as Milton, Hugh Peters, Dr. Manton, and the enthusiast Harrison,* knew him to be a different man from what Rupert and the cavaliers represented him to be. So, too, it is not surprising that the same disagreement should exist among the annalists of the day of deadly party strifes. It is impossible that the historian should separate himself wholly from the active partisan.-Nor ought we to look for an impartial and unvarnished narrative of their own times, either from the royalist Clarendon, the presbyterian Holles, or the republican Ludlow.

Take for example the former. Edward Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, sat with Cromwell at the opening of the Long Parliament. He saw him as he first appeared in the Commons, unheralded and almost unknown, as Philip Warwick saw him "in his broad brimmed hat without a hat band," and his slovenly attire. He heard the first speech of the man of whom his cousin, John Hampden, even then said "if a contest should unhappily spring up between the King and Parliament, that sloven will be the greatest man in England," and he watched the progress of Cromwell to the supreme power. A man like Clarendon had the materials in his hands, had he stood an impartial spectator, to have sketched a truthful and perfect history of the times. But he was a bigoted royalist and an active partisan. He fled from his country, and officiated at the mock ceremonies in the court of Charles II. on the continent, while his colleagues in the Long Parliament were manfully battling for the liberties of England. The chancellor of Charles II. was not the man to write for posterity the true history of Oliver Cromwell, or the English Revolution.

The very title page of his work indicates its partisan character. It is the

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history of the great rebellion," not the REVOLUTION, that he undertakes to write-and Cromwell is of course the great rebel. This formidable rebellion, not however without great difficulty, was at length happily put down, and the king de jure made king de facto. This is all that Lord Clarendon can see of importance or of any consequence to posterity in this great event. The timely treachery of George Monk," the scoundrel of fortune," as he is appropriately called, made way for the "blessed restoration" of his most Christian majesty, Charles II. To-day Cromweli is buried with royal honors, and his gorgeous coffin placed by the side of the kings of England-the ablest, the mightiest monarch of them all; tomorrow his tomb is ruthlessly violated, and his bones like those of a felon and a traitor swing from the gibbet, with the loud applause of loyal England, amid which is heard in no disapproving tones the voice of that chancellor of King Charles. But Clarendon has a worse deed to answer for than his history of the great Rebellion-the judicial murder of Sir Henry Vane, the purest and noblest statesman whose name adorns the annals of England. Vane was not one of the regicides; though a republican he refused to sit in parliament after "Pride's purge," and during the proceedings against the king, If any of the "rebels" could fairly

* While the Cavalier was scoffing at the hypocrisy of the "Canting Roundhead," the sincere Harrison's faith in Cromwell's religion was unbounded. The following is an extract from one of his letters to Cromwell, about the time of the battle of Worcester: "My dear lord, lett waiting upon Jehovah bee the greatest and most considerable business yow have every daie; reckon itt soe more than to eate, sleepe or councell together. Run aside sometimes from your companie and gett a word with the Lord. Why should you not have three or four precious soules allwaise standing att your elbow, with whom you might now and then turne into a corner."

claim the benefit of the king's declaration of amnesty, assuredly it was Vane. After an infamous mockery of justice, and a noble defence, still preserved for the admiration of mankind, he was slain by the executioner under due form of law. The false and fickle Charles might have been moved from his purpose of sacrificing Vane, but Clarendon could give no quarter to the vanquished republican and the illustrious statesmen of the commonwealth. We repeat it, assuredly he was not the man to write for posterity the history of the English Revolution, and Oliver Cromwell.

We have mentioned the contemporaneous memoirs of Ludlow and Holles, the one a Republican and the other a Presbyterian, and both zealous Parliament men. These narratives, like the collections of Rushworth, Whitelock, and other diligent annalists of that day, are known to us mainly by their titles, and as works of learned reference; or, occasionally, by an extract incorporated into the pages of some modern author. Ludlow is said not to have done full justice to Cromwell, and Holles still less than that, which is very probable. The truth is, we are not to expect, even from the Republicans, much less the moderate Presbyterians, a truly impartial account of the government of the Protector. Latterly a wide breach existed between them and Oliver. Even his old friend, Harry Marten, who pretended to no very large share of godliness, once thought Cromwell sincere, but at length came to regard him as little better than an hypocrite and an impostor. Vane, on the expulsion of the Long Parliament, told him to his face he was "dishonest," and afterwards did not scruple to pronounce him an usurper and a tyrant. Such a man as Holles, a zealous Presbyterian, therefore, may well have been brained by party animosity, when he witnessed the Presbyterian influence annihilated by the Lord General. Such a man as Ludlow, a sincere republican, may well have shared the distrust of his friends, when he saw Cromwell trampling under his feet all that remained of popular institutions in England, and substituting the government of the army for that of the people.

