dark old papers of which mention has been | letters of Cromwell were sent to Mr. Carlyle in one made.

They proved to be a journal, interspersed with letters of Cromwell and others, but mostly written by one Samuel Squire, a subaltern in the famed Regiment of Ironsides, who belonged to the "Stilton Troop," and had served with Oliver from the first mount of that indomitable corps, as cornet, and then as auditor. Looking closely into this journal, with the light thrown by Mr. Carlyle's volumes, very strange unknown aspects of affairs seem to have presented themselves to A. B.; onslaughts, seizures, surprises; "endless activity, audacity, rapidity, strict general integrity, rhadamanthine justice, and traits of implacable severity on the part of Oliver;" connected for the most part with such moving accidents and adventures, hitherto wholly absent from the histories, as the fortune of war in that "Eastern Association" where Cromwell began his military career, and enriched with thirty-five original letters of the hero.

Here was a discovery indeed! Yet was it natural that A. B., being as we have described him, should straightway hand it over without condition or questioning to the collector of Cromwell's letters? We think not. We find what he really did to be in no respect surprising. He broke ground by sending a fact obtained from the journal, of which Mr. Carlyle had proclaimed himself much in need; and then "in simple, rugged, and trustworthy, though rather peculiar dialect," (a "little astonished to find that Oliver Cromwell was actually not a miscreant, hypocrite, &c., as heretofore represented,") related what he was in possession

packet, with accompanying intimation that the originals were reduced to ashes. Vain was all passionate clamor for them. They were gone.

Now, we repeat that we do not find it difficult to understand this transaction throughout. Irrational as it is, it seems to us not at all hard to comprehend. A. B. is not a book-man, in the least; in no respect a writer, it is very obvious; the least possible of a reader, we should say. To proceed to judge of the matter as if he had ever contemplated the publication of these letters; as if a necessity for their authentication had at all presented itself to him; as if it were even likely that his own good faith could in any respect be questioned; as if, in short, the world contained any probable or possible parties to that affair but simply himself and Mr. Carlyle; would be miserably to misjudge it, as we think, from first to last. We will not say that he may not have thought it remotely possible he should see the letters again in a printed form, just as he had seen Mr. Carlyle's book of letters: but in the like unquestionable shape, and under cover of the same not-to-be disputed authority. He had guarded against himself appearing in connection with them, by solemn exactions of secrecy from Mr. Carlyle; and he had satisfied his family fears and traditions by washing his hands of ancestor Squire altogether. Who knows what formal family injunctions even, he may not religiously have obeyed, in not suffering that journal to be seen by any stranger? Nayin burning it even as it stood, with its Cromwell letters and all? With Mr. Carlyle's emphatic testimony to character we will now leave A. B. of. For the correspondence that followed, the "Let me add, for my own sake and his, that, with reader must go to Mr. Carlyle's statement. It is all my regrets and condemnations, I cannot but all very credible to us, very natural, and very dimly construe him as a man of much real worth; lamentable; but extremely difficult to tell. Given and even (though strangely inarticulate, and sunk the earnest, eager, passionate Cromwell worship-in strange environments) of a certain honest intelper and champion, on the one hand-and the con- ligence, energy, generosity; which ought not to scientious, honest, single-hearted, but strangely escape recognition, while passing sentence." shadow-hunted A. B., with what Mr. Carlyle This is from Mr. Carlyle's preface to the Letwould call his fatuous mysteries, fatuous vandal-ters published in Fraser's Magazine. To these isms, and general half-mad procedure, on the we now turn. Endorsed by so high an authority, other-nor can we well see how the affair was to they at first appeared to be trustfully received on issue in any better result. This result was what all hands, and to be read as genuine by subtle as we may call, on A. B.'s part, an honorable capit- well as simple hearts, with a kind of mild interest ulation or compromise. Unable wholly to reject and regretful pleasure, nothing doubting. It was what had been for centuries a family religion, as not to be expected, however, that this should last little able utterly to reject Mr. Carlyle's claim to a long. Thirty-five letters with no originals in exsort of property in what remained of Cromwell, istence were too tempting an enigma for what Mr. he resolved scrupulously to copy whatever letters Carlyle calls the "dryasdust mind" not to expend written by the latter he could find in his ancestor's itself upon. The idlest enigmas have a charm ; journal, whatever brief notes by his ancestor were and to answer your D'ye give it up? in the affirmneeded to explain them, and then destroy journal, ative, as should in general at once be done, is letters, and all. The over-tremulous are often, of all things in the world the most difficult for for that reason, also the over-resolute; and A. B. some persons. Accordingly there came questions, carried out his terrible "sacrificial" resolve. The publicly put here and there; questions by the very letters, invaluable as mere autograph; the journal nature of them insoluble to the enigma-loving of which they were a part, perhaps the most pre- mind, yet giving rise to the hungriest sagacity in cious fragment saved from the wreck or the great- enigma-loving quarters. But necessarily repelled est period of our English History; perished. in that direction, certain finer noses began next to Copies of thirty-five masterly and most life-like detect joking, treachery, imposition, and what not.

