figures, after the manner of the ancient Britons, painted upon it; and I perceived that most of them were the representation of the late battles in our civil wars, and (if I be not much mistaken) it was the battle of Naseby that was drawn upon his breast. His eyes were like burning brass; and there were three crowns of the same metal (as I guessed), and that looked as red-hot, too, upon his head. He held in his right hand a sword that was yet bloody, and nevertheless, the motto of it was Pax quæritur bello; and in his left hand a thick book, upon the back of which was written, in letters of gold, Acts, Ordinances, Protestations, Covenants, Engagements, Declarations, Remonstrances, &c. Though this sudden, unusual, and dreadful object might have quelled a greater courage than mine, yet so it pleased God (for there is nothing bolder than a man in a vision) that I was not at all daunted, but asked him resolutely and briefly, What art thou?" And he said, 'I am called the north-west principality, his highness, the protector of the commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dominions belonging thereunto; for I am that Angel to whom the Almighty has committed the government of those three kingdoms, which thou seest from this place.' And I answered and said, 'If it be so, sir, it seems to me that for almost these twenty years past your highness has been absent from your charge: for not only if any angel, but if any wise and honest man had since that time been our governor, we should not have wandered thus long in these laborious and endless labyrinths of confusion; but either not have entered at all into them, or at least have returned back ere we had absolutely lost our way; but, instead of your highness, we have had since such a protector, as was his predecessor Richard III. to the king, his nephew; for he presently slew the commonwealth, which he pretended to protect, and set up himself in the place of it a little less guilty, indeed, in one respect, because the other slew an innocent, and this man did but murder a murderer.2 Such a protector we have had as we would have been glad to have changed for an enemy, and rather received a constant Turk than this every month's apostate; such a protector, as man is to his flocks which he shears, and sells, or devours himself; and I would fain know what the wolf, which he protects him from, could do more? Such a protector' and, as I was proceeding, methought his highness began to put on a displeased and threatening countenance, as men use to do when their dearest friends happen to be traduced in their company; which gave me the first rise of jealousy against him; for I did not believe that Cromwell, among all his foreign correspondences, had ever held any with angels. However, I was not hardened enough yet to venture a quarrel with him then; and therefore (as if I had spoken to the protector himself in Whitehall) I desired him that his highness would please to pardon me, if I had unwittingly spoken anything to the disparagement of a person whose relations to his highness I had not the honour to know.' At which he told me, that he had no other concernment for his late highness, than as he took him to be the greatest man that ever was of the English nation, if not (said he) of the whole world; which gives me a just title to the defence of his reputation, since I now account myself, as it were, a naturalised English angel, by having had so long the management of the affairs of that country. And pray, countryman,' said he, very kindly, and very flatteringly, for I would not have you fall into the general error of the world, that detests and decries so extraordinary a virtue; what can be more extraordinary than that a person of mean birth, no fortune, no eminent qualities of Meaning the commonwealth. We war for peace. body, which have sometimes, or of mind, which have often, raised men to the highest dignities, should have the courage to attempt, and the happiness to succeed in, so improbable a design, as the destruction of one of the most ancient and most solidly-founded monarchies upon the earth? that he should have the power or boldness to put his prince and master to an open and infamous death; to banish that numerous and strongly-allied family; to do all this under the name and wages of a parliament; to trample upon them, too, as he pleased, and spurn them out of doors when he grew weary of them; to raise up a new and unheard-of mester out of their ashes; to stifle that in the very infancy, and set up himself above all things that ever were called so reign in England; to oppress all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice; to serve all parties patiently for awhile, and to command them victoriously at last; to overrun each corner of the three nations, and overcome with equal facility both the riches of the south and the poverty of the north; to be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and adopted a brother to the gods of the earth; to call together parliaments with a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of his mouth; to be humbly and daily petitioned, that he would please to be hired, at the rate of two millions a-year, to be the master of those who had hired him before to be their servant; to have the estates and lives of three kingdoms as much at his disposal, as was the little inheritance of his father, and to be as noble and liberal in the spending of them; and lastly (for there is no end of all the particulars of his glory), to bequeath all this with one word to his posterity; to die with peace at home, and triumph abroad; to be buried among kings, and with more than regal solemnity; and to leave a name behind him not to be extinguished but with