History of the Commonwealth of England, from its Commencement to the Restoration of Charles the Second. By W.

Godwin. Vol. 4. Colburn. 1828.

THIS able and interesting work is now complete. The first volume appeared in 1824. We expressed, in February 1825, our emphatic approbation of that first volume, and our hope that the remainder of the work would be written with the same dignified impartiality and exemplary care. Our expec

tations have been more than realized. Each successive volume has surpassed its predecessor; and now, that the whole is before us, we hesitate not to pronounce it one of the most candid, complete, and instructive histories which our language contains. We could point out several works of modern production, more eloquent and ambitious in their style, more dramatic in their description, and more stimulating and romantic in their effects upon the reader. But we could point to no modern work of history, which displays, in such happy combination, perspicuity, simplicity, and truth. The era which the author undertook to describe, was one which, above all others of English annals, was obscured and perplexed by malignant falsehoods and party bigotry. A long line of historians, each on the authority of his predecessor, had told the same tales, and given forth the same false comments; while the bias of public opinion and feeling, seemed to prohibit all attempts to investigate the accuracy and the justness of things so firmly believed, because so constantly affirmed. No period of English history was ever so unfortunate, in the influence of the

was

to

events that followed-none ever so difficult to describe, from the character of the men, and the complicated nature of their politics: and hence, none has been so thoroughly mistaken, so generally misrepresented. But truth is at length triumphant. It will now be impossible for future ages to think of the Commonwealth of England as Hume and Clarendon would dictate. Their mistakes and slanders have been ably exposed. The subjection of the minds of these distinguished writers the prejudices of their political creeds, totally disqualified them for the exercise of impartial justice towards a generation of men the most intellectual, and the most conscientious which England ever possessed; but who were plunged into unforeseen difficulties by their honest and magnanimous love of liberty. We could wish all our countrymen, and countrywomen too, to read this work. It is replete with instruction, and is calculated to leave the very purest and noblest impressions upon the mind. It is not our intention to enter at large into its merits, nor shall we expatiate upon the general characteristics of the age, and the agents of the Commonwealth. is a part of our history which has special claim upon the intellectual and the religious. Both these classes will find it rich in materials, adapted to their improvement and gratification. We have, on former occasions, fully expressed our opinions of the great men, and great events of that age, and shall not here resume the subject. We must, however, afford our readers a specimen or two of the contents of this volume. Our first extract

It

shall relate to the liberal and enlightened policy of Cromwell, with respect to the Jews. He was the first man, for four centuries, who had ventured to attempt any melioration of their civil and political condition. Mr. Godwin has set the subject in a clear and interesting light. The following extract will be read with pleasure by all who regard that extraordinary race, as having still an interest in unaccomplished prophecy, and a heritage in better blessings than they have been wont to seek.

"A noble design formed by Cromwel at this time was in relation to the people of the Jews. They were detested through the Christian world, as the murderers of the Son of God; and the superstition of the dark ages caused this sentiment to show itself in the most unheard of barbarities, and an unrelenting persecution. The peculiarities of this race of men, their singular diet and customs, and their striking physiognomy, kept alive the hatred, and aided the proscription. Yet they were the most industrious and sharp-sighted of mankind. As, by the laws of Europe, they could possess no land, and arrive at no public honours, and as it was morally impossible they should acquire the commendation, or the love of any of the nations among whom they sojourned, they resolved to aspire to what was still within their reach, wealth, and whatever by the conventions of society represented wealth, whether coin, or any of those bonds, contracts, and written engagements, which are held sacred among mankind.

