yet it has the rare merit of candour and impartiality, even when the writer is employed in exposing the want of those valuable qualities in such writers as Clarendon, Bates, Harris, and others, who received and circulated every slander against his ancestor, however fraught with falsehood and absurdity.

One feature in Cromwell's character cannot be too highly eulogized, and we entirely accord with the justice of the following remarks:

Cromwell's settled disapprobation of religious persecution adds no inconsiderable proof of the extraordinary greatness and comprehensiveness of his mind and understanding. He appears to have early and forcibly seen and adopted the great principle of the right of private judgment in matters of religion, contrary to, it is conceived may be said, the universal, opposite principle and practice of those times none of the religious sects and parties of those days had an idea of toleration; their contest was for power, which should be uppermost and rule the rest, without an apprehension of the justice of allowing their opponents their right of judging for themselves in a matter so highly important to their present and future interests; each sect had its uniformity act, and its consequent persecuting principle, which they enforced with the most rigid severity. This principle Cromwell opposed with all his power; and there is not an instance, in his whole history, of his voluntary disturbance of merely religious opinions.

Hence, from this principle of disapprobation of religious persecution, would naturally arise his determination to interpose in behalf of the oppressed Vaudois. Neal observes, that the Protector's zeal for the reformed religion made him the refuge of persecuted Protestants in all parts of the world.'

It was in the year 1654 that the Duke of Savoy confirmed to his Protestant subjects, the Piedmontese, all their religious and civil privileges: but, in gross violation of the articles which he had himself proposed and ratified, these poor people were in the very next year (25 January, 1655) directed to quit their estates and property within three days of the publication of the edict, and to be transported, together with their families, to other places, at the pleasure of the Duke, on pain of death and confiscation of houses and goods, if they did not make it appear within twenty days that they had become Catholics. After a fruitless solicitation for mercy to this sovereign monster of the valleys, these persecuted Protestants quitted their houses and goods, and retired with their wives and children, young and old, healthy and sick, lame, blind, and infirm, through rain, and snow, and ice! In the following April, a large army entered their devoted territories, and pillaged and laid waste their country. Those who remained, and refused to be converted, together with their wives and children, suffered a most barbarous massacre; and the rest fled into the mountains, whence they sent agents into England to Cromwell for relief. Now was he truly a guardian angel and "Protector;" he instantly commanded a general fast, and promoted a national contribution, by which nearly forty thousand pounds were collected; he gave two thousand pounds for his own share; and, which was more, he concerned himself in

the dicffult duty of seeing that it was faithfully and judiciously applied. Entirely in consequence of his prompt exertions, the persecution was suspended, the Duke recalled his army, and the surviving inhabitants of the Piedmontese valleys were re-instated in their cottages, and the peaceful exercise of their religion. On this glorious occasion for the exercise of his power and beneficence, Cromwell stood in the proudest attitude of command. He sent to Mazarin, desiring him to put a stop to the persecution, for he knew well that the French court had the Duke in its power, and could restrain him if it pleased; adding that, if it did not, he must presently break with it. Mazarin promised to do good offices, though it was impossible for him to answer for the effects which they might have. This did not satisfy Cromwell; and the Duke was at last compelled by Mazarin through Cromwell's threat, to arrest his fury. Relative to this business we have several state-letters, written by Milton, who threw his whole heart and soul into it. He also wrote a "Sonnet on the Massacre at Piedmont ;" and in the course of a long historical article we may relieve our readers and ourselves by transcribing it for their perusal. When somebody remarked to Dr. Johnson that the author of "Paradise Lost" could not write a good sonnet: "No," said Johnson; "nature endowed Milton with a mighty genius; he was born to hew a colossal figure from the rock, and not to carve faces upon cherry-stones." Yet, when Milton's feelings were roused, he could breathe even into a sonnet the inspiration of his muse:

"On the late Massacre in Piedmont.

"Avenge, O Lord! thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old
When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones,

Forget not! In thy book record their groans

Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans

The vales redoubled to the hills, and they

To Heaven! Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth sway

The Triple Tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundred fold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.”

Cromwell sent over to Geneva Sir William Morland, as commissioner-extraordinary for the affairs of the valleys of Piedmont; who collected with great pains and industry all the particulars of this religious butchery, and published an account of it in folio, with numerous cuts. One of the prints records a circumstance introduced by Milton in the above sonnet, and explains his allusion. Morland relates that "a mother was hurled down a mighty rock, with a little infant in her arms; and three days

after, was found dead with the little childe alive, but fast clasped between the arms of the dead mother, which were cold and stiffe, insomuch that those who found them had much ado to get the young childe out."

The same high and noble spirit was manifested by Cromwell in favour of the Huguenots at Nismes: who, on the apprehension of similar atrocities, sent a messenger over to him or protection. He ordered the messenger back to Paris in an hour's time, with a letter of peremptory instructions to his own ambassador. Mazarin again complained of these imperious proceedings: but Cromwell was not to be moved; and the Cardinal again yielded to the necessity imposed on him. These deeds have immortalized the memory of Cromwell in the valleys of Piedmont. Nismes and the south of France have witnessed a similar persecution of the Protestants in very late years, and found no Cromwell to frown or Mazarin to tremble.*

The Protector died at Hampton Court, 3d September, 1658, in the full possession of his faculties, and perfectly calm and composed; a tranquillity that, no doubt, says his biographer, was owing to his unconsciousness of those crimes which his enemies have so heavily loaded him.

