not to say the palpable rights, of a now growing democracy. But when fanaticism had carried off these injudicious advisers-one by the assassin's knife, and another by the more lingering torture of a most iniquitous legal process whom had the wretched monarch then left to counsel him? His Queen, a Papist, and, for a short time, as well as previously during Lord Strafford's absence in Ire land, Archbishop Laud. It was then that his fate was determined. Of the character of his Queen, though we think it strongly operated on the events of the time, we shall say nothing. But of the spirit and temper of the Archbishop, we will give the character from a most unimpeachable source -from Lord Clarendon himself, his reputed advocate. "He was a man," says his lordship, "of great parts and very exemplary virtues, allayed and discredited by some unpopular natural infirmities; the greatest of which was, besides a hasty sharp way of expressing himself, that he believed innocence of heart and integrity of manners were a guard strong enough to secure any man in his voyage through this world, in world, in what company soever he travelled, and through what ways soever he had to pass and sure never was any man better supplied with that provision......' After which-re marking that Laud, coming to be cherished by the Duke of Buckingham as an opposer of the Parlia ment, prospered," after much previous neglect, "at the rate of his own wishes"-the historian proceeds: "When he (Laud) came into great authority, it may be he retained too keen a memory of those who had so unjustly and uncharitably persecuted him before; and, I doubt not, was so far transported with the same passions he had reason to complain of in his adversaries, that as they accused him of Popery, because he had some doctrinal opinions which they liked not, though they were " nothing allied to Popery, so he entertained too much prejudice to some persons, as if they were ene mies to the discipline of the church, because they concurred with Calvin in some doctrinal points; when they abhorred his discipline, and reverenced the government of the church, and prayed for the peace of it, with as much zeal and fer vency as any in the kingdom, as they made manifest in their lives, and in their sufferings with it and for it."-" The Archbishop," Lord Clarendon further observes, " with the primacy in his hand and the King at his elbow, inspired with the same seal, now made baste to apply remedies to those diseases which he saw would grow apace." "He never abated any thing of his severity and rigour towards men of all conditions; or in the sharpness of his language and expressions, which was so natural to him that he could not debate any thing without some commotion, when the argument was not of moment, nor bear contradiction in debate, even in the council, where all men are equally free, with that patience and temper that was necessary; of which, they who wished him not well, took many advantages, and would therefore contradict him, that he might be transported with some indecent passion, which, upon a short recollection, he was always sorry for, and most readily and heartily would make acknowledgment." The book which contains the elaborate character of Laud, of which the above is but a small part, ends with a ludicrous instance of the manner in which the Lord Cottington, a man of profound dissimulation, would lead him into some political error, then drive him into choler, and then expose him to the company in the presence of the King; and afterwards go and dine with him the next day*. * Whoever does not see the grave and rendon has worked up this consummate concealed irony with which Lord Cladelineation of Laud, whom he knew, intus et in cute, must be very blind indeed. Such was the adviser, to whom, exclusively, after the death of Buckingham, and during the absence of Strafford in Ireland, Charles devoted himself. Laud took every possible advantage of such misplaced confi dence. It is said, that amongst other expedients for the direction of his royal master, he had prepared a list of ecclesiastical persons secretly marked with O. for Orthodox and P. -for Puritan, which he presented first to the duke of Buckingham and then to the king; in order the more effectually to close, shall we say? or to widen irreparably the breach then making between his majesty's loyal subjects in both those lists. The attractive additions to the ritual, or rather ceremonial, of the church, which the zealous archbishop now made and enforced with all the weight of royal and ecclesiastical authority, in order to help the consciences of the already wavering mass of puritan doubters, is well known. But the crowning apex of his ecclesiastical and civil policy was his far-famed expedition to Scotland, there to employ the short-lived and ill-starred dominion he had received from the king, in imposing, by force, an entire new Church of England ritual on the Scottish descendants of Knox and Balcanquhal. At the That his lordship, one of the most en moment when a mine was about to be sprung under the feet of his royal master, does this weak and passionate old man proceed to Edinburgh, to touch with childish hand that fearful spring of popular feeling which in a moment set the whole of Scotland in a blaze, armed a potent band against the territory of England itself, and threw a body of auxiliaries-military, civil, and ecclesiastical-into the ranks of the English Puritans, which at once turned the scale, and brought on the long-poised ruin in one hideous and wild uproar on himself, his party, his church, and his king. When Strafford himself could not withstand the mighty rush of disaster which ensued, was it a wonder that the poor aged tremulous archbishop, with all his sharp answers and might of ancient lore, sank like a baseless