santness of external objects, or loved directly egotistical. But the qualities better to luxuriate amidst sunbeams which we have ascribed to Milton, and flowers, the songs of nightingales, though perhaps most strongly marked the juice of summer fruits, and the in those parts of his works which treat coolness of shady fountains. His con- of his personal feelings, are distinguishception of love unites all the voluptu-able in every page, and impart to all ousness of the Oriental haram, and all his writings, prose and poetry, English, the gallantry of the chivalric tourna- Latin, and Italian, a strong family ment, with all the pure and quiet affec- likeness. tion of an English fireside. His poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairy land, are embosomed in its most rugged and gigantic elevations. The roses and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the avalanche. His public conduct was such as was to be expected from a man of a spirit so high and of an intellect so powerful. He lived at one of the most memorable eras in the history of mankind, at the very crisis of the great conflict between Oromasdes and AriTraces, indeed, of the peculiar cha- manes, liberty and despotism, reason racter of Milton may be found in all and prejudice. That great battle was his works; but it is most strongly dis- fought for no single generation, for no played in the Sonnets. Those remark-single land. The destinies of the huable poems have been undervalued by man race were staked on the same cast critics who have not understood their with the freedom of the English people. nature. They have no epigrammatic Then were first proclaimed those point. There is none of the ingenuity mighty principles which have since of Filicaja in the thought, none of the worked their way into the depths of hard and brilliant enamel of Petrarch the American forests, which have roused in the style. They are simple but ma- Greece from the slavery and degradajestic records of the feelings of the tion of two thousand years, and which, poet; as little tricked out for the from one end of Europe to the other, public eye as his diary would have have kindled an unquenchable fire in been. A victory, an unexpected attack the hearts of the oppressed, and loosed upon the city, a momentary fit of de- the knees of the oppressors with an unpression or exultation, a jest thrown wonted fear. out against one of his books, a dream Of those principles, then struggling which for a short time restored to him for their infant existence, Milton was that beautiful face over which the grave the most devoted and eloquent literary had closed for ever, led him to mu- champion. We need not say how sings, which, without effort, shaped much we admire his public conduct. themselves into verse. The unity of But we cannot disguise from ourselves sentiment and severity of style which that a large portion of his countrymen characterise these little pieces remind still think it unjustifiable. The civil us of the Greek Anthology, or perhaps war, indeed, has been more discussed, still more of the Collects of the English and is less understood, than any event Liturgy. The noble poem on the in English history. The friends of Massacres of Piedmont is strictly a liberty laboured under the disadvantage collect in verse. The Sonnets are more or less strik-plained so bitterly. Though they were ing, according as the occasions which gave birth to them are more or less interesting. But they are, almost without exception, dignified by a sobriety and greatness of mind to which we know not where to look for a parallel. It would, indeed, be scarcely safe to draw any decided inferences as to the character of a writer from passages of which the lion in the fable com the conquerors, their enemies were the painters. As a body, the Roundheads had done their utmost to decry and ruin literature; and literature was even with them, as, in the long run, it always is with its enemies. The best book on their side of the question is the charming narrative of Mrs. Hutchinson. May's History of the Parlia Charles himself and his creature Laud, while they abjured the innocent badges of Popery, retained all its worst vices a complete subjection of reason to authority, a weak preference of form to substance, a childish passion for mummeries, an idolatrous veneration for the priestly character, and, above all, a merciless intolerance. This, however, we waive. We will concede that Charles was a good Protestant; but we say that his Protestantism does not make the slightest distinction between his case and that of James. ment is good; but it breaks off at the In one respect, only, we think, can most interesting crisis of the struggle. the warmest admirers of Charles venThe performance of Ludlow is foolish ture to say that he was a better soveand violent; and most of the later reign than his son. He was not, in writers who have espoused the same name and profession, a Papist; we say cause, Oldmixon for instance, and Ca-in name and profession, because both therine Macaulay, have, to say the least, been more distinguished by zeal than either by candour or by skill. On the other side are the most authoritative and the most popular historical works in our language, that of Clarendon, and that of Hume. The former is not only ably written and full of valuable information, but has also an air of dignity and sincerity which makes even the prejudices and errors with which it abounds respectable. Hume, from whose fascinating narrative the great mass of the reading public are still