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Defence of Cromwell's Policy.

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were not open conflicts, there were secret conspiracies, all parties plotting in their turn. The tempest was stilled, but the swell still continued, and placed the fragile vessel of the State in a deadly peril. The only choice was between that wild license which so prolonged a warfare could not fail to produce, and which threatened to dissolve society into its original elements; and the establishment of a temporary dictatorship. Cromwell did not hesitate as to his choice, but in working out his purpose had to do many things alien to his disposition and contrary to his desire. That he was a man of ambition is hardly to be denied ; but it was the ambition of a lofty nature, that aimed to make his rule a blessing to the country he loved so well. Dr. Vaughan's defence of him is complete and unanswerable. It is the reasoning of a man who can sympathize in the aspirations of such sincere patriotism, who is too wise and experienced to believe it possible that a mere liar and a hypocrite could ever accomplish such grand results, and who is too generous to brand as a tyrannical usurpation the assumption of power which fell to Cromwell from the exhaustion of all other parties, which was accepted under the sagacious perception that England, bleeding at every pore, needed a vigorous ruler if she were to be saved from utter destruction, and which was certainly used by him for the honour of the nation. The chapter England as a Republic' shows with what effect that power was used; how the nation, dishonoured by the policy of James and Buckingham, was roused to a display of its ancient manhood, and once more became a potent influence in Europe; how the Lord Protector baffled intriguing diplomatists and arrogant priests, humbled the pride of haughty monarchs, and cheered the hearts of people struggling for freedom; how the powers who had insulted our weakness were made to feel that England's sceptre was once more in the grasp of a man; and how, greatest triumph of all, he broke loose from the bonds of prejudice and general opinion, and sought to introduce into England principles of religious toleration.

The Revolution of 1688 terminated the struggle between the Stuarts and the English people. Dr. Vaughan devotes his fourteenth book, entitled, 'Court and Country,' to a narrative of the circumstances which led to their final expulsion from the English throne. But we cannot now pursue the subject further. Suffice it to say, that Dr. Vaughan's narrative, which is at once succinct and comprehensive, shows how long-suffering was the forbearance of the English people, how blind the infatuation of the Stuarts, and how ineradicable was the impression left on the minds of the nation that English liberty was not safe under their rule. The extraordinary reaction which was seen after the first twenty

years of Charles II.'s reign was only the natural result of a policy which was abjectly servile abroad only that it might secure the means of being tyrannical at home. The people were prepared to bear much; but the profligacy of the court, and the dishonour done to the nation, the perpetual treachery to their best interests, which marked the entire conduct of affairs, the hardly concealed tendencies to Romanism, the neglect of the navy, and the consequent insult to which they were exposed in their own seas and even in the Thames, and the bitter persecutions which carried terror to every Nonconformist home in the kingdom, were more than even English patience, still reminiscent of the miseries of the past and shrinking from the unknown horrors of another Civil War, could endure. The stupid bigotry of James did but fill up the measure of the iniquities of his family. By the insolent brutality of Jeffreys and Scroggs, fit agents for such a master, by the cruelties of the bloody assize, and above all by his insane belief that the clergy would so far carry out their doctrine of passive obedience as to make themselves at his bidding the instruments of their own destruction, and his consequent attempts to introduce Popery under the guise of toleration, James at last roused the indignation of his subjects to successful revolt. To the self-restraint of William III., and to the wisdom of some of the great leaders of the Whig party, may be attributed the moderate form which that Revolution assumed, and the permanence by which the great change has been marked. A more violent course might probably have provoked reaction. As it was, the aristocracy and the people united, and the act was decisive because it was the will of the whole community. The 'social influences,' says Dr. Vaughan, which restrained this 'great settlement within moderate limits, and made it perma'nent, were hereditary rank and religious conviction." The nation, in fact, had tried four different Stuarts. The first was a conceited pedant, the second a cold, haughty, and reserved egotist, the third a good-natured, jovial profligate, and the fourth a morose and senseless bigot; but in all was found the same unappeasable thirst for despotic power. The people had no will to make any further experiments. The eighteenth, and the first part of the nineteenth century, furnished enough to put their resolve to a severe test; but not all the coarse brutality of the first two Georges, the narrow and selfish obstinacy of the third, or the profligacy of the fourth, could tempt them to look again towards the family from whom William III. had delivered them.

With our last Revolution Dr. Vaughan's task naturally closes; but he appends two chapters on National Progress since 1688, which are among the most instructive and interesting in the

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volume. We must content ourselves, however, with commending them to the perusal of our readers, and close this article in our author's own forcible words: 'As we look up the track of the past, we see in the battle-fields, the dungeons, and the scaffolds, which there rise to the imagination, the price which was to be paid that our acquisitions as freemen might become ours. Growth is slow everywhere; and all history shows that the 'growth of nations is very slow.'

T. C. D.

ART. VIII.-Modern France; its Journalism, Literature, and Society. By A. V. KIRWAN, Esq., of the Middle Temple, Barrister-atLaw, Author of the Article 'France' in the Encyclopædia 'Britannica.' Jackson, Walford, & Hodder.

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THIS volume is from the pen of an author whose knowledge of France and Frenchmen is such that we doubt if it be equalled by another subject of her Britannic Majesty. We have no history of English journalism so intimate and thorough as the account here given of French journalism. Nor do we know where else we could direct the reader for information so reliable concerning the military system or the social life of France. The style of the book is free and vigorous. The author, as his name will suggest, is an Irishman; and he writes with that sort of negligent ease, dignity, and force which has so often characterized the educated and gifted men of his country.