the whole world; which, as it is now too little for his praises, so might have been, too, for his conquests, if the short line of his human life could have been stretched out to the extent of his immortal designs." The civil war naturally directed the minds of many philosophical men to the subject of civil government, in which it seemed desirable that some fixed fundamental principles might be arrived at as a means of preventing future contests of the same kind. Neither at that time nor since, has it been found possible to lay down a theory of government to which all mankind would subscribe; but the period under our notice nevertheless produced some political works which considerably narrowed the debateable ground. The Leviathan' of Hobbes, which we have found it convenient to mention in a former page, was the most distinguished work on the monarchical side of the question; while Harrington's Oceana,' published during the protectorate of Cromwell, and some of the treatises of Milton, are the best works in favour of the republican doctrines. JAMES HARRINGTON. JAMES HARRINGTON was a native of Northamptonshire, where he was born in 1611. He studied at Oxford, and for some time was a pupil of the celebrated Chillingworth. Afterwards, he went abroad for several years, which were mostly spent at the * Mr Hume has inserted this character of Cromwell, but altered, as he says, in some particulars, from the original, in his history of Great Britain. I know not why he should think any alterations necessary. They are chiefly in the style which surely wanted no improvement; or, if it did, posterity would be more pleased to have this curious fragnient transmitted to them in the author's own words, than in the choicest phrase of the historian.-Hurd. courts of Holland and Denmark. While resident at the Hague, and subsequently at Venice, he imbibed many of those republican views which afterwards distinguished his writings. Visiting Rome, he attracted some attention by refusing on a public occasion to kiss the pope's toe; conduct which he afterwards adroitly defended to the king of England, by saying, that, having had the honour of kissing his majesty's hand, he thought it beneath him to kiss the toe of any other monarch.' During the civil war, he was appointed by the parliamentary commissioners to be one of the personal attendants of King Charles, who, in 1647, nominated him one of the grooms of his bedchamber. Except upon politics, the king was fond of Harrington's conversation; and the impression made on the latter by the royal condescension and familiarity was such, as to render him very desirous that a reconciliation between his majesty and the parliament might be effected, and to excite in him the most violent grief when the king was brought to the scaffold. He has, nevertheless, in his writings, placed Charles in an unfavourable light, and spoken of his execution as the consequence of a divine judgment. During the sway of Cromwell, Harrington occupied himself in composing the Oceana, which was published in 1656, and led to several controversies. This work is a political romance, illustrating the author's idea of a republic constituted so as to secure that general freedom of which he was so ardent an admirer. It is thus characterised by Hume:- Harrington's Oceana was well adapted to that age, when the plans of imaginary republics were the daily subjects of debate and conversation; and even in our time, it is justly admired as a work of genius and invention. The style of this author wants ease and fluency, but the good matter which his work contains makes compensation.' After the publication of the Oceana,' Harrington continued to exert himself in diffusing his republican opinions, by founding a debating club, called the Rota, and holding conversations with visitors at his own house. This brought him under the suspicion of government soon after the Restoration, and, on pretence of treasonable practices, he was put into confinement, which lasted until an attack of mental derangement made it necessary that he should be delivered to his friends. His death took place in 1677. After a careful search, we have been unable to find in the Oceana' a passage of moderate length, which, apart from the context, would probably be interesting to the reader. the vengeance of the royalists, he remained abroad for seventeen years, at the end of which his father, who was anxious to see him before leaving the world, procured his pardon from the king. After his return to England in 1677, he opposed the measures of the court, and has thus subjected himself to the censure of Hume, who held that such conduct, after the royal pardon, was ungrateful. Probably Sidney himself regarded the pardon as rather a cessation of injustice than as an obligation to an implicit submission for the future. A more serious charge against the memory of this patriot was presented in Dalrymple's Memoirs of Great Britain,' published nearly a century after his death. The English patriots, with Lord William Russell at their head, intrigued with Barillon, the French ambassador, to prevent the war between France and England, their purpose being to prevent Charles II. from having the command of the large funds which on such an occasion must be intrusted to him, lest he should use it against the liberties of the nation; while Louis was not less anxious to prevent the English from joining the list of his enemies. The association was a strange one; but it never would have been held as a moral stain against the patriots, if Sir John Dalrymple had not discovered amongst Barillon's papers one containing a list of persons receiving bribes from the French monarch, amongst whom appears the name of Sidney, together with