stancy and sublimity of his end have added in no small degree. The equality of mind with which he met every reverse of fortune, his magnanimous meekness contrasted with the dastardly exultation of his adversaries, the silent anguish of his heart which changed the hair to grey "upon his discrowned head," but was unable to alter the character of his soul, are images which fill, and will continue to fill our minds with much loftier conceptions of grandeur, than the pomp and dignity with which the great transaction of his trial and condemnation is coupled in the contemplations both of Mr. Fox and Mr. Hume. Nor can we help being greatly surprised that any person should consider the court which condemned him as consisting of the delegates of a great people, sitting in judgment on their supreme magistrate, after having characterized them as the ministers of an usurper.

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Of this usurper Mr. Fox speaks in terms of gentle reproach, scarcely, we think, rising to the level of his character. Upon the whole," says he, "the character of Cromwell must ever stand high in the list of those who raised themselves to supreme power by the force of genius. And among such, even in respect of moral virtue, it would be found to be one of the least exceptionable, if it had not been tainted with that most odious and degrading of all human vices, hypocrisy."

For ourselves we are inclined to believe, that in the early part of Cromwell's life, and even in the out-set of his political career, he might be sincere in his religious professions.

It is inward pravity which generates hypocrisy,-the conflict between our secret inclinations and the awe of man. It is not to be supposed that there is, substantively, any natural propensity to play the hypocrite for hypocrisy's sake. It is a vice which grows out of situation and habit. In Cromwell it probably proceeded from his inordinate ambition, which being unable to overcome the influence of religion, or entirely to wrest it from its early hold upon his fears, or imagination, succeeded at length in turning it into a subserviency to its own purposes. And we may learn from this instance, among others, that the best way to avoid hypocrisy, is to preserve the mind free from the pollutions of vice, and that inward corruption, which makes us cowards before man, and traitors to God. That Cromwell was a base hypocrite cannot be doubted; but it seems less proper to say, that his hypocrisy tainted his moral character, than that it was the natural companion of his other vices, and, particularly, of his cruel and aspiring temper. We shall not, for we have neither room nor inclination for it, enter into the character of this extraordinary man, for extraordinary he certainly was; but when it is considered that Cromwell practised all the usual methods

of sanguinary ambition, and coupled with these the odious vice of hypocrisy, it will appear that Mr. Fox has laid upon him a very gentle hand, displaying the temper of an apologist in the execution of historical justice. And this again we cannot help considering as a consequence of Mr. Fox's party politics, which, as we have before observed, are so apt to place between the mind, and almost every subject of public consideration, a distorting and discoloring medium.

Mr. Fox, on the subject of the popish plot, declares the whole affair to be disgraceful to the nation. He thinks it a shocking transaction; but he inclines" to impute to the greater part of those concerned in it, rather an extraordinary degree of blind credulity, than the deliberate wickedness of planning, and assisting in, the perpetration of legal murder." We do not dispute the candour and fairness of this reasoning, but we cannot help thinking it probable that Mr. Fox, if his mind had been politically disengaged, would have marked with more distinctness, that the whigs ought to be greater sharers in the opprobrium, whether more or less, of that transaction, than any other public characters of that day.

Mr. Fox takes particular pains to shew, that the belief of the plot was universal; and observes, that the unanimous votes of the two houses of parliament, and the names, as well as the numbers, of those who pronounced Lord Strafford to be guilty, seem to put this beyond doubt. But can it be imagined that a persuasion so absurd would have become so general through the nation, if the voice of party had been mute, and no political industry had been on foot to promote it? Can it be imagined, that the treatment of Lord Strafford was the mere result of this blind credulity, and that the behaviour even of Russell himself, in respect to that nobleman, was the pure offspring of this infatuated belief? We are certainly not among those who think that the plot was a story fabricated by Lord Shaftesbury, and the whig party; but can it be doubted that advantage was taken by party-men of the general belief of it, or that it was adopted as a political weapon against the tories, by many whose minds were too strong to listen to a tale, "so impossible to be true, that it ought not to have been believed if it had come from the mouth of Cato." It adds some little, we think, to the force of these observations, that Mr. Fox in another place says that, 66 upon reviewing the two great parties of the nation, one observation forcibly occurs, and that is, that the great strength of the whigs consisted in their being able to brand their adversaries as favourers of popery." And we cannot help producing the rest of a passage which contains no unprofitable lesson, if well under

stood and applied. "That of the tories," continues Mr. Fox, "(as far as their strength depended upon opinion, and not merely upon the power of the crown) in their finding colour to represent the whigs as republicans. From this observation we may draw a farther inference, that in proportion to the rashness of the crown, in avowing and pressing forward the cause of popery, and to the moderation and steadiness of the whigs in adhering to the form of monarchy, would be the chance of the people of England of changing an ignominious despotism, for glory, liberty, and happiness."

The subject of the invasion by Argyle and Monmouth called forth the most animated exertions of Mr. Fox's genius. It is, doubtless, written with considerable interest. The characters of the two leaders are drawn with much discriminative force; and great acuteness is shewn in the investigation and comparison of facts, and authorities; but we cannot help being again of opinion, that the tenor of this more laboured part of the work affords similar indications of party habits and associations.