contented to take their opinions, hated religion so much that he hated liberty for having been allied with religion, and has pleaded the cause of tyranny with the dexterity of an advocate, while affecting the impartiality of a judge. they keep out of sight what is bene- The principles of the Revolution have often been grossly misrepresented, and never more than in the course of the present year. There is a certain class of men, who, while they profess to hold in reverence the great names and great actions of former times, never look at The public conduct of Milton must them for any other purpose than in be approved or condemned according order to find in them some excuse for as the resistance of the people to existing abuses. In every venerable Charles the First shall appear to be precedent they pass by what is essenjustifiable or criminal. We shall there-tial, and take only what is accidental: fore make no apology for dedicating a few pages to the discussion of that interesting and most important question. We shall not argue it on general grounds. We shall not recur to those primary principles from which the claim of any government to the obedience of its subjects is to be deduced. We are entitled to that vantage ground; but we will relinquish it. We are, on this point, so confident of superiority, that we are not unwilling to imitate the ostentatious generosity of those ancient knights, who vowed to joust without helmet or shield against all enemies, and to give their antagonists the advantage of sun and wind. We will take the naked constitutional question. We confidently affirm, that every reason which can be urged in favour of the Revolution of 1688 may be urged with at least equal force in favour of what is called the Great Rebellion. To the blessings which England has derived from the Revolution these people are utterly insensible. The expulsion of a tyrant, the solemn recognition of popular rights, liberty, security, toleration, all go for nothing with them. One sect there was, which, from unfortunate temporary causes, it was thought necessary to keep under close restraint. One part of the empire there was so unhappily circumstanced, that at that time its misery was necessary to our happiness, and its slavery to our freedom. These are the parts of the to be tyrants. The ground on which Revolution which the politicians of they, in their famous resolution, dewhom we speak, love to contemplate, clared the throne vacant, was this, "that and which seem to them not indeed to James had broken the fundamental vindicate, but in some degree to palliate, laws of the kingdom." Every man, the good which it has produced. Talk therefore, who approves of the Revoto them of Naples, of Spain, or of lution of 1688 must hold that the South America. They stand forth breach of fundamental laws on the part zealots for the doctrine of Divine Right of the sovereign justifies resistance. which has now come back to us, like a The question, then, is this; Had Charles thief from transportation, under the the First broken the fundamental laws alias of Legitimacy. But mention the of England? miseries of Ireland. Then William is No person can answer in the negaa hero. Then Somers and Shrewsbury tive, unless he refuses credit, not merely are great men. Then the Revolution to all the accusations brought against is a glorious era. The very same per- Charles by his opponents, but to the sons who, in this country, never omit an narratives of the warmest Royalists, and opportunity of reviving every wretched to the confessions of the King himself. Jacobite slander respecting the Whigs If there be any truth in any historian of that period, have no sooner crossed of any party who has related the events St. George's Channel, than they begin of that reign, the conduct of Charles, to fill their bumpers to the glorious and from his accession to the meeting of immortal memory. They may truly the Long Parliament, had been a conboast that they look not at men, but at tinued course of oppression and treameasures. So that evil be done, they chery. Let those who applaud the care not who does it; the arbitrary Revolution, and condemn the Rebellion, Charles, or the liberal William, Fer-mention one act of James the Second dinand the Catholic, or Frederic the to which a parallel is not to be found Protestant. On such occasions their deadliest opponents may reckon upon their candid construction. The bold assertions of these people have of late impressed a large portion of the public with an opinion that James the Second was expelled simply because he was a Catholic, and that the Revolution was essentially a Protestant Revolution. in the history of his father. Let them lay their fingers on a single article in the Declaration of Right, presented by the two Houses to William and Mary, which Charles is not acknowledged to have violated. He had, according to the testimony of his own friends, usurped the functions of the legislature, raised taxes without the consent of parliament, But this certainly was not the case; and quartered troops on the people in nor can any person who has acquired the most illegal and vexatious manner. more knowledge of the history of those Not a single session of parliament had times than is to be found in Goldsmith's passed without some unconstitutional Abridgment believe that, if James had attack on the freedom of debate; the held his own religious opinions without right of petition was grossly violated; wishing to make proselytes, or if, wish-arbitrary judgments, exorbitant fines, ing even to make proselytes, he