SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Brocuarinr, Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches: with Elucidations. By Thomas Carlyle.

In two volumes Chapman and Halt. Mums,

liambles in the United States and Canada during the year 1845; with a Short Ac-

count of Oregon. By Rubio • Clarke. Timmer,

Forest and Game Law Tales. By Harriet Martineau. In three volumes. Volume L

FIeTIos Maxon. The O'Donoghue a Tale of Ireland fifty years ago. By Charles Lever, Esq., Au- thor of" Confessions of Harry Lorrequer," "Charles O'Malley, the Irish Dragoon," &c. With Illustrations by H. K. Browne.

Curry and Co., Dublin; Orr and Co., London • OLIVER cnomwsLL's LETTERS AND SPEECHES, ELUCIDATED BY CARLYLE.

THE present age has witnessed numerous publications of original letters by great men,—the Wellington and Wellesley Despatches, the Correspondence of Nelson and Marlborough, and the translation of Cortes's own epistolary narrative of the Conquest of Mexico. To these Mr. Carlyle has now added a complete collection of the Letters and Speeches of Oliver Crom- well, brought together from various sources,—contemporary publications, formal biographies and miscellaneous collections of a later date, the ma- nuscript repositories in the British Museum, and some originals or copies still preserved by private families. Such a publication would be valuable merely as a collection, and must of necessity occupy a place on the shelves of every library ; but this edition differs from the other collections of the heroic pen by having "Elucidations," as the author calls them, very much exceeding in bulk the original documents, and throwing upon them a steady light, which is at once history, biography, genealogy without its dryness, and topography, done often in the best and sometimes in the most extraordinary style of Carlyleism—which is like itself and nothing else.

The arrangement of the original letters is strictly chronological, classed according to the epoch of the hero's life to which they relate. The first is dated in January 1636, when Cromwell was in his thirty-seventh year, residing at St. Ives as a gentleman grazier or farmer. The hiatus which this opening would leave in the life is filled up by an introductory notice, called "Events in Oliver's Biography," where only facts that can be proved—such as his birth, his entrance at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge—are embraced ; throwing overboard all the stories that va- rious writers, especially Heath, (whom Carlyle calls " Carrion Heath,") have collected ; but the commentator himself indulges in various paintings that hare as little groundwork as Heath's anecdotes, although the reader sees at once that they are Carlyle's imaginings, and is not therefore misled. This biography is preceded by a view of the Cromwell Kin- dred; showing the old English gentleman status of the family, and infer- ring, perhaps proving, its relationship to the Cromwell of Harry the Eighth's time ; all done with a clearness, knowledge, and a power of animating the dry bones of heraldry, which make even genealogy inte- resting. There is other introductory matter, not so necessary, but in place, and curious for its character,—Mr. Carlyle's opinion of the bio- graphers of Cromwell ; a critical exposition of his own view of Crom- well's Letters and Speeches; and a paper called " Dryasdust, " which is chiefly distinguished for an unmitigated censure of all the historians and original chroniclers or recorders of the seventeenth century, and an over- weening confidence in himself.

Stripped of Mr. Carlyle's excited earnestness of view, or perhaps of the

colouring which is imparted to it by a phraseology forcedly quaint and an effect produced by the use of nicknames' the object of the work is to clear the memory of Cromwell from the odium which is still attached to him as a hypocrite and self-seeker ; to vindicate the character of the Puritans, as a heroic and truly religious sect, of which Cromwell was the head; and to throw further discredit upon Charles and his party, especi- ally poor Laud. To take up any one of these points, would require BO long a time and so large a space, that we must summarily pass it. As regards Charles, his faithlessness and weak reliance upon his right di-

vine is well marked, but no particular novelty is struck out. The high respectability, the conscientious belief, the deep and truthful earnestness, of the Country or Opposition party, as well as the oppression of the Court, are well impressed upon the reader ; together with the worthy old-fashioned family character of many of the popular leaders. The _soundness of the hero-worship which Mr. Carlyle offers up to Cromwell is not quite so convincingly made out. His letters always read to us as