Mr. Cromwell enters into a very elaborate defence of his ancestor against the charges of enthusiasm and hypocrisy. Cromwell,' says he,' was certainly a religious professor, and nothing has appeared to prove him other than a really religious character.' Where enthusiasm governs, no hypocrisy can be mani fested they may co-exist in the same person, but they cannot rise into activity or even co-exist on the same occasion. The question is, Did Cromwell, for political purposes effect a greater degree of zeal and warmth in religion than he felt? He was frequent, and it is to be hoped, fervent in prayer; having, we are told, the greatest assurance of its immediate efficacy; and certainly a heated imagination is no crime in itself:—but did he never affect, for political purposes also a greater indifference in religious matters than he felt? If he did, the hypocrisy is equal in both cases. When he takes God to witness,—thus sanctioning his affirmation by a solemn oath," that he would rather have lived under his wood-side, and kept a flock of sheep than undertaken such a government as this is," we cannot believe that he spoke truth. It appears from Burnet that, when his godly friends were closetted with him, he would talk of the Deists as Heathens and Infidels, closing his conferences by a long prayer; and this as it seems to us, for a political purpose, namely, to keep on good terms with them: with the same view as, when with the Deists, he would make a jest of his said

A detailed history of these recent attrocities has just been published, by Mr. Wilkes, and will soon attract our notice.

godly friends, namely, to keep on terms with the Deists also. Rapin, as we have before said, lets him off gently for practising this sort of management on the several parties who were all and equally his enemies: but is it not hypocritical, is it not criminal, to make long prayers like the Pharisees of old, for a pretence, whether a man aims by such means to devour widows' houses, or to juggle a political party?

It is said that Cromwell maintained the honour of the Engglish nation in all foreign countries; and that, though not a crowned head, his ambassadors had all the respect paid to them which our King's ambassadors ever obtained. All Italy trembled at his name: his fleet scoured the Mediterranean; and the Turks, from fear of offending him, delivered up Hide, who retained the character of an ambassador for the King, and was brought over and executed for it. In the body-politic or in the body-natural, however, says Mrs. Macaulay, (whose history seems altogether to have escaped the attention of Mr. Cromwell,) the first decline of a robust constitution is not attended with any great degree of visible weakness. Civil contention, that nursery for martial prowess, had produced a warlike spirit in the English, which must give at least a temporary strength to any government :-those commanders, who had fought with a neverfailing success under the banners of a commonwealth, could not forget the art of conquering after its extinction ;-and England though declining in its power from the first period of the usurpation, was more than a match for nations that were enervated by the effects of long established tyrannies. It was during the short period in which the power of England had been supported by the energy of the republican government which was overthrown by Cromwell, that it had become the terror of all Europe. To republics, says Mrs. Macaulay, the object of envy, to monarchs of hatred, and to both of fear, it was assiduously courted by all the states of Europe. London was full of ambassadors, endeavouring, for their respective superiors, to excuse past demerits, to renew former treaties, and to court stricter alliances. It was under the republic, also, that the whole commerce of the Dutch was cut off in the Channel, and impeded in the Baltic; that their fisheries were totally suspended; and that above sixteen hundred of their ships were taken. To facilitate the establishment of his usurpation, Cromwell concluded a peace with the Dutch, which gave up all the splendid advantages and superiority that the nation had acquired by a successful and glorious war; and thus is he distinctly charged by the historian with having sacrificed to selfish considerations the power and interest of the country.

We cannot, however, pursue the subject farther; and we must take our leave of the present author, thanking him for the valuable addition which he has made to our historical literature.

The last chapter is devoted to the lives of Richard and Henry Cromwell, but we have not space for any discussion of them. Portraits are given of the Protector, his wife, and the sons.

ART. V.-History of Europe; from the treaty of Paris, in 1815. Continued from p. 136.

CHAP. III.-ENGLAND. Causes of the British Expedition to Algiers. Sir Sidney Smith's Proposal to the Congress of Vienna.Negociatious of Sir Thomas Maitland and Lord Exmouth in the early part of this year. Massacre of Bona.-Expedition under Lord Exmouth and Admiral Van de Capellen.—Bombardment of Algiers.-Terms of Treaty with the Dey-Reflections.

WHEN the representatives of the European nations were assembled together at Vienna, after the first effectual humiliation of the power of France, their attention was speedily and naturally directed towards the situation of Barbary, from the coasts of which three separate armaments of half savage banditti still continued to infest the Mediterranean sea, and so to keep awake, in a meaner and more cruel shape, the energies of war, elsewhere happily asleep for a season throughout the civilized portion of the world. Sir Sidney Smith, whose long and glorious successes in the Mediterranean had introduced him to a perfect knowledge of the atrocious system thus persisted in by the Moorish pirates, took the lead in exciting among the assembled Princes of Christendom, a sense of the necessity for taking some effectual step towards putting an end to a spectacle so disgraceful. The sudden manner in which the Congress of Vienna broke up prevented any definite arrangement from being agreed upon at the moment; but the impression produced upon the public mind had been too deep to be speedily erased, and after the events of 1815 had once again restored tranquility to the continent, a very general expectation prevailed, that the outrages of these barbarian enemies would at last draw down upon their heads some signal and effectual chastisement.

After the conclusion of the general peace in 1814, the States of Tunis and Algiers were induced to increase their establishment of corsair vessels, in consequence of the favourable change which had occurred in regard to freedom of commerce; and the ravages committed by them in the course of that year, were more than sufficient to confirm the British nation, in the opinion already entertained, respecting the necessity of checking them by some just infliction of punishment. Sensible, however that the chief part of any injuries, intended for the guilty Janizaries, would infallibly fall to the share of the comparatively innocent Moorish population, the ministers were willing, if possible, to