things; as the stars are most visible from the deepest well. But now our science is effectually prevented from its due effects upon reason by a gross mass of mere pedantry and hypothesis. It may be said of English as it has been of German savans, that they possess the art to render science inaccessible, and that, chiefly by the invention of cumbrous hypotheses, more dull and inexplicable than the mysteries of Isis. No sooner is a new law discovered, than a new hypothesis is thrown over it, as if to hide it from us. It might be a thing of no slight consequence to the world, if science were well rid of her superstitions; if by any chance, her " hard atoms," elecric " fluids," "convulsions of nature," Mechanic Physiology, "chemistry of thought," and the like, were all let drop with their "moral consequences," and "argument cumulative" into mere oblivion. Many have manifested great alarm at the progress of mechanism in "systems of the world ;" as if in fear lest His work should be wrested out of God's hands; but when we see the effect of true science in arousing, while it guides, the highest faculties of the spirit, and observe that every step it takes is upward, lifting us to our proper contemplations, we may be ready to treat its errors with mildness, though moved with never so strong a fear of their consequences. Though we are convinced that supersti

tions in science, like the same in religion, must darken insight and divert true worship, we may well be cautious of raising any inconsiderable outcry against itknowing that our ignorance may hurt our own cause, and that it is the very nature of error to gather strength from the fear of its opposers.

And now, since it is discovered that human happiness may reap an unexpected harvest in this field, and that here, if anywhere, are to be sought the means of advancement, it becomes the duty of the liberal mind to observe the utmost caution in checking the growth of knowledge in any shape, or of laying weights even upon its rankness.

That those who make no investigations of their beliefs should dread a new fact, or a new theory, is not indeed a matter of wonder; but to a perfect and well-grounded faith, nothing merely natural can bring aught but confirmation. As it least becomes a virtuous reputation to exhibit alarm upon a calumny, it no less ill befits a true believer to start at novelties in the way of science; for he is sure that what he knows to be false may be easily disproved without calumny, and that what is true is but so much added confirmation. Least of all, though he rejects them, can he be angry with new attempts to reduce nature to a law-knowing that of all the attributes, that of lawgiver is the most divine.

ENGLISH historians have been laboring for a long time under what theologians call moral inability, in their attempts to give a correct history of Oliver Cromwell. There are four things, on neither of which, till Carlyle appeared, no English writer could treat with the least justice or truth. These are, the American Revolution-the English and Irish connection-Bonaparte and his career, and Cromwell and the rebellion he represents. He, who relies on English history, or takes his impres

sions from English literature on these points, will believe a fable and run wide of the truth in the conclusions he adopts.

Cromwell, perhaps, has suffered most of all from the hands of his English historians. Having condemned to death a king, overthrown the established church, and put plebeians in all the high places in the kingdom, and himself sat quietly down on the throne of the British Empire; he stands, and has stood for ages, a sort of monster, of such horrid aspect and

nature that to touch him at all is revolting, and to disturb his bones except to dig them up for the gallows, a crime. Not only has the inveterate prejudice against him kept the light of truth from his character, but the deep and unparalleled obloquy that fell on him at the restoration of the Stuarts, prevented the preservation of papers and records so necessary to the formation of a correct judgment. The great Rebellion has been a sort of indistinguishable chaos, out of which Cromwell arises in huge and clearly defined proportions, only to be pelted with falsehoods and covered with scorn. Liberty, however, has kept her eye on him; and, amid the struggles for freedom which men have since passed through, her finger has pointed back to him in triumph. Amid so many errors, so much prejudice and falsehood, these "Letters and Speeches" are the very best things that could be given to the world. Eulogies and defences would both be disbelieved, for English history constantly gives the lie to them-but here is authentic history against doubtful history-Oliver Cromwell, himself, rising up after this long silence and appealing to every true man against his slanderers, and opening his innermost heart to the world. It is curious to observe the difference English writers make between the great rebellion and the Revolution of 1688. Charles I. was executed for attempting to destroy the constitution of England-James II., driven from the throne for his invasion of English liberty-the father is tried and beheaded, and the son sent a returnless exile from his kingdom. James is charged with no crime of which Charles is not guilty-the Long Parliament exercised no prerogative the Convention of 1688 did not wield, and yet the Rebellion is stigmatized as infamous and murderous; the Long Parliament accused of transgressing its power, and Cromwell called a usurper, while the revolution of 1688 is termed the glorious revolution, and William and Mary are hailed monarchs by the grace of God. Now what lies at the bottom of this difference of views and feelings? Here is the father decapitated and the son exiled the former more criminal than the latter; and yet heaven and earth are not wider apart than English historians have put the revolutions that overthrew them.

