CORRESPONDENCE. CLEVELAND, FEB. 10, 1847. Rev. S. B. Canfield-DEAR SIR: Regarding the views presented by you, in your Lecture on the Life and Character of Oliver Cromwell,' as highly interesting and important, and believing that their promul gation will subserve the cause of truth, we respectfully request a copy of the lecture for publication. Yours, very truly, S. J. ANDREWS, H. V. WILSON, W. D. BEATTIE. CLEVELAND, FEB. 11, 1847. GENTLEMEN, The lecture of which you request a copy for the press, was prepared amid pressing engagements and with no expecta. tion or thought of its publication. Had I wished to publish my views of the life and character of Oliver Cromwell, at all, I should have preferred to exhibit them more fully than the limits of a single lecture would permit, and with a larger space for the presentation of the facts and arguments on which those views are based. The lecture was prepared and delivered in the hope rather of exciting inquiry than of gaining the immediate assent to my views of all who might happen to hear me. It was not to be expected that all minds would be prepared at once to admit the correctness of a picture of Cromwell, so unlike the horrid caricature-drawn by political and ecclesiastical partisans from which alone not a few Americans as well as Englishmen have received their impressions of that extraordinary man. But it seemed proper, in a lecture intended solely for the audience to which this was delivered, to ask in behalf of the man who was intimately associated, in the cause of civil and religious liberty, with Hampden; and who, by his liberal and magnanimous policy, as well as by his pre-eminent abilities, won the confidence, the friendship, and the admiration of Milton, a rehearing a re-examination of his history in the light of all the facts which have now been made accessible, and with a proper scrutiny of the statements of prejudiced writers. Such having been the object for which the lecture was written, it is with extreme reluctance that I consent to furnish a copy of it for publication. Indeed, I should have felt constrained to decline doing so altogether, but for the fact that the sentiments and arguments of the lecture have, in some very important points, been so grossly mis-stated through the medium of the press, as to render it due to nyself as well as to the cause of truth, to present to the public, in some form, at least a correction of those mis-statements. For the attainment of this latter object, the most direct method seems to be, to let the lecture speak for itself. Imperfect as it is, it may perhaps be sufficient for this end. Certainly, no equivocation, ambiguity, or obscurity was intended in its composition. Yours, very respectfully, S. B. CANFIELD. Messrs. S. J. Andrews, R. Hitchcock, H. V. Wilson, J. A. Foot, J M. Hoyt, H. C. Kingsley, H. B. Payne, and W. D. Beattie. LECTURE. IN undertaking to discourse upon the life and character of Oliver Cromwell, I am not conscious of yielding to any sectarian impulse. I have never regarded the character of the denomination of Christians to which I belong as vitally associated with the fame of Cromwell. His memory might shine in the glory of noble principles vindicated, and of heroic deeds performed, or turn dark in the infamy of righteousness betrayed with a kiss, and of humanity outraged in the name of religion, and yet our standing before the world be not on the one hand greatly exalted, or on the other materially lowered. Probably it has occurred to very few minds, occupied with the question of uniting with a Congregational or Presbyterian church, even to enquire whether the great Lord Protector of England was a good or a bad man-a sincere Christian or a designing hypocrite. And does not a similar remark apply to the position of the Protestant Episcopal Church in relation to the character of Charles I? What to her is the shining of one star-even if that were a star-when she may point to a constellation? A magnanimous Church will desire to wear no false jewels in her crown. A great religious denomination can afford to have historical justice rendered to all whose names are, in any way, connected with it. Entertaining these sentiments and doubting not that others, too, cherish them, I intend to utter freely, though, I trust, candidly, my thoughts on the subject which has been announced. It is unnecessary for me to say to this audience that the opinion which I maintain in regard to the character of Cromwell is, on the whole, far more favorable than that which writers, not a few, have expressed. The circumstances, and still more the manner, in which, until quite recently, the mass of English historians have spoken of the acts and the principles of the mighty leader of "the great Puritan Revolt," ought long since to have excited, at least in all American minds, a strong suspicion as to their truthfulness and fairness. Since the reins of government fell from the feeble hands of his son Richard, there has been no great party, whether of Church or State, interested to take his good name into kind and safe keeping. Prelatists have anxiously sought to make him appear a hypocrite, and nonarchists have labored