OLIVER CROMWELL.* IN the recent public discussion over the West
minster Hall statue, no less than in the ever-widening flood of "Cromwell literature," we may find proof of the undying interest in the
character, personality, and career of the great Protector. Even those critics who are most hostile show by the very spirit of their hostility how large and grand a figure Oliver Cromwell looms before their affrighted eyes. Truth to tell, of all our great historical figures (with the possible exception of Nelson) Cromwell, though he has been dead these two and a half centuries, seems to-day the most alive. We take but a languid academic interest in most of the mighty men of old, —even in those who have helped to mould our Empire and shape our destiny as a race; but mention the name of Oliver Cromwell, and we are all ready at once to rush into the arena, we are all forthwith intense partisans or hostile critics! /
Much of this living active interest in Cromwell arises from the unique nature of his work and achievement. Cromwell was, at the same time, the arch-destroyer, the "great rebel," and the true political architect and "nation-builder." With one band he smote to the earth all that the average English- man holds dear, bringing to the block the King himself ; with the other hand he created out of this profound social and political ruin a settled Government and system of law and order, and established the actual United Realm in these British Isles from which has directly sprung our world-wide Empire of to-day.
Mr. Arthur Paterson, following guardedly in the footsteps of his great predecessors — notably Thomas Carlyle and Dr. Gardiner—has in this work told the complete story of Cromwell's public and private life with no little discrimina- tion and skill. We do not hesitate to pronounce this to be an admirably thoughtful biography of him whom Lord Rosebery designates the "great Briton." The author, an uncom- promisingly devout admirer of Cromwell, nowhere indulges in mere rhetorical display, nor does he attempt to disguise the sterner and more repellent features of his hero. Mr. Paterson, though, as we have said, a devotee of Cromwell,
yet writes like a man who has first weighed the evidence pro and ems Having carefully and minutely considered the multifarious actions in which Cromwell was primarily con- cerned, his new biographer sums up, so to speak, with a kind of restrained enthusiasm, in the great man's favour. All this is done with such admirable temper and judicial tone, that the reader feels in closing the book far greater confidence in the final decision than be would perhaps had the literary style been mote brilliant, or the advocacy more rhetorically pronounced. /We cannot say more in favour of Mr. Paterson's book than this :—we should really like every man and woman in England who has lately been " protesting " against the Westminster statue carefully to read these pages, when we honestly believe that, in many cases, the not unnatural prejudice against the great Protector would be considerably modified, if not actually removed/
Mr. Paterson in every chapter shows himself cognisant of the inherent difficulties of his subject. This itself, in a historical writer, is a priceless recommendation. After weighing all that hostile writers can urge on the score of the man's duplicity, hypocrisy, and what not, Mr. Paterson thus sums up his own reading of Oliver Cromwell's character :—
"Where we are always wronging Cromwell, now accusing him of depths of infamy which he did not deserve, now crediting him with superhuman sagacity which he never possessed, is in failing to perceive that his character, in spite of many twists and turns, was on the whole a remarkably simple one, and that the main factor of his rise to power lay in the circumstance that the quali- ties he possessed, both for good and for evil, were naturally fitted. as it would seem, to meet and conquer the difficulties and dangers of the time. It was natural to Cromwell, for instance, to love an honest man, and hate a false and useless one ; to Ile supremely in- different to all outward forms and ceremonies ; to work with all his might, and by his example to encourage all under him to do the same ; to listen like Abraham Lincoln with untiring patience to the opinions of other men, but to reserve his own until he had fully made up his mind, and then to be immovable. Fear was unknown to him. He had no avarice, no greed for power or per- sonal glorification He rarely troubled himself to answer criticisms and never much resented them ; but, taking his own straight course toward the goal he had in view, he let dogs bark and wolves howl as they might. Secure in his own honesty of • O'irer Cromwell: his Life and Character. By Arthur Patcrbon. Londop: J. Nisbet and Co. [10s. net.]
purpose, he met all dangers and disasters with the faith that whatever God willed was right, and would work out for good to the world."
This is as true as it is admirably expressed, and we particularly like the analogy with Lincoln. Had the great President lived in the great Protector's troubled time he doubtless would have been one of his most valued friends and counsellors ; while, had Oliver Cromwell been an American citizen in Lincoln's day, one can picture the zeal with which he would have served and upheld his cause on the bloodstained battlefields of the South. And as Abraham Lincoln remains the true typical American to all time, so does Oliver Cromwell, as Dr. Gardiner admits, stand out as the great representative Englishman in all our long history.
• Nothing in Mr. Paterson's valuable work is more praise- worthy than his careful exposition of Cromwell'a lifelong attitude on the subject of religion. So far from having been the blind and besotted bigot which it has pleased certain writers to depict, Cromwell was centuries ahead of his time in the matter of religious toleration. His whole struggle with his former staunch allies, the Scotch Presbyterians, was on this vital point; he worked for the mutual toleration and brotherly co-operation of all the differing sects and divi- sions of Protestant Christians ; they for the domination of their own. All these sections of the book demand the most careful perusal; and we feel sure that such perusal should entirely clear Cromwell's great name from the stigma of narrow-minded bigotry and religions intolerance. Nor should we ever forget that his pronounced and active enmity to the Anglican, and even his hatred of the Roman, Church were entirely based on political grounds. True, he was the sturdiest of Puritans himself ; but be would not have interfered even with what he deemed unscriptural and idolatrous rites and doctrines had not the upholders of these been leagued together to destroy what he sincerely regarded as the very foundations of the " Commonwealth."
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