The cause of all this difference is simply this, the father was superseded by a commoner, and a thorough reformation

made in the nobility and the Church; while the son was pushed out by royal blood-the Hanoverian line took the place of the Stuart line respecting still the established order of things, while British blood had no stain put upon it. William could show kingly drops in his veins-Cromwell those only of a sturdy English farmer. This simple matter of blood makes William a benefactor and rightful sovereign, and Cromwell a curse and an usurper; though, to us republicans this side the water, the grounds of this distinction do not seem very rational or just.

But justice is at last come to Cromwell in this collection of his letters and speeches. This book will be a bitter pill for royalists and dainty nobility to swallow. While the commission appointed by Parliament are disputing whether they shall put Cromwell among the list of her great men, this work will place him beyond the reach of their votes and be a nobler and more enduring monument than all the parliaments of the world could rear.

But before we speak of the subject of the book we have one word to say of the manner in which Mr. Carlyle has treated it. All the worst faults of his style are found here, joined to a self-conceit that would not be tolerated in any other man. His familiarity with the German literature has very naturally affected his mode of expression. The German language is our own best Saxon inverted, and as one becomes acquainted with the deep and massive flow of its sentences, he unconsciously adapts his thoughts to their movement. Thus we imagine Carlyle's peculiarity of style originated; and what has been termed affectation, was the natural result of Germanizing a strong English mind. He has, however, nursed his oddities till they have grown into deformities, and in this work have reached, we trust, their full maturity. The quaintness of style we find in Old Burton, Bunyan and many of the Puritan fathers, was natural to them-growing out of their great simplicity and honesty of heart, and hence we love it but in Mr. Carlyle it is extravagance, premeditated oddity, and hence is affectation. Who can tolerate, for instance, such English as the following which we find in the introductory chapter. Speaking of the confusion and chaos into which the historical events of Cromwell's time have been thrown, he says, "Behold here the final evanescence of formed human things; they had form,

but they are changing into sheer formlessness; ancient human speech itself has sunk into unintelligible maundering. This is the collapse-the etiolation of human features into mouldy, blank dissolution; progress toward utter silence and disappearance; disastrous ever deepening dusk of gods and men! Why has the living ventured thither, down from the cheerful light, across the Lethe-swamps and Tartarean Phlegethons, onward to those baleful halls of Dis and the threeheaded dog? Some destiny drives him." If the history of those times was written in such jargon as this, no wonder it "has sunk into unintelligible maundering." A thought has tumbled out with this cart-load of words, no doubt, and well worth digging after, but Carlyle has no right to put his readers to that trouble when a straight-forward, good English sentence could so easily have expressed it.

There are also expressions scattered along that have no place in English literature, and should be denounced at once, lest the support of a great name should give them permanence there. Mr. CarÏyle tells us of a man who was "no great shakes in rhyme," speaks of "Torpedo Dilettantism," and endeavors to make Flunkey" and "Flunkeyism" classical words, and says that the Royalists shed tears enough at the death of Charles I. " to salt the whole herring fishery." He is constantly punning while treating of the gravest subjects-makes bon-mots as he goes along, and plays upon words as if his mind was divided between the thought and the oddity he would couple with it.

But the greatest objection of manner in this work is the interjections and ejaculations with which he peppers all of Cromwell's speeches. In these grave and solemn addresses of the Protector to his parliaments, when England's welfare hung by a thread, Carlyle acts the part of a clown in the circus, keeping up a running commentary in a sort of half soliloquy to his master's harangue-laughable at times it must be confessed, but turning both into ridicule. The most serious words Cromwell ever uttered are interlarded with such phrases as, ("Yes, your Highness"), ("Truly"), ("His Highness gets more emphatic"), ("The same tailor metaphor again"), ("Looks over his shoulder in the jungle and bethinks him”), (“ I did think my first Protectorate a successful kind of a thing"),

