It is with great satisfaction that we record the appointment
of Mr. Firth to fill the place of Mr. York Powell as Regius Professor of History at Oxford. Of Mr. Firth's capacity to fill a post held in turn by Stubbs, Freeman, and Fronde there can be no question. His minute and sympathetic knowledge of the Cromwellian period will make his tenure of the Professorship of special use to Oxford. It was the Cromwellian period which gave birth to the ideas that have made the Anglo-Saxon race what it is not only in England, but oversea in America and in our Colonies. It was in that epoch that there sprang up not only the liberal ideas which have since influenced the whole world, but also sea-power and the Imperial spirit that has made the British Empire. It was of Cromwell that the poet said, "He did not keep us prisoners to our isle." Again, it is not too much to say that if there had been no Cromwell there would have been no Washington and no Lincoln.
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