letters are mere historical curiosities; remarkable, very notable, extremely interesting; but of no consequence whatever for altering or confirming any person's notions or convictions respecting Cromwell's life or character, or any point in his or any other history. Grant them to be all true, Cromwell's history remains precisely what it was while

And thus round the small fixed point of A. B., | hollow and vacant, as of "damp wind in empty doubt, on the back of doubt, to an inconceivable churches." That a "forger," trying his apprenextent, accumulated and is accumulating, in the tice-hand, and with so small an object, should or idle enigma-loving mind. Out of which sprang could have achieved such a master-piece as these at length the letter of the good Mr. Blakely which Cromwell Letters, we shall esteem, as soon as it Mr. Carlyle felt himself obliged to answer, and is made out, to be nothing short of a miracle! which with the answer we have printed above. We have said that the object was small. Indeed Before we contribute what we may to set at it seems to us quite insignificant, and the question rest this discussion, we will proceed to give ex-it raises not less so. Insignificant-because the tracts from the letters themselves; carefully giving, among other selections, all those points which the sceptics have already marked with doubt. The new historical facts they illustrate are minute enough; but by their very minuteness, and the nearer view the letters necessarily give of the man engaged in such details, the interest of them is extraordinary. It is important to observe, how-they were not discovered; precisely what it would ever, that they give no new view of Cromwell. Mr. Carlyle's idea of his hero as a sublime embodiment of belief and justice, was built upon no fantasy, but upon historical fact; and of the same quality of fact, though "enlarged to the gigantic by unexpected nearness," are these thirty-five let- They rest upon surmises that particular words ters. It is not the all-famous Cromwell, keeping are modern, and so forth. One suggests that together a kingdom, and fencing against a world" stand no nonsense" is modern slang. Another self-divided and in arms; it is the obscure Crom- that "Miss Andrews" is an obvious anachronism. well, keeping together a regiment, holding forth very needful example, and fighting himself resolutely up into strength and fame. "It is Oliver," says Mr. Carlyle, "left to himself; stript bare of all conventional draperies; toiling, wrestling as for life and death, in his obscure element; none looking over him but Heaven only."

[Having printed all the letters in No. 194 of the Living Age, we omit them here.]

We will

be if they were wholly annihilated, and swept away to the last syllable as proved falsities. Let us add that what we have hitherto seen of the grounds set forth for the suspected forgery seem to us altogether worthless.

A third that "a new cravat" was an article of dress first introduced at the Restoration. A fourth that Keziah is a woman's, not a man's name. We could ourselves, if necessary, suggest others. Some words, one or two subscriptions to the letters, a few names of things, we have little doubt are incorrect transcriptions from the originals; but that A. B., in all probability the least learned man in England in such matters, should have avoided all such mistakes in his difficult task, would in our Now to the question of authenticity. opinion have tended far more than any other cirpreface what we have to offer with the remark, cumstance, to suggest a forgery. The truth is that if, instead of receiving these letters with the that we attach no importance to this "word-grubwarrant of Mr. Carlyle's belief in them, we had bing" in any such inquiry. It is a kind of critipicked them up in the street, it would not have cism which may tend much to perplex the minds occurred to us to doubt them. We take the inter- of the ignorant, and to increase doubt-that very nal evidence in their favor to be decisive. They questionable commodity; but which cannot, by the prove themselves, we think, to any man of uncloud-nature of it, in almost any case, issue in certaintyed apprehension, and competent acquaintance with the alone desirable result. No man knows the the time and man of which they treat. Our own exact date at which a given word was used for the acquaintance with both, we beg to add, is not of first time in human speech or writing. How can recent date, nor obtained without careful and con-he, or ever could he-the dustiest Dryasdust of scientious study. them all? "Twaddle," (the word occurs naturally,) In the first place, then, let us say that if these which might "prove" an alleged page of Goldsmith letters are a forgery, they stand quite alone of their to be spurious, turns out to be as old as King kind in the world. Nothing so daring or extraor-Alfred. "Stand," for endure, is well nigh as old dinary has ever been attempted. They are stuck as language itself. "Miss," which it is held to full of points for detection; studded all over with be impossible that Cornet Squire should have writliabilities or possibilities of that kind, such as no ten in 1643, is possibly enough a mis-copy of Mrs.; forged writing ever was since the world began. but quite possibly not, too. Nobody knows that Look at any Eikon, Basilike, Ossian, Epistles of Miss, the colloquial diminution of Mistress, was Phalaris, or Modern French Mémoires de la Con- not used in speech at that time, and even occavention, or what not; and in nothing is the forgery sionally written by half-educated, unpunctilious so careful as to avoid anything in the shape of people, as the designation of young or less impornarrative, of statements, of facts, and such like. tant persons. In Butler's day, not long after, the It fills its pages with mere sentiment; there is not word got into print; and that, too, in a sense which a date to be got out of it, not a name of person or perhaps rather countenances this opinion. The place that can help being given; its sound is all same writer has crabat, which was the modern