nrille the real effusions of a mind—they seem equally deficient in the -unction of a fanatic or the convictions of a true reason. Yet this may arise

from a peculiar staidness of idiosyncracy ; for it shows itself in his most private correspondence, and appears even in his earliest letters when he could not have had a conception of his coming greatness. His unmoved steadiness throughout his career tells, too, in favour of the hypothesis of a deep religious conviction always actuating him with the notion that he was doing the Lord's business. He is ever the same. In his difficulties at Dunbar, in the height of his triumphs, in the full flow of his great- ness, in the hour of death, he is the calm, resolved, impassible person or moved only by the thoughts of God and judgment. Yet there is nothing about him above or differing from humanity. He has none of the "con- temptuous pride of Sylla," which prompted the Roman as soon as he had Overcome the difficulties to throw up the pomp and routine business of ruling station, as matters he did not choose to be troubled with; nor of that coldness too philosophical or too proud to show emotion at greatness or any other thing. In private life, from first to last, Cromwell shows himself as the old English family gentleman, both among his children and his connexions,—with a touch of grave sportiveness a trait that goes far to support the verity Mr. Carlyle attributes to his public writings, because this jocularity wears the same appearance of want of earnestness that we note in his more formal productions, and it is well known by many anecdotes that Cromwell was by nature jocular. It is probable that his deep sense of religion might give him a " rale and governance," a steadfastness which subdued his own character to a sort of artificial guise ; except upon such occasions as the death of' his daughter, when nature would have way. There is something touch- ing in this striking picture of the Protector's misery when all Europe was ringing with his greatness, and France had first despatched a splendid embassy to congratulate him on his successes against the Spaniards, it being said that only the health of young Louis the Fourteenth prevented him from coming in person.