to exhibit him in the hatefulness of an ambitious usurper and tyrant. Even the Dissenters have, in general, been either too little acquainted with the real facts of his history or too strongly devoted to the reigning dynasty and too anxious to avoid the suspicion of disloyalty, to be his bold and efficient defenders. At the very first, the industrious malice of the cool and artful Clarendon, the base ingenuity of the scurrilous Denham, and the low but labored wit of Butler, concurred to misrepresent his motives and principles, and to hold up his character and life to derision. Since which, six generations of authors dependent, with few exceptions, on the great, for needful favor, and writing for their daily bread, have missed no opportunity for coupling his name with odious epithets. Meanwhile the credulity, not to say the injustice, of the reading public, has been passing strange. There has been, until quite lately, little cross-questioning. The common-sense principle" he that is first in his own cause, seemeth just; but his neighbor cometh and searcheth him"-has, by multitudes, been overlooked. Clarendon or the echoes of Clarendon have been heard, but not the noble Milton.* Ribald and pensioned wits have had the public ear but not men who periled their lives for God and liberty. Garbled extracts and sayings, reported without regard to dates and explanatory circumstances, have been read far and near; but the actual speeches, letters, and other documents, which would have spoken for themselves and exhibited the man as he was, were mostly suffered, during nearly two long centuries of busy detraction, to lie unexamined and unpublished. Very many persons deemed intelligent, have unwarily received the statements and, with little or no abatement, adopted the opinions of * I refer, 1. To Milton's Pamphlet or Treatise, entitled "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates: proving that it is lawful, and hath been held so, through all ages, for any who have the power, to call to account a tyrant or wicked King; and, after due conviction, to depose and put him to death; if the ordinary magistrate have neglected or denied to do it." This tract was published a few weeks after the execution of Charles 1. It explains and defends with great clearness and conclusiveness the principles on which that punishment was inflicted. 2. To his tract entitled "Eikonoklastes or Image-breaker," written in reply to a book or pamphlet falsely purporting to be from the pen of Charles, and designed to convey an exceedingly favorable impression of the King's character, motives, and actions. Milton's tract was so named, in allusion to the title of the pamphlet replied to, to wit: Eikon Basilike or Royal Image. By reading this reply of Milton-in which he most ably and eloquently exposes the tyranny, duplicity, and hypocrisy of Charles-it will be seen that the "Royal Image," which some even in this age and country seem disposed to venerate, is broken into rather small and unseemly fragments, representing no longer either a saint or a good king. 3. To Milton's great tract entitled "A defence of the People of England," in answer to Salmasius' "Defence of the King." This treatise, which, though it defends the infliction of capital punishment upon a king, won, by its preeminent ability, the applause of some monarchs and of many dignitaries in Europe, deserves, as do most of the author's prose works, to be not only read but studied by all the educated men of this country. Milton was not a mere poet. Had his peculiar poetic genius been taken away, there would have remained more than enough to make a Clarendon, with the exception of Clarendon's meanness. The topics which Milton discusses, in most of his prose writings, are those with which it is good for the soul to grapple-those with which all republicans ought to be familiar. And they are treated in a style of such beauty, force and magnificence as to command the admiration of the best judges. The tasteful and eloquent Channing said, a little more than twenty years ago, "We rejoice that the dust is beginning to be wiped from his prose writings, and that the public are now learning what the initiated have long known, that these contain passages hardly inferior to his best poetry, and that they are throughout marked with the same vigorous mind which gave us Paradise Lost." And one year earlier, the brilliant Macaulay had said, "It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become acquainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages, compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff, with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books of the Paradise Lost has he ever risen higher than in those parts of his controversial works, in which his feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It is, to borrow his own majestic language, 'a seven-fold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies."" Hume, the high-tory and insidious maligner of all religion. Three things unfitted this elegant historian for doing justice to the Puritans: his indolence, which often kept him from needful research; his opposition to constitutional liberty, which led him sometimes-as Charles Fox and later writers have demonstrated-to forge facts where he needed them, and to suppress facts where they confronted him; and his hostility to religious zeal, which prompted him to brand intelligent scriptural devotion to God with the odious name of bigotry or fanaticism.