It is of the republicans or commonwealths-men that it is the purpose of this work especially to treat. They were a set of men new in this country; and they may be considered as having become extinct at the Revolution in 1688. It will not be the object of these pages to treat them, as has so often been done, with indiscriminate contumely. They were, many of them, men of liberal minds, and bountifully endowed with the treasures of intellect. That their enterprise terminated in miscarriage is certain; and a falling party is seldom spoken of with sobriety or moderation by the party that is victorious. Their enterprise might be injudicious: the English intellect and moral feeling were probably not sufficiently ripe for a republican government; it may be that a republican government would at no time be a desirable acquisition for the people of this country. But the men may be worthy of our admiration, whose cause has not prospered; and the tragic termination of a tale will often not on that account render the tale less instructive, or less interesting to a sound and judicious observer.'..

The republican party in England dates its origin from the early campaigns of the civil war, and did not become wholly extinct till the Revolution in 1688. But, as a party having an important influence in political affairs, their extinction may be referred to the period of the Restoration. Their indications of life afterwards were futile and fitful, like the final flashes and struggles of an expiring flame.'

All troublous times have a manifest tendency to the production of character; but it was the distinction of England's Civil War, that it called forth lofty character. Admiration, intense admiration of the men and their exalted qualities, by no means includes approbation of all their actions. But even where we feel least inclined to go along with them in their acts or arguments, we have no hesitation in admitting their conscientious conviction that the principles by which they were guided, were just and right. Of Cromwell we are not now speaking. In the moral composition of that eminent leader, there were anomalies difficult of solution; but, while we condemn his usurpation, and the means by which he manoeuvred his way to power, no impartial person can be insensible to the splendid qualities which distinguished him; to his true English feeling, his public spirit, and his large and liberal views of civil and ecclesiastical policy. Nor was it in the heat and storm of. those tempestuous times only, that the illustrious men of that age were called forward. The period immediately preceding was remarkably fertile in political geuius. Coke and Selden are names, inferior in true lustre to none recorded in the annals of their country. Of the former, it is well observed by Mr. Godwin, that the peculiarities of his mind seem never to have ⚫ been justly appreciated.'

• Sir Edward Coke seems to be universally admitted to be the

great oracle of the laws of England. He rose through the various stations of Speaker of the House of Commons, Solicitor-general, Attorney-general, Chief-justice of the Common Pleas, and Chiefjustice of the King's Bench, by merit only, without employing, in the progress of his elevation, as he himself expressed it, either prayers or pence." It was his saying, when the duties of that high office were not so well ascertained as they have since been, that " a judge should neither take nor give a bribe." Sir Edward Coke had the honour to be the first great lawyer, who set himself in opposition to the enormous prerogatives then claimed by the Crown. Having, in 1615 and 1616, thwarted King James in his unlimited pretensions three several times, he was, in the latter of these years, removed from the place of Chief-justice of the King's Bench, Lord Chancellor Ellesmere affirming to him on the occasion, that he was too popular for a judge. In the parliament of 1621, he took a spirited part in the debates against arbitrary imprisonment; and when that assembly was dissolved, he was committed to the Tower, his papers and securities seized, and a suit was commenced against him by the Crown for a pretended debt of thirty thousand pounds. But the last great act of Sir Edward Coke's life was the framing the Petition of Right, which was endued with the form of a law in the parliament of 1628. The purpose of this measure was, to forbid the imposing any gift, loan, benevolence, or tax to the king, without the authority of parliament, to declare that no subject shall be detained in prison without having the power to claim his deliverance by due course of law, to abolish the arbitrary billeting of soldiers, and to condemn the proceeding against any of the subjects of the realm by martial law during a time of peace. Sir Edward Coke was fourscore years of age at the time of passing this law, and he lived six years longer. It is impossible to review these proceedings, without feeling that the liberties of Englishmen are perhaps to no man so deeply indebted as to Sir Edward Čoke.'

Of all the actual originators of the grand contest for civil Jand religious freedom, Hampden stood the highest. Gentle, yet intrepid, just and disinterested beyond the possibility of bias or allurement, popular, but firm, cool, discerning, prompt, and decided, he commanded the suffrages of all. His acute faculties, his consummate judgement, and his determined enterprise, secured to him the implicit confidence and support of those with whom he acted, and extorted the reluctant homage to his talents and integrity of those whom he opposed. David Hume-it was fitting that such a man should sneer at John Hampden-when adverting to the attempted emigration of this illustrious man, in company with Pym, Cromwell, Hazelrig, and other patriots, permitted himself to say, that he' resolved to fly to the other extremity of the globe, where he and his friends might enjoy lectures and discourses of any length or form which pleased them.' And such miserable trash as this

passes current as legitimate history-the popular and accredited history of England! No. Hampden and his companions sought to flee from civil and religious tyranny, dark, subtle, and intolerant. They would fain have reached an asylum from grievances and vexations, galling to minds like theirs. They served God, and this of itself entitled them to the antipathy of the unbeliever. They held it in abhorrence that despotism should lord it over the minds and consciences of men;" and this has drawn down upon them the empty sarcasm of the servile apologist for tyranny. Hume elsewhere remarks, that 'the prevalence of the Presbyterian sect in the parliament, 'discovered itself from the beginning, by insensible, but deci"sive symptoms. Marshall and Burgess, two puritanical clergy'men, were chosen to preach before them, and entertained them with discourses seven hours in length.' Mr. Godwin's reply to this false statement is direct and unanswerable.

• The most considerable of the parliament sermons were printed, and I believe there is scarcely one of them that would occupy more than one hour in the delivery.?'