" The Manzinis and Dues de Crequi, with their splendours, and congratulations about Dunkirk, interesting to the street-populations and general public, had not yet withdrawn, when at Hampton Court there had begun a private scene, of much deeper and quite opposite interest there. The Lady Claypole, Oliver's favourite Daughter, a favourite of all the world, had fallen sick we know not when; lay sick now,—to death, as it proved. Her disease was of internal female naturei the painfullest and most harassing to mind and sense, it is understood, that falls to the lot of a human creature. Hampton Court we can fancy once more, in those July days, a house of sorrow; pale Death knocking there, as at the door of the meanest hut. She had great sufferings, great exercises of spirit.' Yes :—and in the depths of the old Centuries, we see a pale anxious Mother, anxious Husband, anxious weeping Sisters, a poor young Frances weeping anew in her weeds.'Fur the last fourteen days' his Highness has been by her bedside at Hampton Court, unable to attend to any public business whatever. Be still, my Child; trust then yet in God: in the waves of the Dark River there too is Ile a God of help!—On the 6th day of August she lay dead; at rest forever. My young, my beautiful, my brave ! She is taken from me; I am left bereaved of her. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the Name of the Lord !— " His Highness,' says Maidston, being at Hampton Court, sickened a little before the Lady Elizabeth died. Her decease was on Friday, 6th August 1658; she having long lain under great extremity of bodily pain, which, with frequent and violent convulsion-fits, brought her to her end. But as to his Highness, it was observed that his sense of her outward misery, in the pains she endured, took deep impression upon him; who indeed was ever a most indulgent and tender Father ;—his affections' too being regulated and bounded by such Christian wisdom and prudence, as did eminently shine in filling up not only that relation of a Father, but also all other relations; wherein he was a most rare and singular example. And no doubt but the sympathy of his spirit with his sorely afflicted and dying Daughter' did break him down at this time; 'considering also, '—in- numerable other considerations of sufferings and toils, which made me often wonder he was able to hold up so long; except' indeed that he was borne up by a Supernatural Power at a more than ordinary rate. As a mercy to the truly Christian World, and to us of these Nations, had we been worthy of him !'— "The same authority, who unhappily is not chronological, adds elsewhere this little picture, which we must take with us: At Hampton Court, a few days after the death of the Lady Elizabeth, which touched him nearly,—being then himself under bodily distempers, forerunners of that Sickness which was to death, and in his bedchamber,—he called for his Bible, and desired an honourable and godly person there, with others present, To read unto him that passage in Philippians, Fourth: "Not that I speak inrespect of want: for I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both howlo be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere, and by all things, lam instructed; both to befell and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. Jean do all things, through Christ which strengtheneth me." Which read,—said he, to use his own words as near as I can remember them: "This Scripture did once save my life; when my eldest Son" poor Oliver "died; date and cause unknown, but probably slain during the first Civil War, in which he served] which went as a dagger to my heart, indeed it did." And then repeating the words of the text himself, and reading the tenth and eleventh verses, of Paul's contentation, and submission to the will of God in all conditions,—said he: "It's trite, Paul, you have learned this, and attained to this measure of grace: but what shall I do? Ah poor creature, it is a hard lesson for me to take out ! I find it so!" But reading on to the thirteenth verse, where Paul saith, "I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me,"—then faith began to work, and his heart to find support and comfort, and he said thus to himself, "He that was Paul's Christ is my Christ tool" And so drew, waters out of the well of Salvation.'' Whether the reader agree with Mr. Carlyle in his hero-worship of Crom- well, or think with others that the great man's ambition was excited by the opportunities which presented themselves, and that his character became a mixture of hypocrisy and earnestness, which no one, not even himself; could unravel, it must at least be admitted that much of what is called his usurp- ation was forced upon him. He alone, in fact, stood between tyranny and anarchy. The return of Charles would have led to persecutions of which our history affords no parallel ; the ascendancy of the Presbyterians would have rendered the previous conflict useless, and established an ecclesiastical tyranny as bad as Laud's ; all government must have fallen to pieces in the hands of the Levellers of the Army and the Fifth Monarchy' men, and events have forced upon them a reign of terror ; the Repub- licans were not strong enough or able enough to have established their beloved commonwealth ; and, practically, each of the three last-named parties would have fought for mastery had not Cromwell successively subdued them as they rose. The execution of Charles was one of the most striking events in history, and of a boldness of which we in this age can scarcely form a conception ; but as a matter of policy it was per- haps an error. Unless the whole family had been secured, no purpose was answered by the death of one. Charles the First frightened into exile was not more troublesome than Charles the Second ; possibly less so, for he never would have taken the Covenant. The instrumentality of Cromwell in that business compelled him to go on; for power was necessary to his safety. But for the "regicide" part of the matter, Cromwell could at any time have retired and left the factions to themselves, till a stern ne- cessity recalled him. But the weapon of resignation was struck from his hands on the 30th of January 1649. On Mr. Carlyle's view that Crom- well and the members of the High Court felt they were carrying into execution a judgment of God, human policy or earthly consequences were out of the question : and, no doubt, this view applied to Cromwell gives to his conduct a consistency which is not attainable by any other hypo- thesis either critical or rabidly Royal. At the same time, experience shows, (such is the inconsistency of man ! ) that even conscientious people of this kind are not always above the use of art.

The plan of this work may have partly been perceived from our re- marks and extract,—that letters written within a certain epoch are pre- ceded and followed by the Elucidations, sometimes brief; sometimes run- ning to great length. The matter of these is very 'various, extending from a genealogical fact to a summary of the history of the time. Per- haps the form of the work, by rendering each section complete in itself, admits of details being presented without the effect of minuteness ; but we never met so vast a mass of matter which was so readable, so real, and of so sustained an interest. The collected Letters and Speeches of Cromwell are a valuable collection of historical muniments; but they de- rive additional value from the light which Carlyle's Commentaries on Cromwell throw upon them, notwithstanding a frequent intermixture of mere Carlyleisms.

