BOOKS.

GIIIZOT'S HISTORY OF OLIVER CROMWELL AND THE ENGLISH COMMONWEALTH.* Tins work forms the second part of a series designed to embrace the English Revolutions of the Seventeenth Century. The first section, already published, includes the period from the accession of Charles the First to his death. The second, now before us, handles the Commonwealth,—that is, the time from the execution of the King to the death of Cromwell. The Restoration will be the subject of the third section ; the Revolution of 1688 of the fourth and last. The historians of the present day, with the ex- ception of Hallam and Arnold, may not be quite open to the sar- casm of Voltaire on modern compared with ancient authors, that they write gazettes rather than histories ; but there is no doubt that their minute narratives more resemble a particular memoir than a general history. For five-and-twenty years Alison has re- quired nearly as many volumes. If Macaulay continue his his- tory upon the present scale, twenty volumes will not suffice for his century. French writers have been as voluminous, and even on remoter epochs, where the contemporary interest is not so support- ing. The little more than half a century contained in Guizot's subject is less discursively and it may be said less verbosely treated than it would have been by many of his contemporaries ; but he has not wasted his materials; his biographical "etudes" of the Civil Wars probably will extend the work, when finally completed, to as great a length as other histories of the age. To those who flatter themselves that they write for posterity" this mode of authorship is likely to defeat their object, for pos- terity will not find time to read their books added to those of its own day. To say nothing of classical antiquity, Hume's Eng- land and Gibbon's Decline and Fall are not as long as Alison's History of Europe from the French Revolution to the General Peace. But, if possibly fatal to long endurance, the more minutely detailed manner at present in vogue is an advantage to contempo- rary readers, and indeed to all who may command the time for perusal. In the epic style of historical writing, the reader has only general results presented to him, and is almost wholly de- pendent on his author. Of course this is more or less the case in any digest of various authorities ; but where considerable de- tail and a skilful quotation from important originals are the prin- ciple of composition, the reader can be misled only by dishonesty, instead of by error or by arts of deduction and opinion. He also obtains a fuller idea of the manners and subordinate actors of the times, approaching in fact_ more nearly to the perusal of original documents for himself.

These two qualities, of fuller details and a notice of actors important though subordinate, form the characteristic features of M. Guizot's narrative. In the leading facts, and to some extent in the general conclusions from them, we do not observe novelty in Oliver Cromwell. But the story is told more fully : not exactly in the way of news, though that term in a higher sense is the best we can use to convey the exact idea of the im- pression left by the narrative. The skilful quotation from public documents and from Cromwell's speeches, though it may be occa- sionally carried too far, puts the reader to some extent in the po- sition of a student of original authorities. The notice of influ- ential or once famous contemporaries presents a more natural pic- ture of the times than when only " stars " are permitted to ap- pear upon the historical stage ; and this is more especially neces- sary in that age of burning zeal, conscientious earnestness, sturdy convictions, and strange manners. Without some idea of the Puritan, in his different shades, the history of Cromwell can hardly be understood.

The execution has a high degree of merit. There is nothing forced or inflated in the composition ; no striving after effects. The narrative is remarkably quiet, plain, and clear ; its details giving an air of truthfulness to the picture, and exciting the reader in lieu of fatiguing him ; while a spirit pervades the whole which renders it one of the most readable of histories. In some of the more striking scenes, such as Cromwell's dissolution of the Long Par- liament, the fulness of detail rather flattens the effect, compared with the felicitous picture of Hume, who omits whatever touches upon commonplace, and by bringing all the remarkable particulars together, produces an effect more impressive than the literal facts. In subjects of a less dramatic kind, M. Guizot probably has the ad- vantage, from the fuller information conveyed to the reader. The obstruction raised up to Cromwell's government by the fanatics of various sorts—the opposition offered by his Parliaments, not al- ways factions, but narrowminded or mistaken—the strenuous ef- forts made by Cromwell to avoid despotism and govern by means of legislative assemblies—the manner in which des- potism was finally forced upon him, and the difficulties that time ever developed in spite of his successes—are per- haps more clearly impressed upon the mind than could be done by a briefer narrative. The foreign policy of Cromwell is naturally treated at a greater length by M. Guizot than by English historians • perhaps with the Frenchman's disposition to systematize, and the French politician's bias to trace profound art where it does not exist. The actual experience of the minister of state continually serves the historian. It is shown in the sound practical truths that drop from him, the just allowance

