which qualifies a man to act in great but which can never be considered as a affairs, or to judge of them. virtue. Laud is anxious to accommo"Of the Parliament," says Mr. Hal-date satisfactorily the disputes in the lam, “it may be said, I think, with not University of Dublin. He regrets to greater severity than truth, that scarce hear that a church is used as a stable, two or three public acts of justice, hu- and that the benefices of Ireland are manity, or generosity, and very few of very poor. He is desirous that, howpolitical wisdom or courage, are re-ever small a congregation may be, corded of them, from their quarrel with the King, to their expulsion by Cromwell." Those who may agree with us in the opinion which we have expressed as to the original demands of the Parliament will scarcely concur in this strong ensure. The propositions which the Houses made at Oxford, at Uxbridge, and at Newcastle, were in strict accordance with these demands. In the darkest period of the war, they showed no disposition to concede any vital principle. In the fulness of their success, they showed no disposition to encroach beyond these limits. In this respect we cannot but think that they showed justice and generosity, as well as political wisdom and courage. service should be regularly performed. He expresses a wish that the judges of the court before which questions of tithe are generally brought should be selected with a view to the interest of the clergy. All this may be very proper; and it may be very proper that an alderman should stand up for the tolls of his borough, and an East India director for the charter of his Company. But it is ridiculous to say that these things indicate piety and benevolence. No primate, though he were the most abandoned of mankind, could wish to see the body, with the influence of which his own influence was identical, degraded in the public estimation by internal dissensions, by the ruinous The Parliament was certainly far state of its edifices, and by the slovenly from faultless. We fully agree with performance of its rites. We willingly Mr. Hallam in reprobating their treat-acknowledge that the particular letters ment of Laud. For the individual, in- in question have very little harm in deed, we entertain a more unmitigated them; a compliment which cannot often contempt than for any other character be paid either to the writings or to the in our history. The fondness with actions of Laud. which a portion of the church regards Bad as the Archbishop was, however, his memory, can be compared only to he was not a traitor within the statute. that perversity of affection which some- Nor was he by any means so formitimes leads a mother to select the mon- dable as to be a proper subject for a ster or the idiot of the family as the retrospective ordinance of the legisobject of her especial favour. Mr. Hal-lature. His mind had not expansion lam has incidentally observed, that, in enough to comprehend a great scheme, the correspondence of Laud with Straf- good or bad. His oppressive acts were ford, there are no indications of a sense not, like those of the Earl of Strafford, of duty towards God or man. The parts of an extensive system. They admirers of the Archbishop have, in were the luxuries in which a mean consequence, inflicted upon the public and irritable disposition indulges ita crowd of extracts designed to prove self from day to day, the excesses the contrary. Now, in all those pas-natural to a little mind in a great sages, we see nothing which a prelate place. The severest punishment which as wicked as Pope Alexander or Car- the two Houses could have inflicted on dinal Dubois might not have written. him would have been to set him at Those passages indicate no sense of duty to God or man, but simply a strong interest in the prosperity and dignity of the order to which the writer belonged; an interest which, when kept within certain limits, does not deserve censure, liberty and send him to Oxford. There he might have staid, tortured by his own diabolical temper, hungering for Puritans to pillory and mangle, plaguing the Cavaliers, for want of somebody else to plague, with his peevishness and absurdity, performing grimaces | deliberation and delay. But when an and antics in the cathedral, continuing extreme case calls for that remedy that incomparable diary, which we which is in its own nature most violent, never see without forgetting the vices of his heart in the imbecility of his intellect, minuting down his dreams, counting the drops of blood which fell from his nose, watching the direction of the salt, and listening for the note of the screech-owls. Contemptuous mercy was the only vengeance which it became the Parliament to take on such a ridiculous old bigot. and which, in such cases, is a remedy only because it is violent, it is idle to think of mitigating and diluting. Languid war can do nothing which negotiation or submission will not do better and to act on any other principle is, not to save blood and money, but to squander them. This the parliamentary leaders found. The third year of hostilities was drawThe Houses, it must be acknow-ing to a close; and they had not conledged, committed great errors in the quered the King. They had not obconduct of the war, or rather one great error, which brought their affairs into a condition requiring the most perilous expedients. The parliamentary leaders of what may be called the first generation, Essex, Manchester, Northumberland, Hollis, even Pym, all the most eminent men, in short, Hampden excepted, were inclined to half measures. They dreaded a decisive victory almost as much as a decisive overthrow. They wished to bring the King into a situation which might render it necessary for him to grant their just and wise demands, but not to subvert the constitution or to change the dynasty. They were afraid of serving the purposes of those fierce and determined enemies of monarchy, who now began to show themselves in the lower ranks of the party. The war was, therefore, conducted in a languid and inefficient manner. A resolute leader might have brought it to a close in a month. At the end of three campaigns, however, the event was still dubious; and that it had not been decidedly unfavourable to the cause of liberty was principally owing to the skill and energy which the more violent Roundheads had displayed