("somewhat animated your Highness”), ("Poor Oliver."") (" style getting hasty hot"), ("Better not, your Highness"), ("Threatening to blaze up again"), ("Ends in a kind of a snort"). Sometimes he throws in simply (" ah !") ("certainly"), (“ truly”), (“ha !”) (" Yes, you said so, your Highness"). Sometimes he condemns Cromwell's English in such parentheses as the following: ("sentence involving an incurable Irish bull; the head of it eating the tail of it”), (“ Damnable iteration"), &c. Sometimes he caresses patronizingly the massive head of Oliver, as if he were a great English mastiff, saying, (" Yes, my brave one"), ("Try it again, your Highness"), (“ Keep hold of them, your Highness"), (" Very well, your Highness"), (" No, we are not exactly their darlings"), ("Wait till the axles get warm a little"), (“ Try it again, your Highness"). These last sound to us very much like "Go it, your Highness!" "Stick to 'em, your Highness!"" &c., and is more becoming the pit of a fourth-rate comic theatre than grave history. It is supremely disgusting, not only from the raillery it incorporates with such earnest, sincere language, but from the infinite self-conceit it exhibits by its gross familiarities. Who but Mr. Carlyle would presume to interrupt a man with such impertinent ejaculations, now gently twitching "His Highness" by the coat tail and now patting him on the head, as much as to say, "Ah! my good fellow, exactly; we think alike." Conceive of these phrases thrown into speeches addressed to the Parliament of England, when England was rocking to and fro like a vessel in the storm, and you get some idea of the unblushing ef frontery of their appearance. Mr. Carlyle, perhaps, is not aware of the relative position he establishes between himself and Cromwell by this process. It sounds to the reader very much as if he were constantly saying, "Yes, yes; I understand Oliver perfectly, he is a brave fel. low-a little prolix, it is true, and some. times muddy, but I like him nevertheless, and am determined to help him through

he and I against the world." What we have said does not arise from prejudice, for Carlyle has no greater admirer than ourselves. We have been enriched by the treasures of his exhaustless mind

excited and instructed by his burning thoughts, and borne away on those suggestions that leap from his brain, like sudden inspirations, and have reverently

stood and listened as he spoke. Still, his greatness does not convert his faults into virtues, or render them less worthy of condemnation.

Mr. Carlyle is alike above our praise or blame; he has passed through the trial state, and now occupies a place in English literature where the stroke of even the English critic cannot harm him. But the higher his position, and the wider his influence, the more carefully should his errors be pointed out and shunned; for, while few can imitate his great qualities, all men can appropriate his bad

ones.

We have one other objection to Mr. Carlyle's part of this work, which we have, also, to all his historical writings he does not give us clearly the philosophy of history. His French Revolution conveys no definite idea of the connected course of the events he hurries us through. Huge summits rise out of the chaos, blazing with light, or equally visible from their blackness; scenes start into life before us, vivid as a passing reality, and great pictures come and go in fearful procession on the vision, while the wizard, who is working all these wonders in our presence, is talking in the mean time in strains of sublime eloquence, till the soul stands amazed at the thoughts that waken up equally strange thoughts within. Still, when it is all passed, the mind struggles in vain after the thread which connects them together. The principle that lay at the bottom of this movement, is developed clearly enough; but the causes which set that principle working, and kept it working so fearfully, are invisible or dimly seen. So in this work no one, by reading it, would get a definite idea of the English Revolution. Perhaps Mr. Carlyle, as he designs to write a history of that event, purposely omitted to give us a synopsis of it. But Oliver Cromwell is nothing without it. True, much of his life is taken up as an officer in the army; but the scattered threads of that rebellion were finally gathered into his mighty hand, and he henceforth stands as the representative or rather embodiment of it. But not only does he omit to give us a synopsis of the revolution itself, but states a palpable error. He more than once affirms that religion lay entirely at the bottom of it. Cromwell, doubtless, had very little idea of constitutional liberty, and a religious feeling was the groundwork of all his actions; and Mr. Carlyle, being so deeply

engrossed with his character, seems for the time to forget the events that preceded his appearance on the stage.

The English Revolution was the natural product of the growth of civilization, and aimed, like the French Revolution, against three distinct things-absolute monarchy, a privileged aristocracy, and a haughty and grasping clergy. The little liberty which the fifteenth century shed on man, had well nigh gone out in the beginning of the seventeenth. On the continent, royalty had gradually subdued the proud nobility till it reigned supreme. In England, the feudal aristocracy had not been conquered, but had gone to sleep before the throne. Royalty no longer set checks on its encroachments, and it no longer interfered with royalty in its aggressions on the liberties of the people. The clergy, too, blind and selfish, sought to retard rather than advance the human mind in its career. But the light of the Reformation could not be put out. The impulse given to free inquiry could not be checked; men dared to think and believe without the church, and we see, even in the time of Elizabeth, the germs of the rebellion. She, by the crown lands she had sold to country gentlemen to avoid asking for subsidies, had gradually passed large wealth into the hands of those who were to be the future members of the House of Commons; so that when Charles I. assembled Parliament, in 1628, the Commons were twice as rich as the House of Lords. Commerce had also increased, and wealth was every day accumulating in the hands of the common people. This must be secured, and checks erected to preserve it from the grasping hand of tyranny.

