BOOKS.
OLIVER CROMWELL.*
IT would be difficult to imagine a more thoroughly inveis- factory book than that which forms the subject of this notice, • Myer eromicet By S. R. Gardiner. London : Goupil and Co. [GU. tat) —at least for those who have made any study of the period and acquired a foundation of knowledge in regard to Oliver Cromwell. To begin with, the book is as regards externals all that can be desired. Not only are the reproductions of the Cromwell pictures and miniatures extremely well executed, but they are very well chosen. In Cromwell's life his daughters played a great part, and it is most interesting to have such clear and authentic representations of their features. After one has studied the full-page picture of Mrs. Claypole and noted the intellectual charm of her regard, one understands the influence she exercised upon her father. Indeed, our only regret in regard to the illustrations is that they do not include more reproductions of the Cromwellian medals and coins. Those that are given, however, are very well executed. But after all, illustrations only embellish and enrich. " The mind is the man," said Cromwell ; and we may say after him, "The letterpress is the book." Professor Gardiner has written much about Cromwell, but never better than here. The style is not popular, and the thought, though never confused, is, owing to the compression, sometimes a little difficult to follow. But if the reader will give up hankering after a simple and unconditional story, and be content with a cautions, moderate, and unpartisan estimate, he will find below the apparently dry and unemotional ex- teiior of Professor Gardiner's study a truly marvellous picture of Cromwell. It is no exaggeration to say that Professor Gardiner knows Cromwell more intimately, and understands him better, than did any of the Protector's con- temporaries. He has not only read deeply in regard to all that Cromwell ever did or said, but he has a really wonderful power of political diagnosis. When be is handling the obscure; and yet most significant and interesting, events connected with the struggle between the Army and the Parliament, you feel that he really knows and understands, and that not only the great social tendencies, but also the personal forces at work, have all been juetly measured by him. And with all his knowledge, or rather because of it, Professor Gardiner is never a partisan. He sees the King's side and the Parlia- ment's side, and later the Army Republican's side, as well as the side of the Protector. But let no one suppose that the net result is unfavourable to Cromwell. On the contrary, it is most favourable. After all allowances are made, and all Cromwell's weaknesses admitted, the man stands out, not merely intellectually, but morally, and also from the point of view of patriotism, head and shoulders above all his contemporaries. Cromwell was a man of great intellect. He was also essentially a good man, a man who really believed that there was a difference between right and wrong. Lastly, he was always a true patriot. He was supremely anxious to do good to his country, and to preserve her from the evils that fall on a conquered or anarchic State. That combination of character- istics is a rare one, but we find it in Cromwell. When it came to action Cromwell was a thorough Englishman. He always began by wanting to go quietly and cautiously, and always desired a compromise. When, however, he found, as be and other Englishmen before and since have foaled, that there is a limit to compromise, and that in all great trans- actions the time comes sooner or later when "something must be done," there was no one who was more swift in action or more uncompromising than he. When at last he struck it was with all his strength. His dealings with the King and with his Parliaments all show this, as Professor Gardiner proves abundantly. In his desire for a compromise with the King Cromwell went, indeed, almost too far, and it is not too much to say that his belief in the possibility of making terms with Charles very nearly misled him altogether. Professor Gardiner shows how when Crom- well first met the King with his children round him, and so saw Charles's beet side, be was fascinated. When, however, he at last realised the King's falseness, and how nearly he, and so the country, had been betrayed, his heart hardened. Cromwell was a man who could be taken in once, but never again.
Another point which comes out very clearly in Professor Gardiner's narrative is the absence in Cromwell either of any abstract hankering after Republicanism, or later after king- ship. He was never a theoretical Republican nor a theoretical Monarchist. He did not feel it degrading to be ruled by a King, nor, again, bad he the least notion that there was any divinity hedging a King. Monarchies and Re- publics were to him, as, indeed. to all wise men, only instruments of government, and if he had any theory at all, it was that of combining the advantages of both in a government by a single person and a Parliament. When we bad a Monarchy he tried to graft on it the best features of a Republic. When we had a Republic his aim was to supple- ment it by the beet things in a Monarchy. Yet of neither Republic nor Monarchy did he make an idol. When we remember what theorists men were in Cromwell's day—nay, what theorists they are now—we shall realise the greatness of
the Protector's genius for statesmanship.
Professor Gardiner's book does not lend itself easily to quotation, but we will extract one passage from the very end of the book,—the lucid and impartial summary of Cromwell's failure as a ruler :—
" Even though Oliver was in his own person no sour fanatic, as Royalist pamphleteers after the Restoration falsely asserted, it is impossible to deny that he strove by acts of government to lead men into the paths of morality and religion beyond the limit which average human nature had fixed for itself. In dealing with foreign nations his mistake on this head was more conspicuous, because he had far less knowledge of the conditions of efficient action abroad than he had at home. It may fairly be said that be knew less of Scotland than of England, less of Ireland than of Great Britain, and less of the Continent than of any one of the three nations over which he ruled. It has some- times been said that Oliver made England respected in Europe. It would be more in accordance with truth to say that he made her feared. It is unnecessary here to pursue this subject further. The development of this theme is for the historian of England rather than for the biographer of the Protector. Oliver's claim to greatness can be tested by the undoubted fact that his character receives higher and wider appreciation as the centuries pass by. The limitations on his nature—the one-sidedness of his religious zeal, the mistakes of his policy—are thrust out of sight, the nobility of his motives, the strength of character, and the breadth of his intellect force themselves on the minds of generations for which the objects for which he strove have been for the most part attained, though often in a different fashion from that in which he placed them before himself, Even those who refuse to waste a thought on his spiritual aims remember with gratitude his constancy of effort to make England great by land and sea; and it would be well for them also to be reminded of his no less constant efforts to make England worthy q,greatness."
/ We must end as we began, by expressing our satisfaction with Professor Gardiner's admirable study of Cromwell, and our gratitude for a work which distinctly increases the visibility of Cromwell, and makes him and his actions in- telligible. At this moment the chosen site at Westminster is being prepared for a statue, which, we trust, will be worthy of the original. It is pleasant to think that in the same year so noble a literary monument should be raise to the Pro- tector as that executed by Professor Gardiner.
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