ALGERNON SIDNEY, the son of Robert, Earl of those of several other leading Whig members of parLeicester, is another celebrated republican writer of liament. It has been suggested that Barillon might this age. He was born about 1621, and during his embezzle the money, and account for it by a fictifather's lieutenancy in Ireland, served in the army tious list; but, as Dr Aiken has candidly remarked, against the rebels in that kingdom. In 1643, when sacrificing the reputation of one who was never the civil war between the king and parliament broke suspected, in order to save that of another, is not a out, he was permitted to return to England, where very equitable proceeding.' Yet, when we consider he immediately joined the parliamentary forces, the consummate virtue shown by Sidney in other and, as colonel of a regiment of horse, was present at circumstances, and reflect that it is a charge to several engagements. He was likewise successively which the accused has not had an opportunity of the governor of Chichester, Dublin, and Dover. In replying, we may well allow much doubt to rest on 1648 he was named a member of the court for trying the point. Sidney took a conspicuous part in the the king, which, however, he did not attend, though proceedings by which the Whigs endeavoured to exapparently not from any disapproval of the intentions clude the Duke of York from the throne; and when of those who composed it. The usurpation of Crom- that attempt failed, he joined in the conspiracy for well gave much offence to Sidney, who declined to an insurrection, to accomplish the same object. accept office under either him or his son Richard; This, as is well known, was exposed in consebut when the Long Parliament recovered its power, quence of the detection of an inferior plot for he readily consented to act as one of the council of the assassination of the king, in which the pastate. At the time of the Restoration, he was en-triots Russell, Sidney, and others, were dexterously gaged in a continental embassy; and, apprehensive of inculpated by the court. Sidney was tried for high ALGERNON SIDNEY. He treason before the infamous Chief-Justice Jeffries. Except some of his letters, the only published work of Algernon Sidney is Discourses on Government, which first appeared in 1698. Of these discourses Lord Orrery observes, that they are admirably written, and contain great historical knowledge, and a remarkable propriety of diction; so that his name, in my opinion, ought to be much higher established in the temple of literature than I have hitherto found it placed. As a specimen, we give the ing observations on [Liberty and Government.] hands, under the name of monarchy. But the wisest, The Grecians, amongst others who followed the light of reason, knew no other original title to the government of a nation, than that wisdom, valour, and justice, which was beneficial to the people. These qualities gave beginning to those governments which we call Heroum Regna [the governments of the Heroes]; and the veneration paid to such as enjoyed them, proceeded from a grateful sense of the good received from them: they were thought to be descended from the follow-gods, who in virtue and beneficence surpassed other men: the same attended their descendants, till they came to abuse their power, and by their vices showed themselves like to, or worse than others, who could best perform their duty. Such as enter into society must, in some degree, diminish their liberty. Reason leads them to this. No one man or family is able to provide that which is requisite for their convenience or security, whilst every one has an equal right to everything, and none acknowledges a superior to determine the controversies that upon such occasions must continually arise, and will probably be so many and great, that mankind cannot bear them. Therefore, though I do not believe that Bellarmine said a commonwealth could not exercise its power; for he could not be ignorant, that Rome and Athens did exercise theirs, and that all the regular kingdoms in the world are commonwealths; yet there is nothing of absurdity in saying, that man cannot continue in the perpetual and entire fruition of the liberty that God hath given him. The liberty of one is thwarted by that of another; and whilst they are all equal, none will yield to any, otherwise than by a general consent. This is the ground of all just governments; for violence or fraud can create no right; and the same consent gives the form to them all, how much soever they differ from each other. Some small numbers of men, living within the precincts of one city, have, as it were, cast into a common stock the right which they had of governing themselves and children, and, by common consent joining in one body, exercised such power over every single person as seemed beneficial to the whole; and this men call perfect democracy. Others choose rather to be governed by a select number of such as most excelled in wisdom and virtue; and this, according to the signification of the word, was called aristocracy; or when one man excelled all others, the government was put into his *Remarks on the Life and Writings of Swift, p. 236. Upon the same grounds we may conclude, that no privilege is peculiarly annexed to any form of government; but that all magistrates are equally the ministers of God, who perform the work for which they are instituted; and that the people which institutes them may proportion, regulate, and terininate their power as to time, measure, and number of persons, as seems most convenient to themselves, which can be no other than their own good. For it cannot be imagined that a multitude of people should send for Numa, or any other person to whom