66

They were banished from England in the year 1290; and from that time no body of Jews, formed into a community, could be found within our dominions. After the lapse of 365 years, Cromwel determined to signalise himself by putting an end to this proscription. It was an enterprise worthy of his character. His comprehensive mind enabled him to take in all its recommendations, and all its advantages. The liberality of his disposition, and his avowed attachment to the cause of toleration, rendered it an adventure becoming him to achieve. As a man, he held that no human being should be proscribed among his fellow men for the accident of his birth. As a Christian, who looked forward in the faith of prophecy, for the conversion of these our elder brethren, in the rejec

tion of polytheism, he knew that kind treatment and impartial justice supplied our best instrument for subduing their prejudices. And as a statesman, he was aware how useful the Jews might be made to the nation, as the medium of commerce, and to the government, as a means of correspondence, the communicators of valuable information, and the divulgers of secrets, with which it might be

important for them to be acquainted. "How the intercourse began between

him, and the objects of his liberality, we are not fully informed. The first thing distinctly noticed on the subject is, that a certain Menasseh Ben Israel, by birth a Portuguese Jew, but established in Holland, and one of the Chiefs of the Synagogue at Amsterdam, came over to England in the close of the year, to negociate with Cromwel on the subject. He was the most learned man of his nation, and universally respected, counting among his friends Huetius, Bochart, and Barlæus. Thomas Pocock, the son of the celebrated orientalist, who wrote the life of Menasseh, describes him as a man in whom passion and fickleness had no sway, but who was little blessed with the goods of fortune.

"He arrived in Oct. (1655), and im mediately after published a tract, entitled a humble address to the Lord Protector, in behalf of the Jewish nation.

"Cromwel received him with much distinction, and speedily appointed a conference of lawyers, citizens, and preachers to meet at Whitehall, to consider the propositions of Menasseh. This assembly sat four times in the month of December. The desires expressed by Menasseh were, first, for the protection of the government to his countrymen, who might be willing to reside in England; secondly, that they might have a synagogue in London; thirdly, for a cemetery; fourthly, that they might be allowed freedom of trade; fifthly, that they might be permitted to determine processes among themselves, with liberty, if either party pleased, of appealing to the civil courts of the country, the party appealing, depositing first the amount of the sum in dispute, and engaging to abide the sentence of the English judges; and sixthly, a revocation of such laws as might be found in existence that were hostile to these privileges.

"The persons appointed to sit on these propositions were Chief Justice Glyn, and Chief Baron Steele, with the Lord Mayor Dethick, the two Sheriffs, two of the Aldermen, Park and Tichbourne, and the Master of the Charter-house. The clergy were Owen, Godwin, Wilkin

son, Nye, Cudworth, Whitchcot, and eight others; to whom were afterwards added, Hugh Peters, Peter Sterry, and Bulkley, Provost of Eton College, Chief Justice St. John also appears to have been called in; and Cromwel's Council assisted at the debates.

"The Protector himself took a considerable part in these conferences. Sir Paul Ricant, who was then a young man, and had pressed in among the crowd, said, he never heard a man speak so well as Cromwel did on this occasion. The conferences, however, came to nothing. The citizens were divided in their opinions; but most of the divines were adverse to the measure, and produced text after text against it with unremitting assiduity. Cromwel therefore judged it expedient to put an end to their deliberations.

"But though baffled in this, and not thinking it right, under these circumstances, to grant the Jews that open establishment which he had meditated, he was not thus to be turned aside from his purpose. He granted to several of them a dispensation to come and reside in London, and from that time they built a synagogue, and formed themselves into a sort of community. This excited great discontent in a number of Christians; and among others, Thomas Violet, a goldsmith, did every thing in his power to interrupt their settlement. About Christmas, 1659, he applied to Mr. Justice Tyrrel, one of the Judges of the Common Bench, representing how great ly contrary to the law it was, that these people should have the audacity to worship God according to the forms of the Mosaic dispensation in England; in December, 1660, he, together with other merchants of the City of London, presented a petition to the King and Parliament, praying that the advantages granted to them by the late usurper, might be altogether revoked, and made of no effect."-pp. 243-250.

We shall now present our readers with a passage which does great credit to the discrimination of the writer. The opposition of Cromwell's earliest friends, who sacrificed all fair prospects of advancing themselves and their families, to consistency and patriotism, is one of the alleviating circumstances, in reference to human character, among the many sorrows, which hover over that dark portion of the Commonwealth's

history, which especially exhibits the ambition of the Protector.

"One of the many mischiefs that resulted from the usurpation of Cromwel, was that it thrust aside all first-rate men. There was room for persons of an inferior description, Thurloe, and Lambart, and Lockhart: such might flourish under his auspices. But minds of a loftier cast, Vane, and Bradshaw, and Harrison, were not wanted, and were out of place in this government. They could not be employed: they were looked on with an eye of suspicion; they were regarded as enemies, who could not be reduced into the order of this policy, but were at all times to be feared."

