with the most flagrant violation of one of the first maxims of liberty, for which they pretended they were contending. The manner in which the Bill of Attainder against Strafford was carried through the house of Peers, by tumultuary petitions and threats, through the influence of the popular party, was a shameful outrage against the most sacred principles of justice, which supposes every man to be innocent, till he be found guilty. Petitioning to take away the life, even of a condemned criminal, seems to be inhuman. Upon the whole, it may safely be pronounced, that none of the former measures of Charles's reign, of which they so justly complained, was more arbitrary and tyrannical, than their own conduct in the prosecution of Strafford and Laud. Democratical tyranny often presents a front more hardened and unblushing, than that of a single despot. But whether it be the mere will of one, or of the many, that constitutes the law, the true principles of liberty fall equally a sacrifice to arbitrary power. About this time both Houses of Parliament signed a protestation to defend the established religion. It is highly probable that, even in this stage of the contest, the Leaders of the Commons at least, had meditated the abolition of of what they had promised to defend. The manner of their attack on the Church, the arts which they employed in its subversion, the violence by which the Commons at last succeeded in their schemes, in opposition to the other two branches of the legislature, were of such a kind that no upright and moderate man, whatever his opinions be of the establishment they overturned, or of that which they substituted in its place, can possibly approve the measures they employed. Religion herself is of a constitution too tender to preserve her health and vigour, unimpaired amidst shocks and convulsions so violent and alarming.

From the clash of conflicting interests and passions, she either retires for shelter to the calm retreat of solitude and peace; or, if she cannot escape from the noisome breath of tumult and war, she shrivels and dies.

In chase of imaginary liberty, the Commons, by overleaping the proper boundaries which are as necessary to stop the violence of the people as the power of the Sovereign, converted what had formerly been an absolute monarchy, into an absolute democracy. Instead of adjusting the wheels of government in such a manner, that by action and counteraction they might mutually co-operate, and at the same time check the irregular and violent motions of each other, they destroyed every controlling spring that was necessary to direct the political machine, and to keep it from falling to pieces. Not content with abolishing the dangerous prerogatives of the crown, which were incompatible with constitutional freedom and with individual liberty, they robbed it of those gems which were equally necessary to its lustre and to its solidity. The King, seeing it stripped of its jewels, defiled in the dust, and trampled under the feet of the Commons, flew to rescue it from its disgrace, and to restore it to its former splendour and honours. Thus was a civil war, with all its horrors, kindled in the nation, and which, for years, raged with unabating fury, preying upon the vitals of the kingdom. Both parties, it must be confessed, were intemperate in their zeal, and violent in their resentments. The Commons, dreading the return of that absolute power, which had laid the liberties of men prostrate on the ground, proceeded to paralyse the arm of the Monarch, instead of limiting and restraining its operations. They probably did not foresee the consequences of the extremes they pursued; and the fears they entertained for their

personal safety, from the recoiling vengeance of their prince, would probably suggest that as they had drawn their sword against him, prudence required them to throw away the scabbard. The rashness and violence of Charles in the accusation of the five members, which showed that he had laid up deep and fixed resentments of their former measures, unhappily confirmed their fears, and gave an edge to all their proceedings. They soon obtained a triumph over their Monarch; but they found, in the issue, that they themselves had suffered in the conflict, and that the authority of the Sovereign, and the liberty of the subject, had expired together.

In the prosecution of the civil war, Cromwell had gradually risen, by his knowledge of intrigue, and by his talents for that art, from the rank of a subaltern to the first place in the confidence and command of the army; and from being the servant, he soon made himself the master of the Parliament. That Assembly which had overturned the Government, were forced to obey the imperious mandates of their own creature, who employed the power with which they had invested him, for their own destruction. It is thus in almost every democratical government, the balance of power is in a state of perpetual fluctuation, until it settles in a military despotism. In the general ferment of society, those parts which are the most noble, like the gold and silver in a shipwrecked vessel, sink to the bottom of the sea, while every thing that is light and vile, swims on the surface. The History of England in the sixteenth century, and the History of France in the end of the eighteenth, present to the eye of the politician similar scenes: two of the most polished and powerful nations in the world, eagerly grasping the phantoms of visionary rights, and sinking

Let the

into all the horrors of military Government. beacons erected by the folly of England and France, teach the present and future generations of men to tremble at the speculative systems of infuriated politicians, and, satisfied with a practicable and tried liberty, to enjoy the blessings of Heaven with thankfulness and moderation. Should any other nation, with such awful monuments before their eyes, adopt systems of govern. ment as wild and fantastical, some Cromwell, or some Buonaparte, will rise from the dregs of society, to rule them with whips, and scorpions, and a rod of iron. Cromwell does not indeed appear, like the Corsican, to have wantoned in cruelty. The acts of tyranny which the former perpetrated were, perhaps, politically necessary for the acquisition, or for the support of his absolute power; but it was his own insatiable ambition that impressed the necessity; and for the principle, as well as for the means he employed to gratify it, he was justly responsible to the Supreme Tribunal. To mount the throne of a race of ancient Monarchs, he was resolute to wade through the blood of his murdered Sovereign; and, while he openly professed to hold absolute power in abhorrence, he made every effort to climb to the possession of it. To a religious mind, no feature of his character appears so shocking as his hypocrisy. Religion was the tool by which he rose to usurped authority, and while he talked of seeking the Lord, he sought nothing but the means of power and splendour. By the habits of deep dissimulation, he for a while imposed upon the unsuspecting; but these, like all other hollow pretences, became so well known that they could no longer deceive.

Though the beginning and progress of the civil wars in Charles the First's time, and the History of the Revo

lution in France, were perfectly coincident in the advancement of the same extravagant claims of factious liberty, in the murder of their Sovereign, in the abolition of Monarchy, in the destruction of nobility, in the fall of the religious establishments, in the perpetual revolutions and changes of ephemeral governments, in the wretchedness and misery of the body of the people, every day adding to the tale of their woes; and in both settling at last in a military government, yet in one point of view they were not only dissimilar, but opposed to each other. In the scenes which led to the civil wars in England, and in all the troubles which followed, religion appears to have taken a powerful hold of the minds of many of the contending parties. In one thing, however, they were equally under the power of prejudice, in rejecting those maxims of toleration which Christianity dictates, and sound policy requires. They struggled not for the divine right of worshipping God according to their consciences, but for the predominance of their own tenets, which aimed at the extinction of those that were opposed to them. One cannot read, in the History of those times, without concern, that in the treaty of Newport, when Charles required the liberty of using a liturgy in his own chapel, his request was positively refused by the Parliament. But when our resent

reflect, that this very

ment at this indignity suffers us to Monarch had refused to hundreds of thousands of his own subjects a similar right, though of worshipping in a different way; a right in which every man has an interest as deep as that of his Prince, our anger at this mutual obstinacy and injustice, is turned into compassion for the folly of both parties. Yet, with this opposition of religious sentiments on some subjects, it deserves to be faithfully recorded, that with the exception of the mur