and most disgraceful in the English | pocketed, with complacent infamy, ber annals. Cromwell was evidently lay-degrading insults, and her more deing, though in an irregular manner, the grading gold. The caresses of harlots, foundations of an admirable system. and the jests of buffoons, regulated the Never before had religious liberty and policy of the state. The government the freedom of discussion been enjoyed had just ability enough to deceive, and in a greater degree. Never had the just religion enough to persecute. The national honour been better upheld principles of liberty were the scoff of abroad, or the scat of justice better every grinning courtier, and the Anafilled at home. And it was rarely that thema Maranatha of every fawning any opposition which stopped short of dean. In every high place, worship open rebellion provoked the resentment was paid to Charles and James, Belial of the liberal and magnanimous usurper. and Moloch; and England propitiated The institutions which he had estab- those obscene and cruel idols with the lished, as set down in the Instrument of blood of her best and bravest children. Government, and the Humble Petition Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace and Advice, were excellent. His prac- to disgrace, till the race accursed of tice, it is true, too often departed from God and man was a second time driven the theory of these institutions. But, forth, to wander on the face of the had he lived a few years longer, it is earth, and to be a by-word and a shakprobable that his institutions would ing of the head to the nations. have survived him, and that his arbitrary practice would have died with him. His power had not been consecrated by 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. 's 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 senBuality 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, sank into a viceroy of France, and

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. In days of public commotion, every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended by a crowd of camp-followers, an 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 fickle and selfish politicians, who transferred their support to every government as it rose, who kissed the hand of the King in 1640, and spat 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 stuck up oak-branches, 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 deserve to be called partisans.

were mere external badges, like the signs of freemasonry, or the dresses of friars. We regret that these badges were not more attractive. We regret that a body to whose courage and talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations had not the lofty elegance which distinguished some of the adherents of Charles the First, or the easy good-breeding for which the court of Charles the Second was celebrated. But, if we must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious caskets which contain only the Death's head and the Fool's head, and fix on the plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure.

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 The Puritans were men whose minds of letters; they were, as a body, un- had derived a peculiar character from popular; they could not defend them- the daily contemplation of superior selves; and the public would not take beings and eternal interests. Not them under its protection. They were content with acknowledging, in genetherefore abandoned, without reserve, ral terms, an overruling Providence, to the tender mercies of the satirists they habitually ascribed every event and dramatists. The ostentatious sim- to the will of the Great Being, for plicity of their dress, their sour aspect, whose power nothing was too vast, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, for whose inspection nothing was too their long graces, their Hebrew names, minute. To know him, to serve him, the Scriptural phrases which they in- to enjoy him, was with them the great troduced on every occasion, their con- end of existence. They rejected with tempt of human learning, their detes- contempt the ceremonious homage tation of polite amusements, were which other sects substituted for the indeed fair game for the laughers. But pure worship of the soul. Instead of it is not from the laughers alone that catching occasional glimpses of the the philosophy of history is to be learnt. Deity through an obscuring veil, they And he who approaches this subject aspired to gaze full on his intolerable should carefully guard against the in- brightness, and to commune with him fluence of that potent ridicule which face to face. Hence originated their has already misled so many excellent contempt for terrestrial distinctions. writers. The difference between the greatest and the 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 were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid

"Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio Che mortali perigli in se contiene: Hor qui tener a fren nostro desio, Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene." Those who roused the people to resistance, who 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 and rebellion, made the name of England terrible to every nation on the face of the earth, were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their absurdities

train of menials, legions of ministering | ness of his soul that God had hid his angels had charge over them. Their face from him. But when he took his palaces were houses not made 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 action the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest, who had been destined, before heaven and carth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which shortsighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the Evangelist, and the harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foc. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God.

Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, the one all selfabasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker: but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He was half-maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitter

seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate or in the field of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics, had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went through the world, like Sir Artegal'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 to 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

The Puritans espoused 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 acted 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.

Dominics and their Escobars. Yet, dangling courtiers, bowing at every when all circumstances are taken into step, and simpering at every word. consideration, we do not hesitate to They were not mere machines for depronounce them a brave, a wise, an struction dressed up in uniforms, caned honest, and an useful body. 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 women. 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.