The same causes have produced precisely the same errors since that day. Historians have looked upon the men and events of the "Great Rebellion" as Clarendon did, or as Ludlow and Holles did, not with the natural vision, but through the discolored medium of partisan prejudices. It became the fashion, on the Restoration, to regard Cromwell as the prince of impostors and knaves; a beggarly fellow," and a canting hypocrite. Such was he in the eyes of grave divines, like Dr. South; such to the butterfly courtiers who thronged the licentious court of Charles II.; and such, for more than a century, and until within a recent period, has he appeared to the loyal people of England. Hume stands at the head of the class of royalist historians who have inculcated this view a man of an otherwise liberal mind, and candid judgment, but filled with the highest-toned notions of arbitrary government, and utterly unable to sympathise with the popular movement anywhere. Hume's history appeared about the middle of the last century, before the experiment of popular institutions had been successfully tried in America; before the French Revolution had waked up the slumbering mind

It is Holles who insinuates, on the authority of one Crawford, the absurd charge that Cromwell acted cowardly in one of his engagements.

of Europe. He found his countrymen settled in the quiet and passive belief that the English Revolution, and its actors, were as Clarendon and the Stuart dynasty had represented-the most monstrous historical falsehood to be met with. Hume did not seek to unsettle this belief. He himself believed it partially, and he perpetuated it, and rooted it, as it were, into the soil, under the sanction of his name and authority. His learned and elaborate work is still a standard English classic, and the national mind has never, until the waking up of independent thought and feeling in Europe, toward the close of the last, and the beginning of the present century, made the very first effort to shake itself free from the historical fallacies and fictions of David Hume. More than any one else-more even than Clarendon himself-he has contributed to foster the injustice his countrymen have done the memory of Oliver Cromwell. We have some strictures presently to make, as a republican, upon Cromwell's course; but, surely, Englishmen who revere the illustrious deeds of their Edwards and Henrys, ought to be proud of such a monarch as Oliver. Instead of it they have contemned his memory. Where stands to-day, in England, a public statue of the great ruler, who made the British name renowned all over the world-whose victorious arms defended the Protestant faith-whose fleets swept the sea, and laid the foundation for his country's naval glory-the man, whose threat made both the Sultan and the Roman Pontiff tremble-at whose feet both France and Spain were suppliants, and whose name the haughty Mazarin "feared more than the devil?" Instead of erecting his statue, England has refused him a grave. No monumental marble, no gorgeous cenotaph, for a mightier monarch than the proudest Plantagenet or the wisest Tudor,-nothing, during a century and a half, but the histories of Lord Clarendon and David Hume!

But Mr. Hume has been found insufficient to satisfy the public mind of the present day, even in his own country, to say nothing of ours. The last half century has produced several elaborate histories of this period, of a different character. Among these may be mentioned Dr. Lingard's learned history of England, published in 1825. The author professes entire partiality, and, in many respects, attains it. A Roman Catholic priest, he regards the contest between the Church of England and the Puritans with the philosophical indifference of the Hibernian matron, at the fight between her husband and the bear. Mr. BRODIE'S history of the British Empire, from the accession of Charies I. to the Restoration of Charles II., is a work of a different character. The author, a Scotchman, sympathises with the Puritan or popular party, and has done much to infuse among his countrymen a better and juster view of the leaders of the Commonwealth, particularly the chiefs of the Presbyterian interest. Closely following the publication of Brodie's history, and a year in advance of Lingard's, appeared Godwin's great work, the History of the Commonwealth of England, in four volumes, published at London, in 1824. We do not hesitate to express the opinion that this is by far the most complete, as well as the best history of that period, ever published. It is distinguished by great learning, extensive research, and a careful accuracy, such as to make it altogether invaluable as a reliable authority. Mr. Godwin does not pretend to look upon the contest with the cool indifference of Lingard. He is republican in his feelings, and warmly sympathises with the popular party, but he never suffers this

sympathy to lead his judgment astray, or to prevent him from doing equal and exact justice to the motives of the royalists, as well as the men of the Long Parliament. This work, we believe, on account of its republican tendencies, was never very popular in England; it is less known in America than it deserves to be. We have heard it regretted that Mr. Macauley, whose History of England is finding its way into every American Library, did not date that history back to the reign of Charles I., so as to embrace the Revolution and the period of the Commonwealth. This desideratum is already supplied by Godwin's Commonwealth. It deserves to be placed by the side of Macauley's History, upon the shelf of every library, and to be read thoroughly and carefully in connection with, and as an introduction to, that history. It is just the work that the American student needs, in his effort to get a true insight into the struggle for liberty, attempted by his republican ancestors two centuries ago. We do not know that any edition of Mr. Godwin's History has ever been reprinted in America, and we therefore take this occasion to commend it to the attention of some one of our enterprising publishers.