column in the ruin? We shall now give a specimen of the temper of the party to which he was opposed. The Puritans-galled and irritated by the ill-advised dissolution of the Parliaments, and by a thousand petty grievances which, if not inflicted by such men as Laud, could never have been felt as of any real weight or importance*-now began to take their turn. The Long Parliament, to which they obtained Charles's consent in 1641, as a matter of course, in no long time con lightened statesmen that ever lived, signed Strafford and Laud, through should have been the eulogist of such a man as Laud, nothing but fatuity as grave as that of the good archbishop himself, could credit. That his lordship ever intended an apology, we by no means believe. But we have no doubt, that in a refined and concealed manner he intended to lay the whole blame of subsequent events upon the hot-headedness of Laud, and to hold up his character as a lasting example to mankind, in proof that no pretence of good intentions, and no sincerity of mistaken zeal, could excuse a man for under-taking that to which he was wholly in. -competent, and from the wrong conduct of which every one but the king foresaw inevitable ruin both to church and state. CHRIST, OBSERV. No. 228. a trial, which whether mock or real was to their adversaries a matter of little concern, to the scaffold. In These grievances are shortly summed up by Ludlow:-1. Raising taxes by varions arts, without consent of Parliament: 2. Encouraging and preferring a formal and superstitious clergy, and discouraging the sober and virtuous among them: 3.Imposing upon all the inventions of men, in the room of the institutions of God:-the whole clearly ecclesiastical; for as to the raising of taxes illegally, this had only been resorted to because the Parliament positively would not graut supplies for the most necessary expenses of the nation, till the other matters of complaint were adjusted, 5 M the characteristic language of Mr. Solicitor St. John, "The satisfaction of each man's conscience was sufficient in such sentences, although no evidence had been given at all and it was never accounted either cruelty or foul play to knock foxes and wolves" [meaning thereby prime ministers and archbishops] "on the head, as they can be found, because they are beasts of prey." But this was only a prelude to "the Humble Petition and Advice to his Majesty," sent in nineteen propositions, the next year, "from the most humble and most faithful subjects of your Majesty, the Lords and Commons assembled in Parliament." Of these nineteen propositions it would be scarcely possible to select any as conveying a fair specimen of the humble petition without giving the whole together, and then we think we should have laid before our readers a tolerably correct sample of the spirit which then actuated the popular party. Suffice it to observe, that the four first propositions provide for the removal of every individual officer of state, and privy councillor, at the will of the Parliament, with the power of controlling their re-appointment, down to the very governor of the king's children and the servants about them: nor even then were any affairs to be transacted but with the immediate cognizance of the omnipotent Parliament. Subsequent propositions forbid the marriage of the Royal Family without the same consent, and order all Popish recusants to be instantly served with the utmost severity of the law, their children to be educated Protestants, and themselves excluded from all votes in councils. Scandalous and suspicious" ministers were then proposed to be expelled: and to crown the whole, the Parliament, by the assumption of the entire control of the militia aud the several fortresses In the language of the French lovers of true liberty, "Soupçonnés d'etré suspects." in the kingdom, are to become, in military as well as civil matters, supreme: every member of Parliament (disinterested souls!) to be replaced in office: persons to be subjected to their justice though removed beyond seas: and (will it be credited of these preservers of the precious spark of liberty?) the very amnesty granted by his majesty to his loving subjects, to have such exceptions as these modest petitioners should think fit to associate in the proscriptions of Strafford and Laud. These amiable and most "humble" requests being granted by his majesty, they were to promise on their parts, as they ought, to regulate the revenue of his majesty; to make him a wonderful allowance, beyond all his predecessors; and to put the town of Hull into such hands as his majesty should please-with the approbation of the Parliament ! These propositions, Ludlow coolly remarks, were delivered to the king, but without success: and whoever duly weighs the studied insult contained in every line of them (a due return, as their authors imagined, for the previous insolences of Buckingham, Strafford, and Laud, and the other wretched advisers of the unhappy Charles,) will be at no loss to account for Ludlow's next sentence; " And now the fire began to break out." We mention these facts-all happening at the very outset of the Long Parliament, as early as 1642, six years before the final catastrophe-not with a view to blame either party to the exclu sion of the other, but only to shew what the grounds of difference were on both sides, and to convey to our readers some notion of the general spirit of party which must have now ruled and raged in every breast, till it broke forth in unextinguishable flames of civil fury in every quarter of the kingdom. It became now the mere blank unqualified struggle for supreme power. Neither party cared either to understand itself, or to make others un derstand, for what they were fight It is at this juncture that history relates the rise and doings of Oliver