• History of Oliver Cromwell and the English Commonwealth, from the Execu-

tion of Charles the First to the Death of Cromwell. By M. Guizot. Translated by Andrew R. Scoble. In two volumes. Published by Bentley.

he makes for the conduct of men, and the nice distinction he draws between what is honest and worthy in a limited sphere but be- comes mischievous in a higher. A. portion of his account of the Barebone Parliament may be taken as an example.

"It was not, as some have stated, composed entirely of men of obscure origin and low condition ; it included many names illustrious by birth or achievements, and a considerable number of country gentlemen and citizens, of importance in their respective towns and counties, landed proprietors, merchants, tradesmen, or artisans. Most of its members were unquestion- ably men of orderly life, neither spendthrifts nor in debt, not seekers after employments or adventurers, but devotedly attached to their country and their religion, and deficient neither in courage nor in independence. But their habits, their ideas, and even their virtues, were narrow and petty, like the social position of most of them. They had more private honesty than political intelligence and spirit ; and, notwithstanding the uprightness of their intentions, the probity of their character, and the earnestness of their piety, they were incapable of feeling, or even of comprehending the high mission to which the will of Cromwell had called them.

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"The Parliament voted that it would meet at eight o'clock in the morn- ing of every day in the week excepting Sunday. Neither the Committees nor the Council of State were to meet while the Parliament was sitting; for the presence of all their members was required in the House itself, and they had to attend to their special missions before and after the general sittings of the House. In a short time, they presented numerous reports to Parliament : the question of tithes, reforms in civil and criminal law, the administration of the finances, the condition and payment of the army, the settlement of debts and the division of lands in Ireland, pauperism, prisons, and petitions, formed, one after another, the subjects of long and animated debates. A sincere zeal animated the assembly ; questions and considerations of private interest had but little influence in their deliberations ; like bold and honest men, their only thought was how they might best servo and reform the state.

"But two contingencies, which popular reformers never foresee—obstacles and speculative theories—soon arose. In order to accomplish great reforms in a great society, without destroying its peace, the legislator must possess ex- traordinary wisdom and a high position ; reforms, when they originate with the lower classes, are inseparable from revolutions. The Parliament of Cromwell's election was neither sufficiently enlightened nor sufficiently in- fluential to reform English society without endangering its tranquillity ; and as, at the same time, it was neither so insane, nor so perverse, nor so strong, as blindly to destroy instead of reforming, it soon became powerless, in spite of its honesty and courage, and ridiculous, because it combined earnestness with impotence.

"A large number of its Members ardently longed to accomplish four in- novations : in ecclesiastical matters, they desired the abolition of tithes, and of lay patronage in presentations to benefices ; in civil affairs, they demanded the suppression of the Court of Chancery, and the substitution of a single code for the vast collections of statutes, customs, and precedents, which formed the law of the country. Not only were these innovations naturally opposed by those classes whose interests would be seriously affected by their adoption, by the clergy, the lay impropriators, the magistrates, the lawyers, and all the professions dependent on these ; but they interfered, more or less directly, with those rights of property and hereditary succession which could not be infringed upon, even in the slightest degree, without shaking the whole framework of society. Accordingly, whenever these vital ques- tions were mooted, a deep schism arose in the Parliament : the men who were swayed by class or professional interest, or by a conservative spirit, ve- hemently opposed the suggested innovations; and those who, in their de- sires for reform, had still retained their good sense, demanded that, before the institutions and rights in question were abolished, the House should inquire into the best means of supplying the place of the institutions, and indemni- fying the possessors of the rights for their loss. But the reformers, wilfully or blindly obedient to the revolutionary spirit, required that, in the first in- stance, the innovations which they demanded should be resolved upon, and the principle which they involved be absolutely admitted, and that the House should then inquire what was to be done to fill up the vacancies, and repair the losses which they had occasioned. They did not know what powerful and intimate ties connected the institutions which they attacked with the very foundations of English society, nor how much time and care would be necessary to reform an abuse without injury to the sacred right or the necessary power on which it rested.