they owed nothing, to reign over them, that he might live in glory and pleasure; or for any other reason, than that it might be good for them and their posterity. This shows the work of all magistrates to be always and everywhere the same, even the doing of justice, and procuring the welfare of those that create them. This we learn from common sense: Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and the best human authors, lay it as an immovable foundation, upon which they build their arguments relating to matters of that nature. LADY RACHEL RUSSELL. in literature not much less elevated than that niche The letters of this lady have secured her a place in history which she has won by heroism and conjugal attachment. Rachel Wriothesley was the second daughter and co-heiress of the Earl of Southampton. In 1667, when widow of Lord Vaughan, Duke of Bedford. She was the senior of her second she married Lord William Russell, a son of the first husband by five years, and it is said that her amiable and prudent character was the means of reclaiming him from youthful follies into which he sador distinctly mentions him and Lord Hollis as two who would not accept bribes. When brought to trial (July 1683) under the same circumstances as those which have been related in Sidney's case-with a packed jury and a brutal judge-and refused a counsel to conduct his defence, the only grace that was allowed him was to have an amanuensis. His lady stepped forth to undertake this office, to the admiration of all present. After the condemnation of her husband, she personally implored his pardon, without avail. He loved her as such a wife deserved to be loved; and when he took his final farewell of her, remarked, "The bitterness of death is now past!' Her ladyship died in 1723, at the age of eighty-seven. Fifty years afterwards, appeared that collection of her letters which gives her a name in our literary history. [To Dr Fitzwilliam-On her Sorrow.] WOBORNE ABBEY, 27th Nov. 1685. As you profess, good doctor, to take pleasure in your writings to me, from the testimony of a conscience to forward my spiritual welfare, so do I to receive them as one to me of your friendship in both worldly and spiritual concernments; doing so, I need not waste my time nor yours to tell you they are very valuable to me. That you are so contented to read mine, I make the just allowance for; not for the worthiness of them, I know it cannot be; but, however, it enables me to keep up an advantageous conversation without scruple of being too troublesome. You say something sometimes, by which I should think you seasoned or rather tainted with being so much where compliment or praising is best learned; but I conclude, that often what one heartily wishes to be in a friend, one is apt to believe is so. The effect is not nought towards me, whom it animates to have a true, not false title to the least virtue you are disposed to attribute to me. Yet I am far from such a vigour of mind as surmounts the secret discontent so hard a destiny as mine has fred in my breast; but there are times the mind can All we know they do above Is, that they sing, and that they love. The best news I have heard is, you have two good companions with you, which, I trust, will contribute to divert you this sharp season, when, after so sore a fit as I apprehend you have felt, the air even of your improving pleasant garden cannot be enjoyed without hazard. [To Dr Fitzwilliam-Domestic Misfortunes.] If you have heard of the dismal accident in this neighbourhood, you will easily believe Tuesday night was not a quiet one with us. About one o'clock in the night, I heard a great noise in the square, so little ordinary, I called up a servant, and sent her down to learn the occasion. She brought up a very sad one, that Montague House was on fire; and it was so indeed; it burnt with so great violence, the whole house was consumed by five o'clock. The wind blew strong this way, so that we lay under fire a great part of the time, the sparks and flames continually covering the house, and filling the court. My boy awaked, and said he was almost stifled with smoke, but being told 407 the reason, would see it, and so was satisfied without fear; took a strange bedfellow very willingly, Lady Devonshire's youngest boy, whom his nurse had brought wrapped in a blanket. Lady Devonshire came towards morning, and lay here; and had done so still, but for a second ill accident. Her brother, Lord Arran, who has been ill of a fever twelve days, was despaired of yesterday morning, and spots appeared; so she resolved to see him, and not to return hither, but to Somerset House, where the queen offered her lodgings. He is said to be dead, and I hear this morning it is a great blow to the family; and that he was a most dutiful son and kind friend to all his family. Thus we see what a day brings forth and how momentary the things we set our hearts upon. O, I could heartily cry out, 'When will longed-for eternity come!' but our duty is to possess our souls with patience. I am unwilling to shake off all hopes about the brief, though I know them that went to the chancellor since the refusal to seal it, and his answer does not encourage one's hopes. But he is not a lover of smooth language, so in that respect we may not so soon despair. I fancy I saw the young man you mentioned to be about my son. One brought me six prayer-books as from you; also distributed three or four in the house. I sent for him, and asked him if there was no mistake. He said no. And after some other questions, I concluded him the same person. Doctor, I do assure you I put an entire trust in your sincerity to advise; but, as I told you, I shall ever take Lord Bedford along in all the concerns