited free discussion: bestowed. But to those who, in spite it had done its best to keep the people of her loathsome aspect, pitied and unacquainted with their duties and their protected her, she afterwards revealed rights. The retribution was just and herself in the beautiful and celestial natural. If our rulers suffered from form which was natural to her, accompopular ignorance, it was because they panied their steps, granted all their had themselves taken away the key of wishes, filled their houses with wealth, knowledge. If they were assailed with made them happy in love and victoblind fury, it was because they had rious in war. Such a spirit is Liberty. exacted an equally blind submission. At times she takes the form of a hateIt is the character of such revolu- ful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, tions that we always sce the worst of she stings. But woe to those who in them at first. Till men have been disgust shall venture to crush her! some time free, they know not how to And happy are those who, having use their freedom. The natives of dared to receive her in her degraded wine countries are generally sober. In and frightful shape, shall at length be climates where wine is a rarity intem-rewarded by her in the time of her perance abounds. A newly liberated beauty and her glory! people may be compared to a northern There is only one cure for the evils army encamped on the Rhine or the which newly acquired freedom proXeres. It is said that, when soldiers duces; and that cure is freedom. When in such a situation first find themselves a prisoner first leaves his cell he cannot able to indulge without restraint in bear the light of day he is unable to such a rare and expensive luxury, no- discriminate colours, or recognise faces. thing is to be seen but intoxication. But the remedy is, not to remand him Soon, however, plenty teaches discre- into his dungeon, but to accustom him tion; and, after wine has been for a to the rays of the sun. The blaze of few months their daily fare, they be- truth and liberty may at first dazzle come more temperate than they had and bewilder nations which have ever been in their own country. In the become half blind in the house of same manner, the final and permanent bondage. But let them gaze on, and fruits of liberty are wisdom, modera- they will soon be able to bear it. In tion, and mercy. Its immediate effects a few years men learn to reason. are often atrocious crimes, conflicting extreme violence of opinions subsides. errors, scepticism on points the most Hostile theories correct each other. clear, dogmatism on points the most The scattered elements of truth cease mysterious. It is just at this crisis that to contend, and begin to coalesce. its enemies love to exhibit it. They And at length a system of justice and pull down the scaffolding from the half-order is educed out of the chaos. finished edifice: they point to the Many politicians of our time are in flying dust, the falling bricks, the comfortless rooms, the frightful irregularity of the whole appearance; and then ask in scorn where the promised splendour and comfort is to be found. If such miserable sophisms were to prevail, there would never be a good house or a good government in the world,

The

the habit of laying it down as a selfevident 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

and sword from ons 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
William, and for making all opposition
fall before him until he became our
King and Governor, can,
thirtieth of January, contrive to be
afraid that the blood of the Royal
Martyr may be visited on themselves
and their children.

66

on the

good in slavery, they may indeed wait | turned him out of it, who broke in for ever. upon his very slumbers by imperious Therefore it is that we decidedly messages, who pursued him with fire approve of the conduct of Milton and the other wise and good men who, in spite of much that was ridiculous and 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 blameable excesses of that time. The favourite topic of his enemies is the line of conduct which he pursued with regard to the execution of the King. Of that celebrated proceeding we by no means 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 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 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 Jefferies and retain 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 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 tic than that which was common to them with all their fellow-citizens. Those who drove James from his throne, who seduced his army, who alienated his friends, who first imprisoned him in his palace, and then

We disapprove, we repeat, of the execution of Charles; not because the constitution exempts 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 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 instantly transferred, was at large. The Presbyterians could never have been perfectly reconciled to the father: they had no such rooted enmity to the son. 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 blameable, 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 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 would have overstepped the line which fundamental principles of all free he had traced for himself. But when governments, must, if suffered to re- he found that his parliaments quesmain 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 oflice under a military surper scems, 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 ronstitution far more perfect than any

tioned 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