had and unwarranted imprisonments, were contented himself with exerting only grievances of daily occurrence. If his constitutional influence for that pur- these things do not justify resistance, pose, the Prince of Orange would ever the Revolution was treason; if they do, have been invited over. Our ancestors, the Great Rebellion was laudable. we suppose, knew their own meaning; and, if we may believe them, their hostility was primarily not to popery, but to tyranny. They did not drive out a tyrant because he was a Catholic; but they excluded Catholics from the crown, because they thought them likely But, it is said, why not adopt milder measures? Why, after the King had consented to so many reforms, and renounced so many oppressive prerogatives, did the parliament continue to rise in their demands at the risk of provoking a civil war? The ship-money throw it away as they had thrown away the former? Were they again to be cozened by le Roi le veut? Were they again to advance their money on pledges which had been forfeited over and over again? Were they to lay a second Petition of Right at the foot of the throne, to grant another lavish aid in exchange for another unmeaning ceremony, and then to take their departure, till, after ten years more of fraud and oppression, their prince should again require a supply, and again repay it with a perjury? They were compelled to choose whether they would trust a tyrant or conquer him. We think that they chose wisely and nobly. 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 the analogy of the Revolution. Why was James driven from the throne? Why was he not retained upon conditions? He too had offered to call a free parliament and to submit to its decision all the matters in dispute. Yet we are in the habit of praising our forefathers, who preferred a revolution, a disputed succession, a dynasty of strangers, twenty years of foreign and intestine war, a standing army, and a national debt, to the rule, however restricted, of a tried and proved tyrant. The Long Parliament acted on the same principle, and is entitled to the same praise. They could not trust the King. He had no doubt passed salutary laws; but what assurance was The advocates of Charles, like the there that he would not break them? advocates of other malefactors against He had renounced oppressive preroga-whom overwhelming evidence is protives; but where was the security that duced, generally decline all contro. he would not resume them? The versy about the facts, and content nation had to deal with a man whom themselves with calling testimony to 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 redeemed. 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 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! 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 be took his little son on his knee and kissed him! We censure him for having violated the articles of the Pe tition of Right, after having, for good | It is a case of which the simplest stateand valuable consideration, promised ment is the strongest. to observe them; and we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning! It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vandyke dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity with the present generstion. The enemies of the Parliament, indeed, rarely choose to take issue on the great points of the question. They content themselves with exposing some of the crimes and follies to which public commotions necessarily give birth. They bewail the unmerited fate of Strafford. They execrate the lawless violence of the army. They laugh at For ourselves, we own that we do the Scriptural names of the preachers. not understand the common phrase, a Major-generals fleecing their districts; good man, but a bad king. We can soldiers revelling on the spoils of a as easily conceive a good man and an ruined peasantry; upstarts, enriched unnatural father, or a good man and a by the public plunder, taking possession treacherous friend. We cannot, in of the hospitable firesides and herediestimating the character of an indi- tary trees of the old gentry; boys vidual, leave out of our consideration smashing the beautiful windows of cahis conduct in the most important of thedrals; Quakers riding naked through all human relations; and if in that re-the market-place; Fifth-monarchy-men lation we find him to have been selfish, shouting for King Jesus; agitators leccruel, and deceitful, we shall take the turing from the tops of tubs on the fate liberty to call him a bad man, in spite of Agag;-all these, they tell us, were of all his temperance at table, and all the oflspring of the Great Rebellion. his regularity at chapel. 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? 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 ad- If it were possible that a people dress. The answer is short, clear, and brought up under an intolerant and decisive. Charles had assented to the arbitrary system could subvert that Petition of Right. He had renounced system without acts of cruelty and the oppressive powers said to have been folly, half the objections to despotic exercised by his predecessors, and he power would be removed. We should, had renounced them for money. He in that case, be compelled to acknowwas not entitled to set up his anti-ledge that it at least produces no perquated claims against his own recent nicious effects on the intellectual and 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. 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 ignɔ |