The first half of the volume is occupied with French journalism, of which we need not speak, inasmuch as the substance of what is here printed has appeared in our own pages either recently or some years since. The chapter, too, on the military system of France would be interesting only to a very limited. number of our readers, except as used to expose the madness of the policy which would leave England weak while placed side by side with so much strength. But Mr. Kirwan's sketches on the literary celebrities of modern France, and on its social state, must be felt to be interesting and instructive by readers of every class. Here is our author's sketch of M. Ste. Beuve, one of the first literary names among our Gallic neighbours :

Mr. Charles Augustin Ste. Beuve, of whom we speak, is a native of Boulogne-sur-Mer, in which town he was born just antecedent to the Empire, in the last days of 1803. His early studies were creditably made at the College of Boulogne, whence he proceeded to

Paris, in his nineteenth year, to devote himself to the study of medicine. But soon after his arrival in Paris, M. Ste. Beuve abandoned the teachings and lectures of the "Ecole de Médecine" to dedicate himself wholly to literature. Such a decision on the part of a highly educated youth, though very common in France, is comparatively rare in England. The homme de lettres among our continental, and more especially among our French neighbours, is held in much more general esteem than in England. Nor is the profession of a literary man of competent learning and good abilities by any means so precarious as among ourselves. Literature is more regularly and systematically a profession than among us Britons, and, till lately, there has been a greater demand for, and a larger supply of it. The début of M. de Ste. Beuve in the journal called the "Globe," was somewhere about the year 1824 or 1825. This print, then very recently founded, exercised a very considerable influence as well in politics as in literature. Its chief proprietors were among its most distinguished contributors. Of these we may cite the names of M. de Rémusat, M. Duvergier d'Hauranne, the Duke de Montebello, M. Amédée Thayer, M. Guizard, and M. Dejean, some of whom attained the rank of ministers and ambassadors, whilst others were provided for in lucrative but less distinguished positions. The "Globe" at the period of which we speak was Doctrinaire in politics and Romanticist in literature; and in the first article written in it by M. Ste. Beuve, the young Boulonnais proclaimed himself the champion of the romantic school, without, however, going the length of defending the eccentricities of Victor Hugo. To these earlier literary opinions M. de Ste. Beuve has with some judicious modifications adhered. He developed them most elaborately in his "Tableau de la Poesie Française," published originally in 1828, and reproduced in a new edition in 1841. For now more than thirty years he has occupied a considerable, and for more than twenty years one of the first places in the periodical literature of France as a critic and literary commentator. Nor have his labours as critic prevented him from enriching the literature of his country with original works of poetry and fiction, as well as history. Since 1829 he has given to the world "Poésies de Joseph Delorme;" "Les Consolations;" "Pensées d'Août;" "Volupté," and the "History of Port Royal," in three volumes, which appeared between 1840 and 1843.

'When it is remembered that while these works were in course of preparation M. Ste. Beuve was a writer in the "Revue des Deux Mondes," in the "Globe," and in the "Revue de Paris," and a lecturer and professor at Lausanne and at Liége, his industry and fertility will appear the more remarkable. That he is a person of varied learning, no one can doubt. But erudition, as is too often the case with persons of ordinary minds, has not obliterated in him originality or the power of observation, or dried up that vigour and spontaneity of thought and expression, and that shrewdness of appreciation, too seldom found among mere bookworms. M. Ste.

M. Ste. Beauve-Montalembert.

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Beuve is not merely a man of learning and letters, but he is also a man of the world. The government of Louis Philippe did itself great honour in making him one of the conservators of the "Bibliothèque Mazarin" in 1840, and the French Academy also fittingly performed its part in electing the historian of " Port Royal" among its members in 1846.'

M. Ste. Beuve's criticisms appear to have been generally written with a view to republication, a circumstance which will help to account for the care and finish bestowed upon them. Eight volumes consisting of collections of this nature were published by him some ten years ago. The following is part of Mr. Kirwan's sketch of Montalembert :

'Many qualities, possibly, as M. Ste. Beuve says, some defects, are necessary to an orator, above all, when he starts forth so very young in his public career. He must be confident, self-assured, even to rashness. "I should belie my conviction," says the critic, "if M. de Montalembert had not this self-confidence in a high degree. With an affected humility for the holy see, never was there a young speaker who exercised with greater play and power, his high faculties, his ironical and disdainful humour, or who, under the guise of a profound religious conviction, was less considerate or forbearing towards an adversary." "The 'bête noir' of Montalembert, in the time of Louis Philippe, was the university of France, and against this institution he marshalled and battalioned all the force, clerical and lay, of ultramontane Catholicism"-in other words, all the narrow Wisemanism and Cullenism of France. In this struggle M. de Montalembert continued till 1814, when he had attained the summit of his renown. From 1840, he was justly considered the second orator in France, the first, undoubtedly, being the gifted Berryer. His discourse on the incorporation of Cracow, delivered on the 21st January, 1847, was one of the most memorable ever pronounced in the Chamber of Peers. The eloquence was picturesque, and palpitating with life and feeling. Denouncing the iniquitous partition of Poland, and laying down the axiom that, sooner or later, injustice brings with it its own chastisement, Montalembert exclaimed, "La nation opprimée s'attache aux flancs de la puissance opprimante comme une plaie vengeresse immortelle."

After the Revolution of 1848, M. de Montalembert was elected a member of the first Assembly as a "Représentant du Peuple" as it was then called. By many it was supposed that this election into an ultra-popular Assembly would put a complete extinguisher upon his talent. But on the contrary, Montalembert seemed to grow in vigour and firmness, and, above all, in suppleness and dexterity. Nor did these latter qualities exclude large and broad views, or that zeal and enthusiasm always incident to such ardent convictions. No man did better service than he in June, 1848, in speaking on the question of property in reference to the project of the decree for taking possession of the railways. Often and sorely was he inter

NO. LXXVII.

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