Cromwell. At once the child and the champion" of Puritanism, there was never a more natural connexion between effects and their causes than there was between his elevation to power, and the previous effervescence of the spirit of party on every side. Embodying in his own person all the high religious profession of one portion, and all the fierce political spleen of another; and fired with the essential spirit of positive and uncontrolable dominion, which belongs generally to members of all parties; and adding to these qualities a strength of nerve, a sagacity of vision, an inflexibility of purpose, a courage, and a heroism, all his own; this man as naturally rose to the supreme dominion which all sought, as the stoutest runner wins the goal. Presbyterians and Independents stood alike aghast at the creature of their own forming; and in the blindness of party-not seeing, what he very clearly saw, that the conflict was, after all, for power to be obtained by the sword, and to be secured by the death or submission of every opponent-they were astonished at his boldly seizing the rod of dominion which they had prepared for him; and as they successively trembled and succumbed under its sway, levelled at length unmannerly, not to say unmanly, abuse at its heroic possessor. We have now arrived at what may be deemed the proper subject of this article-the character and life of the Protector himself; and perhaps we shall be accused, both by our author and our readers, of a great departure from duty, in being so brief upon this, which seems to be our main business; while we have been long in its introduction, and may be still in what shall follow. Be this as it may, we shall not waste our readers' time by an apology for taking such a line, which would admit of a very good defence, even as it respects the memory of Cromwell himself; but we shall immediately proceed to the Memoirs before us, on which we shall first observe, generally, that having been compiled by Oliver Cromwell, Esq. a Descendant of the Family, for his own amusement, without any original view to publication, they perfectly well accord with this account of their formation. They are written with a most amusing contempt of all the common forms and rules of composition, and exhibit a very crude mass of materials, collected, doubtless, in a long course of entertaining reading, from all the approved collectors and authors on the sub. ject, particularly Thurloe, Rushworth, Lord Clarendon, Sir P, Warwick, Whitlock, Ludlow, and The plan pursued in the Memoirs, which are divided into fifteen long chapters, is to give, in the first seven, the general history of the times during Cromwell's entire life; after which, in the eighth, follows an account of his private character. The ninth discusses his public conduct, up to the breaking out of the war in 1642. The tenth treats of the Self-denying Ordinance in 1645. The eleventh and twelfth and part of the thirteenth, defend Cromwell in regard to the latter affairs with the king, and also in the matter of his trial; and the remainder of the thirteenth defends his conduct subsequently, until his own death. The fourteenth speaks of his death and general character, more especially in respect of his religious state. The fifteenth pursues and winds up the whole through the short Protectorate of Richard Cromwell, the son, till the restoration of Charles II. by Monk. It would not be quite so amusing to us, or to our readers, to beat our way, with the worthy memorialist, through the woods and wilds of his Jaborious compilation, as doubtless it was to him to create them. But it is only due to him to say, that his facts are, upon the whole, fairly collected and detailed; that his reasonings respecting them, if too much on one side to be generally depended upon, are yet always well tempered, often sensible, and sometimes highly cogent; and that, on the whole, the work bespeaks an author well calculated to do justice to his subject in the eyes of reasonable meu. He certainly exhibits that subject in a somewhat new light; and leaves on the mind a general impression respecting Cromwell himself, similar to that at which Baxter arrived, in regard to the world at large; that there was more mixture of good in evil men, and of evil in good men, than most persons are prone to believe. Passing over our worthy author's history of the times in the first seven chapters, which we have already briefly touched upon in our opening remarks, we shall content ourselves with a few general notices on one or two select points in the latter chapters, embracing the character of Cromwell. We agree with our author, that Cromwell has had no justice, nor was likely to have any, from almost any contemporary historian or memorialist. Clarendon, by far the first historian of those times, and who will bear a comparison with any historian of any times for knowledge of his subject, force of expression, and fairness in his de cision of general questions; yet, it must be owned, kept no terms with individual characters, and much less with Cromwell himself, the very pink and flower of Puritanism. The Presbyterians lived long enough to retract all their commendations of him, when they discovered their own worst features in his face. The Indepen dents grew as jealous and abusive of his unlawful power, when needful for government, as they had been of that lawful power which he had usurped. And, finally, the wretched remnant of Paritanism that out-lived its triumphs, and cowered to its victor, had no other means of paying court to the restored monarchy but by basely belying at once their child and their champion, and loading him with all the infamy which they had before so contentedly shared with him. Most of the virulent attacks on Cromwell, and amongst them Heath's Flagellum, the most viru |