The Parliament had no sooner assembled, than it began to search every department of government. Past and future subsidies came under its cognizance; the state of religion, the repression of popery, and the protection of commerce. There were a host of complaints preferred, termed grievances, which the Parliament determined should be redressed. These being boldly presented to the King, he considered it an encroachment on his sovereignty-an incipient step towards forcing him to submit to all their demands. As he, however, wanted subsidies to carry on the war in Spain, he swallowed his vexation and asked for money.

A small subsidy was voted him, together with the custom duties for one year.

The Lords refused to sanction

this, as it had been the custom heretofore to vote these duties to a king during his reign. But the Commons, before they would grant more, demanded a redress of their grievances. The King, indignant at this attempt, as he termed it, to compel him to act, thus encroaching on his Sovereignty, dissolved the Parliament, determined to govern without it. Succeeding but poorly, however, in his efforts to raise money by loans, he, in February, again assembled it. The first Parliament asked for redress of grievances; the second immediately impeached the Duke of Buckingham, the King's favorite, as the author of their grievances. During the futile efforts to bring him to trial, Charles had two of the commissioners, appointed by the house to support the impeachment, arrested and locked up in the Tower for insolence of speech. The Commons, indignant at this encroachment upon their privileges, refused to do anything till they were set at liberty, and the King yielded. Defeated and baffled on every side, he summarily dissolved this Parliament also. Determined to be an absolute sovereign, like the monarchs of Europe, he could not see the spirit that was abroad, and hence rushed blindly on his own ruin. A general loan was ordered; the seaports and maratime districts commanded to furnish vessels (the first attempt at ship-money); passive obedience was preached up by direction of the King; those who refused to grant the money were thrown into prison; the military were distributed over the kingdom; the courts of justice were overawed, and Charles I. seemed resolved to carry his doctrine of tyranny by one grand coup de main. But he only awakened indignation and hostility, and nursed the fire he expected to quench. In the mean time defeat had attended the armies abroad, and money must be raised; and another Parliament was called, (March 7, 1628,) and a tone of great conciliation adopted. But the friendly aspect with which it opened soon changed; the Commons, intent on having their liberties secured, and the rights of Englishmen defined, drew up the famous "Petition of Rights." This was simply a bill to guaranty acknowledged liberties, and check acknowledged abuses; but Charles thought his word was better than all guaranties, and refused, at first, to have anything to do with it.

After a stormy time in the House, the bill passed, and the King was compelled to sign it. But reform on paper began to

be followed by demands for reform in practice; and two remonstrances were drawn up, one against the Duke of Buckingham, and the other against having tonnage and poundage levied, except, like other taxes, by law. The King saw there was no end to this cry about grievances, and, losing all patience in June, three months from the time of its assemblingprorogued Parliament.

The second session of Parliament commenced in January of the next year. Grievances again appeared on the tapis till the King could not endure the word. Reforms, both in religious and civil matters, were loudly demanded; and, at length, the tonnage and poundage duties came up again. A second remonstrance was about to be carried, when the Speaker informed the House that the King had ordered him not to put the motion, and rose to retire. "God's wounds," said the fierce Hollis, you shall sit till it please the House to rise." The King, hearing of the outbreak, sent the Sergeant-at-arms to remove the mace, and thus arrest all business. But he, too, was kept firmly seated, and the doors of the House locked. A second messenger came to dissolve the Parliament, but could not gain admission. Boiling with rage, at being thus defied on his very throne, he called the captain of his guards and ordered him to force the doors. But the vote had been carried, and the House of Commons declared to the world that the levying of tonnage and poundage "duties was illegal, and those guilty of high treason who should levy or even pay them." The Parliament was, of course, dissolved. It was a stormy session, and here Cromwell first appears on the stage, making a fierce speech against a priest, whom he terms no better than a papist.

Charles-now fully resolved to govern alone-commenced his arbitrary career by imprisoning some of the most daring leaders of the last Parliament. Then commenced a long succession of illegal acts to raise money-long abolished imposts were reestablished-illegal fines levied and rights invaded. The courts were overawed, magistrates removed, and tyranny unblushing and open everywhere practiced. The Church, too, came in for its share of power. It became concentrated in the hands of the Bishops--the observance of the liturgy and cathedral rites were enforced, and nonconformists turned out of their livings, and, forbidden to preach, were sent wan