"Cromwell had slain the Long Parliament with his own hand ; he did not vouchsafe so much honour to the Parliament which he had himself created : a ridiculous act of suicide, and the ridiculous nickname which it derived from one of its most obscure members, Mr. Praisegod Barebone, a leather-seller in the city of London, are the only recollections which this as- Bembly.has left in history. And yet it was deficient neither in honesty nor in patriotism ; but it was absolutely wanting in dignity when it allowed its existence to rest on a falsehood, and in good sense when it attempted to re- form the whole framework of English society : such a task was infinitely above its strength and capacity. The Barebone Parliament had been in- tended by Cromwell as an expedient; it disappeared as soon as it attempted to become an independent power." The character of Lilburne, an agitator of those days, will give an idea of our author's method of handling the lesser persons of his drama. The period is that immediately after the death of the King and the establishment of the Republic by the Rump of the House of Commons.

" No sooner was it installed than the Republican Government found itself face to face with an ardent democratic and mystical opposition ; and a man presented himself who, with indomitable courage and devotedness, became, not the leader, for no one was leader in that camp, but the interpreter, de- fender, and popular martyr, of all the disaffected. That man was John Lil- borne.

" Nor was this a new part for him to play ; during the reign of Charles I. he had already braved sufferings and won popularity. Even against the Re- publican Parliament, he had recently, on the occasion of the King's to commenced a violent opposition, denouncing the appointment of a Rig.. Court, and demanding that the King should be judged in conformity to the laws of the country and by an independent jury. Not that he was possessed by the spirit of demagogic cynicism, and desired to humiliate fallen royalty, but he was animated by a strict respect for the common law, and for the legal safe- guards which it secures to every Englishman. He attacked with even more vehemence the High Court which was erected to try Lord Capell and his companions; and he even offered them his services for their defence, so anxious was he to find opportunities for gratifying his love of disputation. In the city, where his youth had been passed, and in the army, where he had served with distinction, he had old connexions and numerous friends citizens and apprentices, officers and soldiers, mystical sectaries and fanatics —all passionately attached, as he was, to the most ultra-democratic ideas and opinions, all equally argumentative and disputatious, never making the slightest allowance for the conditions of social order or the necessities of the ruling power, but always ready to criticize and attack the Government when- ever it ran counter to the instincts of their conscience or the fantasies of their mind, or the recently-acquired habits of their revolutionary independ- ence or the pretensions of their pride. Lilburne used every means to pro- mote the fermentation of all these humours; he was particularly anxious to resuscitate among the inferior ranks of the army the practice of holding meetings and preparing petitions—in fact, all the apparatus of agitators de- legated by their regiments, of which Cromwell and the Independents had made such effectual use to intimidate the Parliament. At a council of offi- cers, held at Whitehall on the 22d of February 1649, it was resolved to take severe measures against these intrigues ; and Fairfax issued general orders to the army, forbidding all meetings and deliberations as contrary to discipline, but recognising the right of the soldiers to petition, provided they first in- formed their officers of their intention to do so. Lilburne immediately pub- lished a pamphlet, under the title of ' England's New Chains Discovered,' in which he violently attacked this abuse of power on the part of men who not long before had so often authorized and stimulated their subordinates to in- dulge in all the excesses of liberty. At the same time, five soldiers signed and presented to Fairfax a petition to complain of the obstacles thus placed in the way of their right of petition : 'Be pleased to consider,' they wrote, 'that we are English soldiers, engaged for the freedom of England, and not outlandish mercenaries, to butcher the people for pay, to serve the pernicious ends of ambition and will in any person under Heaven.' " Fairfax immediately referred this petition to the Council of War; which condemned the five soldiers to ride with their faces towards their horses' tails in front of their respective regiments, to have their swords broken over their heads, and to be cashiered. This sentence was carried into execution at once, on the very day that the High Court of Justice condemned Lord fan ell to death. A few days after Lilburne published a new pamphlet, en- titled The Hunting of the Foxes from Newmarket and Triploe Heath to Whitehall by Five small Beagles, or the Grandie-Deceivers Unmasked" ; a narrative at once burlesque and tragical of the petition and punishment of the five soldiers, and a burning invective against the commander who had inflicted such chastisement upon them. Was there ever,' says Lilburne in his introduction, ' a generation of men so apostate, so false, and so per- jured as these ? Did ever men pretend an higher degree of holiness, reli- soon, and zeal to God and their country, than these ? They preach, they fast, they pray, they have nothing more frequent than the sentences of sa- cred Scripture, the name of God and of Christ, in their mouths. You shall scaect speak to Cromwell about anything but he will lay his hand on his breast, elevate his eyes, and call Giid to record; he will weep, howl, and re- pent, even while he doth smite you under the first rib. * * * It is evi- dent to the whole world that the now present interest of the officers is di- rectly contrary to the interest of the soldiers : if you will uphold the interest ef the one, the other must down; and as well may you let them bore holes throngli your ears, and be their slaves for ever, for your better distinction freiii.fremen. For what are you now ? Your mouths are stopped, you may be abused and enslaved ; but you may not complain, you may not petition far reams. They are your lords, and you are their conquered vassals. There must be no standing against the officers; if they say the crow is white, so must the soldier ; he must not lisp a syllable against their treacheries and abuses, their false musters, and cheating the soldiery of their pay ; that sol- dier that is so presumptuous as to dare to article against an officer must be cashiered.'