Hampden was looked up to by all, as the great pilot whose counsels were to ensure safety in the difficult course which the party who stood for the Commonwealth, had determined on pursuing. He it was who, in the general opinion, could draw the just line between the destructive extremes of popular license and despotic rule; and it was a fine illustration of his character, that when a negotiation was in progress between the King and the leaders of the Long Parliament, for placing the administration in the hands of the latter, the office chosen by Hampden, was that of tutor to the prince of Wales. He sacrificed the pride of high place and power, to the nobler but less signalizing task of forming the mind of the future possessor of empire, for its adequate exercise. The early loss of Hampden and Pym was irreparable. The latter was worthy to range with the former in the front rank of the assertors of liberty; and the death of both in 1643, was one of the greatest disasters that could befal the Commonwealth. They were succeeded by Vane, St. John, and Cromwell, as the efficient leaders of the patriotic party. ? Y, -,,!}

On the King's side, the only distinguished statesman was Lord Strafford, and he was a deserter from the popular cause. To say nothing of the baseness of the act by which his royal master gave him up to death, it was grossly impolitic. Charles lost his only effective counsellor when he abandoned Strafford. But this was one of the many instances of fatal inconsistency, which led him at all times to concede when firmness was re

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quisite, and to be obstinate when a judicious flexibility would have rescued him from embarrassment. Mr. Godwin defends the proceedings of the Parliament in the prosecution and condemnation of Strafford; but his pleading rests on principles which appear to us fraught with the most pernicious consequences. He grounds his apology on the necessity of the case, on the safety of the realm, and on the dangerous position, that law is made for man, and not man for the law.' He suggests that

Hampden, Pym, and the great men who then consulted together for the public welfare, understood the character of the king, and of all the parties concerned with him, better than we can pretend to do. They foresaw the probability of a civil war. They foresaw, which was more than this, the various schemes that would be formed for dispersing the parliament by force of arms, and they knew that Strafford would prove the most inventive and audacious undertaker for this nefarious purpose. Whatever engagements Charles had entered into," of removing Strafford from his presence and councils for ever," he would have considered these as annulled the moment the sword was drawn.............There was undoubtedly no man in the service of the king, who for talents or energy could enter into the slightest competition with Strafford. Hampden and Pym, and their allies, judged they did wisely, and acted like true patriots, by removing this obstacle before the contention began.'

In other words, they acted on that most mischievous of principles, political expediency. On that ground, and on no other, they are defensible. That they were conscientious in their conduct, we firmly believe, as well as that they had the strongest possible plea, short of positive enactment. But, on this point, we are quite in agreement with Mr. Fox, in the introduction to his admirable historical fragment, that, although Strafford was doubtless a great delinquent, and well deserved the severest punishment, nothing short of a clearly proved 'case of self-defence can justify, or even excuse, a departure from the sacred rules of criminal justice. For it can rarely indeed happen, that the mischief to be apprehended from suffering any criminal, however guilty, to escape, can be equal to that resulting from the violation of those rules to which 'the innocent owe the security of all that is dear to them.'.... When a man is once in a situation to be tried, and his person is in the power of his accusers and his judges, he can no longer be formidable in that degree which alone can justify (if any thing can) the violation of the substantial rules of criminal proceedings.' Mr. Godwin's answer to this clear and cogent statement, amounts to little more than that Hampden and his associates judged otherwise.'

The subsequent condemnation of Archbishop Laud, which was sustained on the same principles as those that gave plausibility to the attainder of Strafford, is considered by Mr. Godwin as a far less justifiable act. The prelate, he thinks, was sufficiently punished by his fall from power, and his consequent sufferings: it would have been enough to have dismissed him to obscurity and contempt.' Mr. G. attributes his destruction to the Scots, to the Presbyterians, and to the resentment of an individual who had formerly been the subject of his barbarity, the celebrated Prynne.'

We naturally turned with some curiosity to those sections of the present volume, which contain the Author's opinions on the religious questions that divided and agitated the Long Parliament and the Assembly of Divines. As the larger portion of our readers will probably sympathize with us in this particular, we shall extract rather extensively. After affirming the innocence of error in that sense, that the dissemination ' of opinions and arguments, where all are free to maintain, to 'examine, and to refute, can scarcely be injurious to the community,' Mr. G. thus proceeds.

'Among the great geniuses and profound politicians of this memorable period, there were a few who could look with a steady eye into the future, could measure the limbs and muscles of the human mind, and could see what man in a state of liberty could do and sustain, and what were likely to be the results of all he could suffer, and all he could effect. They viewed controversy and intellectual contention as the road to substantial peace and genuine vigour. They saw that liberty of disquisition was the wholesome element in which intellect refines; that, to weigh and discern truth from falsehood, the scales which are employed in the trial must be freely poised, and that there can be no real conscience, and no pure religion, where religion and conscience are not permitted to act without restraint.

But what is scarcely less worthy of notice, there was at this time, a sect of Christians, penetrated with the fervours of the most earnest zeal, the Independents, who maintained nearly the same tenets on this subject with the party last mentioned. They were led to the conclusions they adopted, by somewhat of a different process. Like the Presbyterians, they cordially disapproved of the pomp and hierarchy of the church of England. But they went further. They equally disapproved of the synods, provincial and general, the classes and incorporations of presbytery, a system scarcely less complicated, though infinitely less dazzling, than that of diocesan episcopacy. They held, that a church was a body of Christians assembled in one place appropriated for their worship, and that every such body was complete in itself, that they had a right to draw up the rules by which they thought proper to be regulated, and that no man not a member of their assembly, and no body of men, was entitled to interfere with