An idea of the illustration which these Commentaries throw upon the age, and the manner in which the past is vivified by means of the present, can only be attained by reading the volumes : but we will give two ex- tracts that shall indicate their manner. The following graphic account of St. Ives, where Cromwell resided for some years, introduces the first letter.

"St. Ives, a small Town of perhaps fifteen hundred souls, stands on the left or North-eastern bank of the River Ouse, in flat grassy country, and is still noted as

a Cattle-market in those_parts. Its chief historical fame is likely to rest on the following one remaining Letter of Cromwell's, written there on the 11th of Janu- ary 1635-6. "The little Town, of somewhat dingy aspect, and very quiescent except on market-days, runs from North-west to South-east, parallel to the shore of the Ouse, a short furlong in length: it probably, in Cromwell's time, consisted mainly

of a row of houses fronting the River; the now opposite row, which has its back to the River, and still is shorter than the other, still defective at the upper end,

was probably built since. In that case, the locality we hear of as the 'Green' of

St. Ives would then be space which is now covered mainly with cattle pens for market-business, and forms the middle of the street. A narrow steep old Bridge,

probably the same which Cromwell travelled, leads you over, Westward, towards ■ Godmanchester, where you again cross the Ouse, and get into Huntingdon. East- ward out of St. Ives, your route is towards Earith, Ely, and the heart of the Fens. "At the upper or North-western extremity of the place stands the Church; Cromwell's old fields being at the opposite extremity. The Church from its Churchyard looks down into the very River, which is fenced from it by a brick wall. 'The Ouse flows here, you cannot without study tell in which direction, fringed with gross reedy herbage and bushes; and is of the blackness of Acheron, streaked with foul metallic glitterings and plays of colour. For a short space downwards here, the banks of it are fully visible; the Western row of houses being somewhat the shorter, as already hinted: instead of houses here, you have a rough wooden balustrade, and the black Acheron of an Ouse River used as a washing-place or watering-place for cattle. The old Church, suitable for such a population, stands yet as it did in Cromwell's time, except perhaps the steeple and pews; the flag-stones in the interior are worn deep with the pacing of many gene- rations. The steeple is visible from several miles distance; a sharp high spire, piercing far up from amid the willow-trees. The country hereabouts has all a clammy look, clayey and boggy; the produce of it, whether bushes and trees, or

grass and crops, gives you the notion of something lazy, dropsical, gross.—This is St. Ives, a most ancient Cattle-market by the shores of the sable Ouse, on the

edge of the Fen-country; where, among other things that happened, Oliver Crom-

well passed five years of his existence as a Farmer and Grazier. Who the primi- tive Ives himself was, remains problematic: Camden says he was Ivo a Per- sian';—surely far out of his road here. The better authorities designate him as Ives, or Yves, a worthy Frenchman, Bishop of Chartres in the time of our Henry Reauclerk.

"Oliver, as we observed, has left hardly any memorial of himself at St. Ives. The ground he farmed is still partly capable of being specified, certain records or

leases being still in existence. It lies at the lower or South-east end of the Town; a stagnant fiat tract of land, extending between the houses or rather kitchen- gardens of St. Ives in that quarter, and the banks of the River, which, very tor-

tuous always, has made a new bend here. If well drained, this land looks as if it would produce abundant grass, but naturally it must be little other than a bog. Tall bushy ranges of willow-trees and the like, at present, divide it into fields; the River, not visible till you are close on it, bounding them all to the South. At the top of the fields next to the Town is an ancient massive Barn, still used as such; the people call it Cromwell's Barn' ;—and nobody can prove that it was not his ! It was evidently some ancient man's or series of ancient men's." • * * "In fact, there is, as it were, nothing whatever that still decisively to every eye attests his existence at St. Ives, except the following old Letter, accidentally pre- served among the Harley Manuscripts in the British Museum. Noble, writing in 1787, says the old branding-irons, 0. C.,' for marking sheep, were still used by some Farmer there; but these also, many years ago, are gone. In the Parish- records of St. Ives, Oliver appears twice among some other ten or twelve respect- able rate-payers; appointing, in 1633 and 1634, for St. Ives cum Slepa' fit annual overseers for the 'Highway and Green' —one of the Oliver Signatures is now cut out. Fifty years ago, a vague old Townclerk had heard from very vague