of the child. He thinks it early yet to put him to learn in earnest; so do you, I believe. My lord is afraid, if we take one for it, he will put him to it; yet I think perhaps to overcome my ford in that, and assure him he shall not be pressed. But I am much advised, and indeed inclined, if I could be fitted to my mind, to take a Frenchman; so I shall do a charity, and profit the child also, who shall learn French. Here are many scholars come over, as are of all kinds, God knows. I have still a charge with me, Lady Devonshire's daughter, who is just come into my chamber; so must break off. I am, sir, truly your faithful servant. The young lady tells me Lord Arran is not dead, but rather better. : [To Lord Cavendish-Bereavement.] Though I know my letters do Lord Cavendish no service, yet, as a respect I love to pay him, and to thank him also for his last from Limbeck, I had not been so long silent, if the death of two persons, both very near and dear to me, had not made me so uncomfortable to myself, that I knew I was utterly unfit to converse where I would never be ill company. The separation of friends is grievous. My sister Montague was one I loved tenderly; my Lord Gainsborough was the only son of a sister I loved with too much pas sion they both deserved to be remembered kindly by all that knew them. They both began their race long after me, and I hoped should have ended it so too; but the great and wise Disposer of all things, and who knows where it is best to place his creatures, either in this or in the other world, has ordered it otherwise. The best improvement we can make in these cases, and you, my dear lord, rather than I, whose glass runs low, while you are young, and I hope have many happy years to come, is, I say, that we should all reflect there is no passing through this to a better world without some crosses; and the scene sometimes shifts so fast, our course of life may be ended before we think we have gone half way; and that a happy eternity depends on our spending well or ill that time allotted us here for probation. Live virtuously, my lord, and you cannot die too soon, nor live too long. I hope the last shall be your lot, with many blessings attending it. SAMUEL BUTLER. SAMUEL BUTLER, whose wit is so conspicuous in his Hudibras,' exhibited it with no less brilliancy in some prose works which were published a considerable time after his death. The most interesting of them are Characters, resembling in style those of Overbury, Earle, and Hall. A Small Poet Is one that would fain make himself that which nature never meant him; like a fanatic that inspires himself with his own whimsies. He sets up haberdasher of small poetry, with a very small stock, and no credit. He believes it is invention enough to find out other men's wit; and whatsoever he lights upon, either in books or company, he makes bold with as his own. This he puts together so untowardly, that you may perceive his own wit has the rickets, by the swelling disproportion of the joints. You may know his wit not to be natural, 'tis so unquiet and troublesome in him: for as those that have money but seldom, are always shaking their pockets when they have it, so does he, when he thinks he has got something that will make him appear. He is a perpetual talker; and you may know by the freedom of his discourse that he came lightly by it, as thieves spend freely what they get. He is like an Italian thief, that never robs but he murders, to prevent discovery; so sure is he to cry down the man from whom he purloins, that his petty larceny of wit may pass unsuspected. He appears so over-concerned in all men's wits, as if they were but disparagements of his own; and cries down all they do, as if they were encroachments upon him. He takes jests from the owners and breaks them, as justices do false weights, and pots that want measure. When he meets with anything that is very good, he changes it into small money, like three groats for a shilling, to serve several occasions. He disclaims study, pretends to take things in motion, and to shoot flying, which appears to be very true, by his often missing of his mark. As for epithets, he always avoids those that are near akin to the sense. Such matches are unlawful, and not fit to be made by a Christian poet; and therefore all his care is to choose out such as will serve, like a wooden leg, to piece out a maimed verse that wants a foot or two, and if they will but rhyme now and then into the bargain, or run upon a letter, it is a work of supererogation. For similitudes, he likes the hardest and most obscure best; for as ladies wear black patches to make their complexions seem fairer than they are, so when an illustration is more obscure than the sense that went before it, it must of necessity make it appear clearer than it did; for contraries are best set off with contraries. He has found out a new sort of poetical Georgics-a trick of sowing wit like clover-grass on barren subjects, which would yield nothing before. This is very useful for the times, wherein, some men say, there is no room left for new invention. He will take three grains of wit, like the elixir, and, projecting it upon the iron age, turn it immediately into gold. All the business of mankind *The Genuine Remains, in Prose and Verse, of Mr Samuel MSS., formerly in the possession of W. Longueville, Esq.; with Butler, author of Hudibras. Published from the Original Notes by R. Thyer, Keeper of the Public Library at Manchester. London: 1759. We have specified this title fully, because there is a spurious compilation, entitled Butler's Posthumous Works. London: 1720.' Only three out of fifty pieces, which make up the latter collection, are genuine productions of Butler. |