* The violence of party spirit in England during the life-time of Cromwell, and in the age following, has never found a parallel in our own happy country, unless we view the Whigs and the Tories of the Revolution as constituting opposing political parties. Let us try to imagine what would have been the reputation of Washington and his associates, if that revolution had so far failed as to take the opprobrious name of rebellion, and all the high dignitaries of Church and State, with a crowd of hireling wits and calumniators, had been anxiously laboring during the whole period which has since elapsed to make them appear either fearfully odious or supremely ridiculous! t No democrat, no whig, in our country during the last fifteen years, * Let it be noted here, that this stricture upon Hume's History of England stands word for word as it did when it was delivered before the Young Men's Association.' His credibility and authority, as to matters of fact and matters of opinion relating to the Puritans, are not objected to solely nor chiefly on account of his infidelity-indeed, I may say, not at all on account of his scepticism. Even "his hostility to religious zeal" is the last and the least of the three grounds of objection urged against him. As I have not space to detail the facts which I regarded as justifying this stricture, I will refer to the opinions of some eminent writers upon the points above specified. Gibbon describes Hume's History as "elegant but superficial." A powerful writer in the (London) Quarterly Review-evidently a Church-of-England mansays, (after mentioning à jocose allusion of Gibbon to Hume's indolence,) "the only glimpse we gain [respecting H.'s manner of writing history] is through a story told by a late venerable Scottish crony. Some one having hinted that David (Hume) had neglected an authority he ought to have consulted, the old gentleman replied-"Why, mon, David read a vast deal before he set about a piece of his book; but his usual seat was the sofa, and he often wrote with his legs up; and it would have been unco fashious to have moved across the room when any little doubt occurred." "All who oppose Hume's political principles-Towers, Stuart, Brodie, Fox, Laing, Allen, Smyth, Macaulay-reproach him with unfairness and insincerity-correct his misrepresentations, brand his crafty perversions of truth. The most lenient and yet in some respects the most severe of his critics, Prof. Smyth, warns us to be ever suspicious' of the historian's particular prejudices." " Hume's hostility to Christianity, in all of its forms, is also exposed by this writer. "When reading Hume's History, we must carefully keep in view the meaning of the terms which he employs; his technical language must be translated by turning to his own dictionary. Religion is with Hume either Superstition or Fanaticism. He so applies and counterchanges these opprobrious terms as to include every possible form of Christianity. In the Churches of Rome and England superstition predominates; in the Calvinistic Churches, which he detested most. fanaticism; though all are equally assailed. When he bombards St. Peter's, his shells glance off upon St. Paul's. His spear pierces through Archbishop Anselm and pins Archbishop Howley to the wall. The filth with which he bespatters the Lateran Council, defiles the General Assembly. But, alas! each religious body, viewing only the damage done to its opponents, has been insensible of the hurt which its own cause receives from the bitter enemy of their common Head." This testimony is true. And let not religionists of any class be over anxious to strengthen and perpetuate an influence pernicious alike to all; and let not republicans, though no friends to religion, forget that in David Hume popular institutions have had a most bitter and insidious enemy; and that whilst he hated the piety of the Puritans, he abhorred also their strenuous advocacy of the great principles now embodied in our system of democratic republicanism. Those who desire to know how "Hume and His Influence upon History" are now regarded by very many besides the advocates of the Puritans, would do well to read the article on that subject in the Quarterly Review. It may be found in the Eclectic Magazine for July 1844. † We know that in Washington's day there were those even in this country-and at one time many-who violently opposed his measures, slighted his services, impugned his motives, and vilified his character; and we know too that at the time of the Revolution, the dress, the personal appearance and manners of the officers and soldiers of our army were the subject of almost as much merriment in the camp of Sir Henry Clinton, and in some of the British theatres, as those of the Roundheads were at the head-quarters of Prince Rupert and afterwards in the gay and profligate circles of Charles II. |