in subordinate situations. The conduct of Fairfax and Cromwell at Marston had exhibited a remarkable contrast to that of Essex at Edgehill, and to that of Waller at Lansdowne. If there be any truth established by the universal experience of nations, it is this, that to carry the spirit of peace into war is a weak and cruel policy. The time for negotiation is the time for tained even those advantages which Un that worst of all evils, the triumphant | which both had struggled was united return of an imperious and unprin- in a single hand. Men naturally symcipled master. They might still pre-pathize with the calamities of indiserve London from all the horrors of viduals; but they are inclined to look rapine, massacre, and lust. But their on a fallen party with contempt rather hopes of a victory, as spotless as their than with pity. Thus misfortune cause, of a reconciliation which might turned the greatest of Parliaments into knit together the hearts of all honest the despised Rump, and the worst of Englishmen for the defence of the Kings into the Blessed Martyr. public good, of durable tranquillity, of temperate freedom, were buried in the grave of Hampden. In Mr. Hallam decidedly condemns the execution of Charles; and in all that he says on that subject we heartily The self-denying ordinance was agree. We fully concur with him in passed, and the army was remodelled. thinking that a great social schism, such These measures were undoubtedly full as the civil war, is not to be conof danger. But all that was left to the founded with an ordinary treason, and Parliament was to take the less of two that the vanquished ought to be treated dangers. And we think that, even if according to the rules, not of muthey could have accurately foreseen all nicipal, but of international law. that followed, their decision ought to this case the distinction is of the less have been the same. Under any circum-importance, because both international stances, we should have preferred and municipal law were in favour of Cromwell to Charles. But there could Charles. He was a prisoner of war by be no comparison between Cromwell the former, a King by the latter. By and Charles victorious, Charles re- neither was he a traitor. If he had stored, Charles enabled to feed fat all been successful, and had put his leadthe hungry grudges of his smiling ran- ing opponents to death, he would have cour and his cringing pride. The next deserved severe censure; and this withvisit of his Majesty to his faithful Com-out reference to the justice or injustice mons would have been more serious of his cause. Yet the opponents of than that with which he last honoured Charles, it must be admitted, were them; more serious than that which their own General paid them some years after. The King would scarce have been content with praying that the Lord would deliver him from Vane, or with pulling Marten by the cloak. If, by fatal mismanagement, nothing was left to England but a choice of tyrants, the last tyrant whom she should have chosen was Charles. He technically guilty of treason. might have sent them to the scaffold without violating any established principle of jurisprudence. He would not have been compelled to overturn the whole constitution in order to reach them. Here his own case differed widely from theirs. Not only was his condemnation in itself a measure which only the strongest necessity could vinFrom the apprehension of this worst dicate; but it could not be procured evil the Houses were soon delivered by without taking several previous steps, their new leaders. The armies of every one of which would have reCharles were every where routed, his quired the strongest necessity to vinfastnesses stormed, his party humbled dicate it. It could not be procured and subjugated. The King himself without dissolving the Government by fell into the hands of the Parliament; military force, without establishing preand both the King and the Parliament cedents of the most dangerous desoon fell into the hands of the army. scription, without creating difficulties The fate of both the captives was the which the next ten years were spent in same. Both were treated alternately removing, without pulling down instiwith respect and with insult. At tutions which it soon became necessary length the natural life of one, and the to reconstruct, and setting up others political life of the other, were termi-which almost every man was soon imnated by violence; and the power for patient to destroy. It was necessary to strike the House of Lords out of the constitution, to exclude members of the House of Commons by force, to make a new crime, a new tribunal, a new mode of procedure. The whole legislative and judicial systems were trampled down for the purpose of taking a single head. Not only those parts of the constitution which the repablicans were desirous to destroy, but those which they wished to retain and exalt, were deeply injured by these transactions. High Courts of Justice began to usurp the functions of juries. The remaining delegates of the people were soon driven from their seats by the same military violence which had enabled them to exclude their colleagues. If Charles had been the last of his line, there would have been an intelligible reason for putting him to death. But the blow which terminated his life at once transferred the allegiance of every Royalist to an heir, and an heir who was at liberty. To kill the individual was, under such circumstances, not to destroy, but to release the King. given in private, another in public. " Oh, Mr. Secretary," says Clarendon, in a letter to Nicholas, "those stratagems have given me more sad hours than all the misfortunes in war which have befallen the King, and look like the effects of God's anger towards us." The abilities of Charles were not formidable. His taste in the fine arts was indeed exquisite; and few modern severeigns have written or spoken better. But he was not fit for active life. In negotiation he was always trying to dupe others, and duping only himself. As a soldier, he was feeble, dilatory, and miserably wanting, not in personal courage, but in the presence of mind which his station required. His delay at Gloucester saved the parliamentary party from destruction. At Naseby, in the very crisis of his fortune, his want of self-possession spread & fatal panic through his army. The