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 and bravoes, whom the hope of license and plunder attracted from all the dens of Whitefriars to the standard of Charles, and who disgraced their associates by excesses which, under the stricter discipline of the Parliamentary armies, were never tolerated. We will select a Milton did not strictly belong to any more favourable specimen. Thinking of the classes which we have described. as we do that the cause of the King was He was not a Puritan. He was not a the cause of bigotry and tyranny, we freethinker. He was not a Royalist. yet cannot refrain from looking with In his character the noblest qualities of complacency on the character of the every party were combined in harmo honest old Cavaliers. We feel a national nious union. From the Parliament pride in comparing them with the in- and from the Court, from the convenstruments which the despots of other ticle and from the Gothic cloister, from countries are compelled to employ, with the gloomy and sepulchral circles of the mutes who throng their ante- the Roundheads, and from the Christchambers, and the Janissaries who mas revel of the hospitable Cavalier, mount guard at their gates. Our his nature selected and drew to itself royalist countrymen were not heartless, whatever was great and good, while it

That from which the public character of Milton derives its great and peculiar splendour, still remains to be mentioned. If he exerted himself to overthrow a forsworn king and a persecuting hierarchy, he exerted himself in conjunction with others. But the glory of the battle which he fought for the species of freedom which is the most valuable, and which was then the least

rejected all the base and pernicious in- | feelings he sacrificed, in order to do gredients by which those finer elements what he considered his duty to manwere defiled. Like the Puritans, he lived kind. It is the very struggle of the "As ever in his great task-master's eye." noble Othello. His heart relents; but Like them, he kept his mind continu- his hand is firm. He does nought in ally fixed on an Almighty Judge and hate, but all in honour. He kisses the an eternal reward. And hence he beautiful deceiver before he destroys her. acquired their contempt of external circumstances, their fortitude, their tranquillity, their inflexible resolution. But not the coolest sceptic or the most profane scoffer was more perfectly free from the contagion of their frantic delusions, their savage manners, their ludicrous jargon, their scorn of science, and their aversion to pleasure. Hating tyranny with a perfect hatred, he had nevertheless all the estimable and orna-understood, the freedom of the human mental qualities which were almost mind, is all his own. Thousands and entirely monopolised by the party of tens of thousands among his contempo.. the tyrant. There was none who had raries raised their voices against Shipa stronger sense of the value of litera- money and the Star-chamber. But ture, a finer relish for every elegant there were few indeed who discerned amusement, or a more chivalrous de- the more fearful evils of moral and inlicacy of honour and love. Though tellectual slavery, and the benefits his opinions were democratic, his tastes which would result from the liberty of and his associations were such as har- the press and the unfettered exercise of monise best with monarchy and aristo- private judgment. These were the cracy. He was under the influence of objects which Milton justly conceived all the feelings by which the gallant to be the most important. He was deCavaliers were misled. But of those sirous that the people should think for feelings he was the master and not the themselves as well as tax themselves, slave. Like the hero of Homer, he en- and should be emancipated from the joyed all the pleasures of fascination; dominion of prejudice as well as from but he was not fascinated. He listened that of Charles. He knew that those to the song of the Syrens; yet he who, with the best intentions, overglided by without being seduced to looked these schemes of reform, and their fatal shore. He tasted the cup of contented themselves with pulling Circe; but he bore about him a sure down the King and imprisoning the antidote against the effects of its be- malignants, acted like the heedless witching sweetness. The illusions brothers in his own poem, who, in their which captivated his imagination never eagerness to disperse the train of the impaired his reasoning powers. The sorcerer, neglected the means of libestatesman was proof against the splen-rating the captive. They thought only dour, the solemnity, and the romance of conquering when they should have which enchanted the poet. Any person thought of disenchanting. who will contrast the sentiments expressed in his treatises on Prelacy with the exquisite lines on ecclesiastical architecture and music in the Penseroso, which was published about the same time, will understand our meaning. This is an inconsistency which, more than any thing else, raises his character in our estimation, because it shows how many private tastes and

Oh, ye mistook! Ye should have snatched his wand

And bound him fast. Without the rod reversed,

And backward mutters of dissevering power,

We cannot free the lady that sits here Bound in strong fetters fixed and motionless."

To reverse the rod, to spell the charm backward, to break the ties which bound