old persons, that Mr. Cromwell had been seen attending divine service in the Church, with ' a piece of red flannel round his neck, being subject to inflamma- tion: Certain letters, written in a very kind style, from Oliver Lord Protector to persons in St. Ives,' do not now exist; probably never did. Swords bearing the initials of 0. C.,' swords sent down in the beginning of 1642, when War was now imminent, and weapons were yet scarce,—do any such still exist? Noble says they were numerous in 1787; but nobody is bound to believe him."

These reflections follow the introduction of the death-warrant against Charles ; a "stern document," says Mr. Carlyle, "not specifically of Oliver's composition, but expressing in every letter of it the conviction of Oliver's heart, in this, one of his most important appearances on the stage of earthly life." Iris molossis ferociores, More savage than their own mastiffs ! ' shrieks Saurniuse; shrieks all the world, in unmelodious soul-confusing diapason of dis- traction' —happily at length grown very faint in our day. The truth i, no modern reader can conceive the then atrocity, ferocity, unspeakability of this fact. First, after long reading in the old dead Pamphlets does one see the magnitude of it. To be equalled, nay to be preferred think some, in point of horror, to the Crucifixion of Christ.' Alas, in these irreverent times of ours, if all the Kings of Europe were to be cut in pieces at one swoop, and flung in heaps in St. Margaret's Churchyard on the same day, the emotion would, in strict arithmetical truth, be small in comparison! We know it not, this atrocity of the English Regicides; shall never know it. I reckon it perhaps the most daring action any Body of Men to be met with in History ever, with clear consciousness, deliberately set themselves to do. Dread Phantoms, glaring supernal on you,—when once they are quelled and their light snuffed out, none knows the terror of the Phantom ! The 'Phantom is a poor paper-lantern with a candle-end in it, which any whipster dare now beard.

"A certain Queen in some South-Sea Island, I have read in Missionary books, had been converted to Christianity; did not any longer believe in the old gods. She assembled her people; said to them, 'My faithful people, the gods do not dwell in that burning-mountain in the centre of our isle- 'That is not God; no, that is a common burning-mountain,—mere culinary fire burning under peculiai. Circumstances. See, I will walk before youth that burning-mountain; will empty Icy wash-bowl into it, cast my slipper over it, defy it to the uttermost, and stand the consequences ! '—She walked accordingly, this South-Sea Heroine nerved to the sticking-place; her people following in pale horror and expectancy: she did her experiment;—and, I am told, they have truer notions of the gods in that Island ever since ! Experiment which it is now very easy to repeat, and very needless. Honour to the Brave who deliver us from Phantom-dynasties, in South- Sea Islands and in North !

"This action of the English Regicides did in effect strike a damp like death through the heart of Flunkeyism universally in this world. Whereof Flunkey- ism, Cant, Cloth-worship, or whatever ugly name it have, has gone about incur- ably sick ever since; and is now at length, in these generations, very rapidly dying. The like of which action will not be needed for a thousand years again. Needed, slits !—not till a new genuine Hero-worship has arisen, has perfected it- self; and had time to degenerate into a Flunkeyism and Cloth-worship again! Which I take to be a very long date indeed.

"Thus ends the Second Civil War. In Regicide, in a Commonwealth and Keepers of the Liberties of England. In punishment of Delinquents, in abolition of Cobwebs ;—if it be possible in a Government of Heroism and Veracity; at lowest, of Anti-Flunkeyism, Anti-Cant, and the endeavour after Heroism and Veracity."