Since the

The quasi liberal history of M. Guizot was written before he became a distinguished actor in the politics of Europe-it was written before the revolution of 1830, which placed Louis Philippe on the throne, although it has been published but recently in this country. This history is not complete. It is brought down only to the death of Charles I., being the first part of the period of which the author proposed to treat. late revolution in February, 1848, Guizot has had an abundance of time to turn his mind to the completion of this projected work, instead of which he has amused himself with the less creditable employment of writing such pamphlets as "Democracy in France." With the exception of M. Villemain, we do not know of any other French author who has undertaken a narrative of the revolution and Cromwell, M. Mazure's book, mentioned in his introduction by Guizot, is a history of the Revolution of 1688. So, too, is the "Counter Revolution," by the lamented Armand Carrel, a work evincing considerable ability and research. Villemain's "Histoire de Cromwell," we have not seen. He represents Cromwell, we are told, as utterly false and insincere in his religious professions, and, therefore, doubtless fully justifie- Carlyle's running criticism, that his book is" unfortunately rather an ignorant and shallow one." This opinion as to the merits of Villemain, however, is not shared by M. Guizot, who expresses for his fidelity and truthfulness the highest admiration. Guizot has apparently adopted Villemain's theory of Cromwell's religious insincerity. Although he does not directly charge this upon him, yet the inference is plainly to be drawn from the whole tenor of his work. Cromwell is no favorite character with Guizot. The learned historian, it is true, has a clear appreciation of the general scope and tendency of the grand movement in which Cromwell was engaged. He understands fully the merits of the struggle of the parliament for independence, and the deep importance of the battle that was there fought between the people and royalty. Nor does he fail to sympathize with the people and the parliament. The author of the "History of Civilization" saw too clearly the favorable influence that the success of the parliament exerted in the advance of society in the search of civilization, and in the promotion of what he understands by well-regulated liberty, to have been otherwise

than a warm advocate of the popular cause during the period of which he has written. But Guizot does not seem to have fully appreciated the character of Cromwell. Indeed, he does not apparently comprehend the deep, earnest and passionate religious enthusiasm of the man during this portion of his career-the type and individual manifestation of that religious fervor pervading masses of men, which is one of the most remarkable characteristics of the age. It is this which stamped an individuality of character upon the puritan struggle for liberty, and made Cromwell its true leader. The theory of Cromwell's religious hypocrisy we could never understand. We believe there was a truth and reality in this man— a stern sincerity of religious faith, or what he took to be such-which, however lamentably perverted in later years, and however clouded and obscured by selfish ambition, was never wholly obliterated. His religious faith was doubtless at one time the controlling guide of his conduct. A subtle casuistry enabled him to accommodate this faith to circumstances, to reconcile it with the attainment of his cherished and unworthy ends. With many a man of less firmness or weaker mind, either the faith or the object would have been abandoned. Cromwell sacrificed neither, but held fast to both. If this faith was not a real emotion, then Cromwell must have habitually practiced the most remarkable self-delusion; he must have deceived himself as much as he deceived the world. However this may be, we cannot for a moment entertain the idea that he habitually feigned these religious emotions for politic ends. M. Guizot, in this part of his history, has not undertaken to give us a very distinctive picture of Cromwell. He is one of the chief characters of the epoch, it is true, but by no means stands out upon the canvass with the prominence of a biographical portrait. It is the great event-the English Revolution-not the great man, Oliver Cromwell, he undertakes to sketch, and we shall not, therefore, farther pursue the criticism upon Guizot's character of the Lord-General. As for his history itself, we are not afraid of speaking in too high terms of its literary merits. It is a work worthy of the reputation of the author of the "History of Civilization". distinguished by great learning, a philosophical arrangement, and bearing upon it the indubitable marks of honest investigation and patient labor. Occasionally he falls into an erroneous statement-as where he relates, on the authority of Neal, that Cromwell, Pym, Hampden and Hazelrig had actually embarked on board of a vessel for America, and were restrained from sailing by an order in council-but these are rare, and as a general rule, his facts will be found sustained by the best authorities. It is to be hoped that Guizot may find time to complete his history, or at all events to bring down the narrative through what he calls the second period, from 1649 to 1660, embracing the period of the Long Parlia ment and the Protectorate, to the Restoration. In the absence of "Godwin's Commonwealth," such a work, completed by Guizot, would be the best and most reliable history of the Revolution yet written.

Another continental writer, Mr. D'Aubigné-an author of reputation in the religious world, a Protestant clergyman, President of the Theological School at Geneva, the resolute enemy of popery in all its forms, and we suspect of prelacy, too-has recently given us a biography of

*See Bancroft's "History of the Colonization of America," for a complete refutation of this statement