cravat; and we have little doubt that A. B. had character of an imaginary footman; in another mis-copied here. case, an apocryphal amanuensis, or an ideal serIn short, we have seen nothing yet urged that vant-maid. With some his correspondence was is worthy of grave consideration, against the authen-literary, with others philosophical; a tinge of politicity of these Cromwell Letters, or our own unhes- tics colored some, a touch of benevolent curiosity From all he received anitating belief in them; and we do not speak from distinguished others. swers; and they have been forwarded to us by a kindness of a nature so distinct and peculiar, that we do not think it possible for us to describe in terms at all adequate to the sublimity of its feeling. [N. B. We borrowed this last clause from a speech of Patrick Robertson.]

a hastily formed acquaintance with the subject, or an imperfect knowledge of the time. If we can conceive a doubt, it would have been of a very opposite kind indeed to any of which we have spoken. But even that doubt could only have arisen, to resolve itself into a more decisive certainty. The letters are written throughout on the strain; in circumstances of swift movement; for the most part of eager necessity. Hence they are all more characteristic than might have been looked for in such a series, otherwise composed.

[It is all very well, for people who have not had experience, to say that this and that is too daring a forgery to be one, and that the object is insignificant. Fraser's Magazine may be innocent in this matter; at least it is clear that it has not forged Mr. Carlyle's letter. But as to what it is capable of, we subjoin an article from it of 1833 or 1834. Look, tender reader, at this Miller Correspondence, and make up your mind whether the distinguished authors were so hoaxed by the deceitful letters of inquiry as to auswer them, thus falling victims of an autograph-hunter; —or whether the whole affair is a forgery.-Living Age.]

THE MILLER CORRESPONDENCE.

WHO the Reverend George Miller, from whom the correspondence we are about to publish takes its name, may be, is a question which we for the present decline answering. It must be left to the sagacity of those ingenious persons, who amuse themselves or the public in the attempt to discover the author of Junius' Letters. We feel ourselves just now only at liberty to say that the Rev. Geo. Miller is a lineal descendant of the great Joe Miller, whose now time-honored tomb is to be found in the burying-ground of St. Clement's Danes, close in the neighborhood of Tom Wood's hotel.

Waiving, however, further inquiry into the history of Mr. George Miller, we are about to introduce to public notice the results of his valuable labors. Smitten with a desire of collecting the autographs of the illustrious personages, in the author line, existing in his time, he bent all the energies of his capacious mind to that important object. It was said long ago, that no more compendious way of procuring such curiosities could be imagined than discounting the bills of literary men, because you might in that case be perfectly certain of retaining their autographs, accompanied by notes. This, however, is somewhat too expensive, as the friends of literary gentlemen are well aware; and the Rev. George Miller (who, by the way, is not the Irish doctor of that name) felt it much easier to have recourse to a bland and agreeable artifice whereby to extort the desiderated signatures. Under shapes as various as "old Proteus from the sea," he warily approached his distinguished correspondents, and suited his bait according to the swallow of the illustrious gudgeon for which he angled. To some he wrote for the

We have about five hundred of the letters lying before us; but as they in their total bulk would fill the Magazine, we are compelled to make a selection. It is highly possible that we shall continue the series. In the mean time we present our readers with the letters of

Bayly, Thomas Haynes.
Bulwer, Edward Lytton, M. P.
Bury, Lady Charlotte.
Carlile, Richard.

5. Coleridge, Samuel Taylor.

10.

15.

20.

25.

Croker, Right Hon. John Wilson, LL. D.
Croker, Thomas Crofton, A. S. S.

Croly, Rev. George, LL. D.

Cunningham, Allan.

Edgeworth, Maria.

Eldon, Right Hon. the Earl of.