66 But, though Harrison was resolved not lightly to engage in any scheme for subverting the Protectorate, it was perfectly in his character to speak of it with frankness and unreserve. He deplored the apostacy of Cromwel, whom he had a little before regarded as devoted to the public cause, without the smallest mixture of selfishness and ambition, and whose integrity he had relied on, even as his own soul. He now bitterly regretted his disappointment, and owned that the Protector was the main obstacle to such a settlement as the public in. terest demanded. Harrison was repeatedly applied to by the malecontents, and he expressed to them freely his sentiments of Cromwel; though we must believe he, at the same time, set before them the injudiciousness and ill consequences of the schemes they proposed.

"One of the machines by which the government of the Protector was supported, was the plentiful use that was made under it of the intervention of spies; and the sincere and unpalatable censures of Harrison were, no doubt, brought to the ear of the Chief Magistrate. For a considerable time they had been as brothers. Now that they were separated, it was the conscience of Harrison that separated them. He would not enlist himself in the selfish career pursued by his former associate. When at any time one man detaches himself from another from feelings of honour,

and condemns him as having made a sacrifice of the principles which were formerly his glory, he, by so doing, asand we may reasonably consider that sumes the superiority over his late ally, ally as retaining a painful impression, and feeling his genius rebuked by the greater constancy of his friend. When Cromwel, at the instigation of his own ambition, and of the Council of the Army, assumed the chief magistracy, he parted with the best principle of his na

ture, and that which constitute its highest honour. Moral rectitude, a sentiment of patriotism, an anxious devotion to the benefit of mankind, without any alloy of self-interest, constituted the purest vein, and the finest spirit, of which our nature is susceptible. They are the elixir, the quint-essential extract of mind. When they are gone, or when they are contaminated, or lowered, to speak in the language of Shakespear,

'The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees

Is left this vault to brag of.'

Such was the present condition of the character of Cromwel. The chord of sympathy, the line of responsive feeling between him and Harrison, was lost. For a long time they had acted from one impulse; the proceeding which one of them adopted, the other felt to be right, and adopted it too. As long as that was the case, Cromwel understood Harrison; he consulted the monitor in his breast, and knew what the other would think and do. But, being no longer of the same school, he lost his prophetic faculty. He could not tell what excitement would be sufficient to rouse Harrison into open resistance, nor what judgment he would make respecting the prohibition of success to that resistance. He looked on him perpetually with an eye of suspicion, and feared his virtue.

"Harrison was, in certain respects, the most considerable of all those who openly disapproved the government of Cromwell. If Vane were his superior in subtlety of discernment, and the qualities of a statesman, if Bradshaw carried more weight from his judicial situation, and the emphatic and impressive manner in which his sentiments on public affairs were delivered, yet Harrison was their equal in moral and political virtue, and had the advantage in his high military character, and in the hold he possessed on the love and confidence of his brothers of the war. We may be sure he would not have moved without carrying the sympathy of a most formidable body of men along with him. They watched all he did, and hung upon his slightest intimations. Sensible of his situation in this respect, he felt that it was incumbent upon him not to make an unworthy use of the power he possessed, and not to lead into error and calamity those who relied on his judgment. If he had moved, the movement would have been felt to the remotest corners of the island; and he would not have thrown down the gauntlet against Cromwel, without going forward to a successful

termination, or, at worst, without bringing on a ruin in his fall, which would have constituted one of the most memorable pages in the history of the Protectorate. "Let us compare this with what is actually recorded of him during the reign of Cromwel. First, the Protector sent to him to inquire whether he would act under the Government of the Commonwealth, and receiving an unfavourable answer, took his commission from him. Next, he ordered him to return to his native county of Stafford. At the time of the commencement of Cromwel's first Parliament, he caused Harrison to be secured for a week, and then dismissed him. Finding that all these demonstrations did not tame the spirit of of his adversary, at the dissolution of that Parliament, after a sitting of four months, Cromwel sent Harrison a prisoner to the Isle of Portland. How long he was detained on this occasion we are not informed. At the commencement of the Protector's second Parliament he was again sent prisoner to Pendennis in Cornwall. And now, occasion being taken from this wretched insurrection of the Fifth Monarchy-men, Harrison was once more taken into custody.

