"And I took the infant she gave me, and while I held it in my arms the Virgin Mother placed on its head a crown of white roses.

"A few months afterwards thou wert born; and that sweet vision was ever before mine eyes.

"So saying, the woman with silvery hair trembled and pressed her daughter to her heart.

"A little while afterwards a holy man beheld two forms of light ascend towards heaven; a host of angels accompanied them, and the air resounded with songs of joy."

We live (as in the days of Cromwell) in an age of reform; if in his time, more morality and conviction was remarked in the public mind, in ours may be observed more urbanity and gentleness. Puritanical sentiments were very far from that harmony and that peace which the religious philosophy of M. Ballanche introduces into christianity.

KILLING NO MURDER. LOCKE. HOBBES. DENHAM.

HARINGTON. HARVEY. SIEYES. MIRABEAU.

BENJAMIN CONSTANT. CARREL.

THE most celebrated pamphlet of this era was "Killing no Murder." Its author, the republican Colonel Titus, in an ironical dedication, entreated His Highness, Oliver Cromwell, to die for the happiness and deliverance of the English. After this publication the Protector was never seen to smile he felt himself abandoned by the Revolutionary spirit to which he owed his greatness. The Revolution, which chose him as a guide, would not endure him as a master. The His age mission of Cromwell was fulfilled. and nation had no more need of him. Time pauses not to admire glory, but makes it useful and passes on.

I have read (perhaps in Gui Patin) one curious fact, which I believe has not been previously remarked. The doctor observes that "Killing no Murder" was originally written in French, by a gentleman of Burgundy.

Here we have Locke as a poet. He wrote

VOL. I.

very bad verses in honour of Cromwell. Waller had composed some very good ones.

The crouching flattery which survives the object of its adulation is but the excuse of an infirm conscience, exalting a master who is no more, to justify past admiration and servility. Cromwell betrayed that Liberty from which he sprang. If Success is to be regarded as Innocence, if, misleading even posterity, Success should become the accomplice of whomsoever has triumphed, where would be right and justice? where would sacrifices find their reward? Good and evil being but relative, all morality would be effaced from all human actions.

On the other hand, who would defend sacred independence and the cause of the weak against the strong, if courage, exposed to the vengeance and malice of the Present, were again exposed to the slanders and the baseness of the Future? Misfortune, bereft of voice, would lose even the organ of complaint, and those two great advocates of the oppressed, Probity and Genius.

Hobbes, a royalist, in his hatred of popular opinions, ran into an opposite extreme; he traced all things to force and necessity, reducing justice to one of the functions of power and not representing it as resulting from a moral sense. He did not perceive that democracy had as great a right as unity to set out from that same princi

ple. Society which naturally tended towards the popular establishment did not retrograde with the system of Hobbes, notwithstanding the excesses of the English Revolution; it was only checked in its progress by Louis XIV, who barred its way by his glory. Hobbes inculcated scepticism, as did our philosophers of the eighteenth century, with an imperious tone of dogmatical haughtiness. He wished to be thought a firm believer in unbelief, and preached doubt like an Inquisitor. His style is energetic, and his Thucydides has been too much decried. This strong mind, (esprit fort) this free-thinker, was the weakest of men; he trembled at the thought of the tomb. Nature supported him to the age of ninety-two, and delivered him fainting into the arms of death, as a swooning convict is carried to the fatal block.

Sir John Denham is still slightly remembered for his descriptive poem of " Cooper's Hill.” He was a royalist, and the agent in London of the correspondence between Charles the First and his Queen. Cowley held the same office in Paris thus did the Muses render service to conjugal tenderness and misfortune.

Harington's "Oceana" is a repetition of Sir Thomas More's Utopia. Where is a perfect government to be found? In Utopiano whereas the name implies.

Harvey described his great discovery of the circulation of the blood. No physician in Europe, having attained the age of forty, would adopt the doctrine of Harvey; he himself lost his practice in London, because he had discovered an important truth. Harvey was encouraged by Charles the First and remained faithful to him. Servetus, burnt in effigy by the catholics and in person by Calvin, had pointed out the circulation of the blood in the lungs. This age treated a man of genius as a vulgar heretic, whom another heretic conducted to the stake.

For the rest, as to the purely political English pamphlets, even when not infected by the theological jargon of the time, (which was a rare case) they remain at an immense distance behind our modern investigations. If we except Milton, no writer during the Revolution of 1649 can approach Sieyes, Mirabeau, Benjamin Constant, still less Carrel. This last, close, firm, able and logical writer, has in his manner something of the positive eloquence of facts; his deep and grave style may be compared with history recorded by monuments.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

LONDON:

SCHULZE AND CO. 13, POLAND STREET,