Hallam, Henry.

Hogg, James.

Holmes, William, W. I.

Hook, Theodore Edward.

Hunt, Henry.

Irving, Washington.

Landon, Letitia Elizabeth, L. E. L.

Lockhart, John Gibson, LL. B.

Maginn, William, LL. D.

Martineau, Harriet.

Mitford, Mary Russell.

Moore, Thomas.

Norton, Hon. Caroline.

Porter, Anna Maria.

Proctor, Bryan William, alias Barry Cornwall.
Rogers, Samuel.

Shee, Sir Martin Archer, P. R. A.
Scott, Sir Walter, Bart.

30. Wilson, Professor John.

A tolerably extensive list-from Lord Eldon to Henry Hunt, from Sir Walter Scott to Lytton We publish Bulwer, from Coleridge to Carlile. them as they come to hand, with scarcely any attempt at classification; and the first that, as it were instinctively, clings to our fingers is that of

L. E. L.

I.-MISS LANDON.

The document of the fair L. E. L.-on this occasion really the Improvvisatrice-is as follows: 22 Hans Place.

Miss L. E. Landon's compliments to Mr. Miller, and thinks there must be some mistake in the note she received, as she knows nothing of the young person he mentioned.

But there is another Miss Landon in Sloane

street, and to her Miss L. E. Landon has enclosed

the notes.

Saturday-Miss Landon only returned home this morning.

II. HENRY HUNT.

Compare this with the vulgarian twaddle of the old Blacking-man. By the name !-in-door servant!—and, O ye gods! yours respectfully! He did not know but Miller might have a vote for Preston.

36, Stamford Street, Jan. 15, 183-. SIR,-In reply to your favor by twopenny-post, I beg to observe that I have no recollection of any person by the name of Thomas Stevens ever having lived with me in any capacity; but I am quite sure no such person has ever lived with me as in-door

"obliged;" she "loses no time in replying :" and, with the most Christian charity, suggests the probability of a mistake, for the sake of the young woman herself. How strange is all this squeamish conscientiousness for the grand humbugger of the Seagrave narrative! Such is human inconsistency. Esher, January 23.

SIR,-I lose no time in replying to your polite letter inquiring the character of a young woman, who calls herself Amelia Rogers, and describes herself as having once lived with me as a lady's-maid.

I must suppose that she has made some strange mistake, as I never had a servant of that name in any capacity; therefore am led to imagine, that one of the Miss Porters who live at Twickenham is the person she may have served. I trust, for the young woman's sake, that she has made such a mistake and that she has not designedly represented herself falsely.

of her statement.

It would have given me pleasure, could I have
replied satisfactorily to your inquiry as to the truth
I beg to remain, sir,
Yours obliged,

ANNA MARIA PORTER.

VI.-MISS MITFORD.

Our Village comes out of the scrape very well. The reference to "my father" is perfectly in

I beg you will therefore let me know the partic-keeping. ulars; and as I leave town in the middle of the day to-morrow, (Tuesday,) I hope you will contrive to let me hear from you before twelve o'clock. Your obedient servant, THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY.

Athenæum Club, Monday.

Three-Mile Cross, Monday,

SIR, I have no recollection whatever of any person of the name of Amelia Rily having lived with us as lady's-maid my father also says that he can remember no such name, and it is unlikely that a person filling such a situation should have been en

By the second, we learn that Mr. Bayly has had tirely forgotten in the family. I cannot but suspect a relay of footmen. Eheu !

Mr. Haynes Bayly presents his compliments to Mrs. Miller, regrets he can give her no information respecting James Deacon. He has had occasion to change footmen but once, and can therefore state without the possibility of mistake, that no person of that name ever lived with him.

Athenæum, Tuesday.

IV. GEORGE CROLY.

Dr. Croly judiciously recollects the apparent identity of his name with Crawley. There is something capital and characteristic in the slapdash manner in which he exonerates himself from the trouble of attempting to decipher the address of his correspondent.

some mistake in the affair, and should recommend a reference to the lady with whom the young woman in question lived last.

stories about the French.

Monday, January. SIR,-No servant by the name of Thomas Dea- SIR,-I am directed by Miss Harriet Martineau, con has lived with me. But there may have been to inform you that there is some mistake on the subsome mistake in the name, and there is a Mr. Craw-ject of Berthier's representation, as she never had ley who lives in the neighborhood, in Guilford street, the pleasure of visiting the Continent. who may be the person in question. I have not been quite able to ascertain your address, but have set down the name of your street at hazard.

I remain sir,

Your obedient servant,
GEORGE CROLY.

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