No one can despise more than ourselves the nonsensical and almost blasphemous doctrine of the divine right of kings, and the obligation of the subject to passive obedience; and we most heartily hold to the opinion, that all magistracy is for the people's good. With respect, however, to the justification, which the times afforded to the resistance of Argyle and Monmouth, we doubt, with Burnet, whether, upon the whole, the misgovernment of James was of a nature to justify the sort of resistance made to it by Argyle and Monmouth. We so far agree with Mr. Fox, as to think, that the probability of success arising from the favourableness of the juncture, and the definiteness of the objects in contemplation, nay, further, the probability of ultimate settlement, after the attainment of the primary purposes, ought all to be weighed together in estimating the justifiableness of resistance. It is by these considerations that we are led to disapprove of the enterprize of Argyle and Monmouth, and to hold it unworthy to be compared with the great and well-concerted scheme, by which, in three years afterwards, the national recovery from popery and arbitrary power was finally accomplished.

We must however confess, that we do not entirely approve of the manner in which Mr. Fox treats the question of resistance. We have in a former article expressed our opinion that it is a question which, after the competency to resistance, under supposeable circumstances of provocation, has been once well established by precedent, ought to be very sparingly and guardedly discussed, lest by familiarizing it to the thoughts, it may, by degrees, come to present itself as too feasible in practice-as a cor

rective remedy, rather than as a desperate resource. It appears to us that the point is discussed by Mr. Fox too much as a question of expediency. In considering the prudence, or imprudence, by which such a measure may be characterized, he seems, a little, to lose sight of the importance of representing it as worse than unjustifiable, unless on occasions manifestly involving the existence of our fundamental liberties, and after every constitutional resource has been tried in vain.

Though Mr. Hume appears to us to have carried the necessity of silence in respect to this ultimate and extraordinary jurisdiction of the body of the people somewhat too far, we cannot but agree with him that as all legitimate "government is founded on opinion, not on force, it is dangerous to weaken, by these speculations, the reverence which the multitude owe to authority, and to instruct them before-hand that the case can ever happen, when they may be freed from their duty of allegiance. Or should it be found impossible to restrain the licence of human disquisitions, it must be acknowledged that the doctrine of obedience ought alone to be inculcated, and that the exceptions, which are rare, ought seldom or never to be mentioned in popular reasonings and discourses. Nor is there any danger that mankind, by this prudent reserve, should universally degenerate into a state of abject servitude. When the exception really occurs, even though it be not previously expected or descanted upon, it must, from its very nature, be so obvious and undisputed, as to remove all doubt, and overpower the restraint, however great, imposed by teaching the general doctrine of obedience."

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We might, if we were not afraid of trespassing too long upon our readers, support our reflections on the strong political bias under which Mr. Fox appears to have written his history, by the duction of numerous other instances more or less striking; but we feel sensible that it is time to bring these observations to a close. We cannot, however, avoid adverting to the charge, with which Mr. Fox's work has a tendency to load the memory of Clarendon, of being privy to the king's receiving money from Lewis the Fourteenth. This degrading surmise is thrown out upon mere hearsay, in one negligent sentence of the work: nor does the historian think it worth while to bestow a page upon the consideration of its title to be believed. He contents himself with saying that, so it is said, but what proofs exist of this charge he confesses he knows not. As little can we avoid a comment upon the smooth and tranquil manner in which the infamy of those whig ministers who were personally and actively engaged in these base money transactions with the French court is touched upon. As it was impossible to extricate them from the obloquy of the

fact, an apology is made for them in language which heavily and awkwardly performs the task, by laying the blame on the times, rather than the men themselves. To such difficulties are even the most candid reduced, when, insensibly to themselves, they are viewing the conduct of men through the medium of party prejudices.

For the poor bishops who attended Monmouth on the scaffold, and who appear in Mr. Fox's work in colours so odious, though we are far from approving their conduct altogether, yet something we think might be urged in mitigation. If the cha racter and condition of the times are to bear a part of the reproach of men's political or moral misconduct, (and in the case of Sunderland, Churchill, and Godolphin, Mr. Fox was of opinion that it should,) we crave a little of the same allowance for bishops of the established church, who, living in times anterior to the full practical development of religious toleration and christian liberty, and before the prejudices in favour of divine right and non-resistance had given way to free discussion, and a more reasonable application of scriptural maxims, might be somewhat over-strenuous and pertinacious in pressing a recantation on these points upon the conscience of Monmouth, without deserving all the censure and contempt with which this historian has treated them. That they were political bigots we do not deny, but their mistakes in conduct may not have arisen from want of compassion, still less from the spirit of that church to which they shewed themselves, in a few years afterwards, so disinterestedly attached, but from an anxiety, however in some particulars misdirected, for the general state of the soul of one, who was so soon to be removed above the reach of earthly compassion, to a crisis more important in the view of these well-meaning servants of the church. Nor let it be forgotten, though Mr. Fox seems scarcely to have recollected it, that though Monmouth was gentle, brave, and sincere, he had been long indulging a criminal intercourse with another woman, (while his duchess was living) and avowed it on the scaffold without any expression of remorse.

On the whole, therefore, we feel ourselves compelled to declare an opinion contrary to that of the learned serjeant, on the general question of Mr. Fox's impartiality, in the conduct of his otherwise excellent production. We think his history was written, in a great measure, (nor do we take upon ourselves to condemn the motive,) to be the vehicle of an immortal eulogy upon the whigprinciples. We most devoutly hope, that those who now claim the inheritance of this proud distinction will acknowledge an obligation to confirm by their conduct the testimony of their great leader and organ, who, in apologizing for Monmouth's opposition