story which Clarendon tells of that affair reminds us of the excuses by which Bessus and Bobadil explain their cudgellings. A Scotch nobleman, it seems, begged the King not to run upon his death, took hold of his bridle, and turned his horse round. No man who had much value for his life would have tried to perform the same friendly office on that day for Oliver Cromwell. One thing, and one alone, could make Charles dangerous, - a violent death. His tyranny could not break the high spirit of the English people. His arms could not conquer, his arts could not deceive them; but his humiliation and his We detest the character of Charles; but a man ought not to be removed by a law ex post facto, even constitutionally procured, merely because he is detestable. He must also be very dangerous. We can scarcely conceive that any danger which a state can apprehend from any individual could justify the violent measures which were necessary to procure a sentence against Charles. But in fact the danger amount-execution melted them into a generous ed to nothing. There was indeed danger from the attachment of a large party to his office. But this danger his execution only increased. His personal influence was little indeed. He had lost the confidence of every party. Churchmen, Catholics, Presbyterians, Independents, his enemies, his friends, his tools, English, Scotch, Irish, all divisions and subdivisions of his people had been deceived by him. His most attached councillors turned away with shame and anguish from his false and hollow policy, plot intertwined with plot, mine sprung beneath mine, agents disowned, promises evaded, one pledge compassion. Men who die on a scaffold for political offences almost always die well. The eyes of thousands are fixed upon them. Enemies and admirers are watching their demeanour. Every tone of voice, every change of colour, is to go down to posterity. Escape is impossible. Supplication is vain. In such a situation pride and despair have often been known to nerve the weakest minds with fortitude adequate to the occasion. Charles died patiently and bravely; not more patiently or bravely indeed, than many other victims of poli tical rage; not more patiently or bravely than his own Judges, who were not He only killed, but tortured; or than | Catholic religion in another, should Vane, who had always been considered have insurmountable scruples abou as a timid man. However, the King's the ecclesiastical constitution of the conduct during his trial and at his third, is altogether incredible. execution made a prodigious impres- himself says in his letters that he looks sion. His subjects began to love his on Episcopacy as a stronger support memory as heartily as they had hated of monarchical power than even the his person; and posterity has estimated army. From causes which we have his character from his death rather already considered, the Established than from his life. Church had been, since the Reformation, the great bulwark of the prerogative. Charles wished, therefore, to preserve it. He thought himself necessary both to the Parliament and to the army. He did not foresee, till too late, that by paltering with the Presbyterians, he should put both them and himself into the power of a fiercer and more daring party. If he had foreseen it, we suspect that the royal blood which still cries to Heaven every thirtieth of January, for judgments only to be averted by salt-fish and egg-sauce, would never have been shed. One who had swallowed the Scotch Declaration would scarcely strain at the Covenant. To represent Charles as a martyr in the cause of Episcopacy is absurd. Those who put him to death cared as little for the Assembly of Divines as for the Convocation, and would, in all probability, only have hated him the more if he had agreed to set up the Presbyterian discipline. Indeed, in spite of the opinion of Mr. Hallam, we are inclined to think that the attachment of Charles to the Church of England was altogether political. Human nature is, we admit, so capricious that there may be a single sensitive point in a conscience which every where else is callous. A man without truth or humanity may have some strange The death of Charles and the strong scruples about a trifle. There was one measures which led to it raised Cromdevout warrior in the royal camp well to a height of power fatal to the whose piety bore a great resemblance infant Commonwealth. No men octo that which is ascribed to the King. cupy so splendid a place in history as We mean Colonel Turner. That gal- those who have founded monarchies on lant Cavalier was hanged, after the the ruins of republican institutions. Restoration, for a flagitious burglary. Their glory, if not of the purest, is At the gallows he told the crowd that assuredly of the most seductive and his mind received great consolation dazzling kind. In nations broken to from one reflection: he had always the curb, in nations long accustomed taken off his hat when he went into a to be transferred from one tyrant to church. The character of Charles another, a man without eminent quawould scarcely rise in our estimation, lities may easily gain supreme power. if we believed that he was pricked in The defection of a troop of guards, a conscience after the manner of this conspiracy of eunuchs, a popular tuworthy loyalist, and that while vio- mult, might place an indolent senator lating all the first rules of Christian or a brutal soldier on the throne of the morality, he was sincerely scrupulous Roman world. Similar revolutions about church-government. But we have often occurred in the despotic acquit him of such weakness. In 1641, states of Asia. But a community which he deliberately confirmed the Scotch has heard the voice of truth and expeDeclaration which stated that the go-rienced the pleasures of liberty, in vernment of the church by archbishops which the merits of statesmen and of and bishops was contrary to the word of God. In 1645, he appears to have offered to set up Popery in Ireland. That a King who had established the Presbyterian religion in one kingdom, and who was willing to establish the systems are freely canvassed, in which obedience is paid, not to persons, but to laws, in which magistrates are regarded, not as the lords, but as the servants of the public, in which the excitement of a party is a necessary of life, in which |