" And at the same time that he thus denounced the officers to the soldiers, Lilburne addressed to the Parliament the second part of his ' England's New Chains Discovered' ; another invective, equally furious and severe, in which he denounced to the civil power the leaders of the army, who were labour- ing, and had ever laboured, to possess themselves of the mastery."

• So zealous and active a man, capable of using both his tongue and'his pen with bitter truthfulness, would be naturally odious to revolutionary power : Lilburne was twice brought before a court of justice, and twice acquitted by a jury. It says a good deal for the moderation both of the Rump and of Cromwell, that the ver- dict was not disturbed, and that a rigour beyond the law merely banished him. It was only in England, and perhaps not in Eng- land at every period, that such an agitator would have died peace- ably in his bed at Eltham; age having at last induced him to give a promise to live in quiet. Although, as the end approaches, a good deal is said of Crom- well's habits and private life, and after his death some remarks are made on his fortune and position, M. Guizot draws no set charac- ter of him in the common manner. The narrative, however, con- tinually exhibits his character under various circumstances and various aspects. Cromwell is not only a principal figure, but the leading subject of the book, and that without undue ostentation. Without falling into the almost exploded idea of painting the Pro- tector as a combination of hypocrisy, ambition, and other ill quali- ties M. Guizot rather leans to the oldfashioned notion of him as a self seeker—the very opposite of Carlyle's heroic idea. The Pro- tector's intellectual qualities, his sound manly sense and vigour, his skilful policy veiled under jocularity or cant, his paternal affec- tions, and his homely tastes, are all done justice to by Guizot ; but the "man of Ghent,', who began life in the shameless and selfish struggles of the dying Empire and the new Restoration, and passed his prime as the confidential minister of one of the most sordidly selfish monarchs that ever lived, cannot in the very teeth of facts subscribe to the idea of Cromwell's " heroism "; though the same experience perceives his difficulties, and admits his good as well as his great qualities.