"From this series of proceedings we may derive a great moral lesson on the subject of ill-gotten power. We are enabled to remove the veil, to look into the bosom of the tyrant; and see how many jealous doubts and fears are continually there to prick and sting him. Cromwel was, by nature, one of the most generous of men; but conscious of the degree in which he had offended those whose approbation he had formerly most valued, he felt perpetually disturbed by the apprehension how far they might be led to proceed in resentment against him. It could not but be a source of painful feeling to him, that he was obliged to watch, to molest, and harass with arrest and imprisonments, those for whom he had heretofore entertained the highest veneration. No doubt he regarded them now, to adopt the language he used to Fleetwood and Desborough, as a set of unnecessarily "scrupulous fellows;" for such is human nature; the restraint we have ourselves thrown off, we think it a weakness in others to submit to. But he could not so entirely discard the sentiments he had cherished for them, as not to feel uneasiness in the separation, and the hostility he feared they would harbour against him, and the hostility and injustice which he thought it necessary to adopt towards them. He must have compared the former career he had run with the present; and, however dazzling

his situation was in the eyes of the vulgar, he must, at some times, have felt It to be a comparative degradation."pp. 382-388.

We had marked several other striking passages for citation, but must refrain, and would sum up all in a few words. Seneca has said, in one of his tragedies, "Great men unwisely attempt more than they ought to do. And they who can do much, outreach themselves by attempting what they cannot execute.' All ages afford pregnant examples of individuals endowed with extraordinary faculties, power, or influence, by which they might have blessed mankind, and been blessed by all ages, falling into the most fearful and monitory miscarriages, through their vain ambition to surpass the limits of a finite nature.

"Furor cogit sequi Pejora. Vadit animus in præceps sciens, Remeatque, frustra sana consilia appe

tens."

Pastoral Memorials: selected from the Manuscripts of the late Rev. John Ryland, D. D., of Bristol; with a Memoir of the Author. In two volumes 8co. with a Portrait and Fac Simile. Holdsworth and Ball. pp. 366: 448. THE manuscript discourses of a faithful pastor, who is removed to another state, cannot fail to suggest a thousand interesting and solemn reflections to every sensitive and thoughtful mind.

They are the results of deep and anxious solicitude for the best interests of his people, and their contents will go far to exculpate, or condemn those who were the objects of his care. On them many prayers have breathed, that they might become the savour of life unto life, and on them many tears have fallen, lest they should prove the savour of death unto death. Here, compressed within a few lines, are the fruits of many

N. S. NO. 52.

a voluminous inquiry in the study, or the purchase of long and painful experience in the world.

Here the Christian's warfare and pilgrimage are sketched, as by the pencil of one familiar with those changing scenes, and the sources of the Christian's comfort are described with the force and freshness of one who has recently drawn for himself from those "wells of salvation."

The publication of such documents, is therefore important, at least to those who heard them preached, for unnecessary as additions to this class of books may appear, when we consult the teeming catalogues of" the trade;" yet it is most evident, that they must be interesting and useful in reviving impressions in the minds of the hearers, long since effaced, by throwing back the brightness of a luminary already set, and by echoing, as from the sepulchre, those admonitory lessons which were pronounced in the sanctuary. The usefulness of the "Pastoral Memorials" before us, will not be limited to the sphere of Dr. Ryland's stated ministerial labours; for though he never had the reputation of a brilliant preacher, his voice being unmusical, and ' his manner awkward and unattractive, yet the official stations he occupied, the learning he acquired, and the influence he possessed in that denomination to which he belonged, combined with the affectionate regard which his amiable and holy conversation universally inspired amongst all who had the advantage of his society, must give circulation to these posthumous publications, far beyond the range of his ordi nary pastoral walk in the city of Bristol.

These " Memorials" may be divided into three parts a series of a hundred and fifty brief ser

Ee