will, every party again became loud in the assertion of his own particular theory; " accomplices became rivals ;" and soon, in the stormy sea of faction, the good ship of the Republic drifted an utter wreck. Then were seen, according to the historian, the faults both of the pure republicans and of the adherents of Cromwell revenging themselves upon their authors. For what more easy than the way at last appeared to be, to a firm establishment of Richard Cromwell's government? Whatever his infirmities of character, he was disliked by none. M. Guizot quotes golden opinions expressed of him by all sorts of people, and points out that the whole private interest of the members of his first Parliament lay in the assurance of his power, and with that also of their own prosperity. He describes the Government as having no design and no desire of tyranny; Richard himself as naturally moderate, patient, equitable; and his counsellors, like himself, as demanding nothing better than to govern in concert with the Parliament, and according to the laws. What, then, so natural or so reasonable, as for all men who had not vowed their hearts to the old royal line or to the pure republic, to accommodate themselves to the régime established, and to live, by common consent, tranquil and safe under the new Protector? But it was not to be. Though their empire had vanished, their obstinacy remained unenlightened and unsubdued. Detested as oppressors, and decried as visionaries, they retorted by accusing their country of ingratitude, and battled vainly against the successive defeats which they knew not that the hand of God was inflicting. But though they could not build they could destroy, and so the second Protectorate passed away.

Yet let us not leave the reader under any doubt whether a fuil or a stinted measure of justice is done by the historian to what was really successful as well as great in the policy of the first Protectorate. It is on every account our interest to give M. Guizot further hearing as to this, since it enables us to give also further indication of the

very valuable original illustrations contributed by his book to our English annals.

M. Guizot describes the foreign policy of Cromwell as based on two fixed ideas,-peace with the United Provinces and the alliance of the Protestant States. These were in his eyes the two vital conditions of the security and greatness of his country in Europe, of his own security and his own greatness in Europe and in his country. With the United Provinces peace was at once made, Whitelocke was sent upon his embassy to Sweden, a special treaty of commerce was negotiated with the King of Denmark, and Cromwell found himself on terms of friendship with all Protestant States of Europe. In France it was said, continues M. Guizot, that he even meditated, in the interests of Protestantism, a more vast and difficult design.

"The Protector proposes to himself,' wrote to the Cardinal Mazarin one of his confidential agents, to cause the assembly of 6 a council of all the Protestant communions, to re-unite them in one body for the common confession of one and the same faith.' Some particular facts indicate that he was, indeed, preoccupied with this idea. He was one of those persons of powerful and fertile genius in whom great designs and great temptations are born by crowds; but he applied promptly his firm good sense to his finest dreams, and never pursued farther those which did not endure that trial.

"He assumed towards the Catholic powers an attitude of complete and frigid independence, without prejudice or ill-will, but without forwardness, showing himself disposed to peace, but always leaving to be seen a glimpse of war, and carrying a rough pride into the care of the interests of his country or of his own greatness.'

We need not pause to relate how he showed this: for one example, by treating with the King of Portugal, who was stigmatised at Madrid as an usurper, and by the simultaneous execution, for murder, of Don Pantaleon de Sa, the brother of the ambassador from Portugal. M. Guizot's very interesting narrative is full of similar and striking proof, the greater part of it quite new. France and Spain outdo each other in obsequious homage before Cromwell's intractable energy. We see each bidding higher and higher against the other for his active. friendship, and Cardeñas at last eagerly offering him a subvention of not less than six hundred thousand dollars a year, "without having in London or in Flanders," wrote Mazarin to Bordeaux, "the first sou to give him if he "took them at their word. He would promise with the "same facility a million, indeed two, to get a pledge from him, since assuredly it would not cost them more to "hold and execute one promise than the other." Mazarin, a better diplomatist, enriches his promises with a flowing courtesy; sends with them his wine, his tapestry, and his Barbary horses; and concedes, on the part of the young king, a rank only less than royal. Even the Prince of Condé hastens to become acceptable to the rough English soldier, and declares his belief that the people of the three kingdoms must be now at the summit of their happiness at seeing their goods and lives confided to so great a

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man.

"Cromwell received all these advances with the same show of good will not that he saw them all with equal eye, or that he drifted indifferent or uncertain among allies so opposite. Unlike the Long Parliament, he inclined much more towards France than towards Spain; with a superior sagacity he had perceived that Spain was thenceforward an apathetic power, able to effect but little, and in spite of its favourable demonstrations, more hostile

"ill-will, but equally void of court"ship or flattery, showing himself disposed to maintain peace, but "always leaving open the prospect of

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war, and watching over the inte"rests of his country and of his own "family with stern and uncom"promising haughtiness."

than any other to Protestant England, for it was more exclusively than any other given up to the maxims and influences of the Roman Church. And at the same time that there was little to expect from Spain, she offered to the maritime ambition of England, by her vast possessions in the new world, rich and easy prey."

Accordingly, there soon followed, we need hardly remind the reader, the well-known swoop upon the King of Spain's West Indian possessions. The better half of the design failed, indeed, when the attack upon St. Domingo failed; but the seizure of Jamaica was an unquestionable prize, which Cromwell's wisdom turned at once to a noble account. The historian describes all these incidents and their consequences in a way that shows ever characteristically the personal predominance of the Protector. Up to within a few days of the declaration of war against Spain, hope has continued with Cardeñas. To even the hour of the treaty of alliance with France, fear has not quitted Mazarin. And by a free use of the very words of the men who wrote freshly and on the instant out of the midst of their diplomacy, the foreign policy of the Protectorate is thus with vivid truth and a rare freshness reproduced by M. Guizot. We may compare the mighty tread of Cromwell with the pirouettes of the statesmen opposed to him, and get no mean perception of the true hero of the day.

Of the conditions of the treaty at last concluded with France, it is not necessary that we should speak; but the jealous rigour with which Cromwell insisted on the substitution of Rex Gallorum for Rex Galliæ, is a pregnant indication of the attitude now assumed by him to the most powerful of foreign States. Never, certainly, had our English name been carried so high. "He is the greatest " and happiest prince in Europe," exclaimed young Louis Quatorze. Bound in fast treaties with all the Protestant States, allied to the most potent of Catholic Sovereigns, Montecuculi deprecating his wrath on one side as agent for the house of Austria, and on the other the Marquis of Leyden on behalf of the King of Spain, he received,

besides the foreign ministers who habitually resided at his court, ambassadors extraordinary from Sweden, Poland, Germany, and Italy, who came solemnly to present to him the overtures or homage of their masters. Pictures and medals, some nobly commemorative of his exploits, others coarsely satirical of his adversaries, were displayed in almost every town of the continent, celebrating his illustrious deeds, and humbling before them the old princes and kings. Well might one of the most considerable of the foreign agents write over to Thurloe from Brussels that "the Lord Protector's government makes England "more formidable and considerable to all nations than it has ever been in my day."

Nor is less justice rendered by M. Guizot to what he believes to have been another of the titles of that government to esteem; and of Cromwell's patronage of literature and learned men, he speaks with due respect. Though he holds that his mind was neither naturally elegant nor richly cultivated, he can yet see that his free and liberal genius understood thoroughly the wants of the human intellect. And while M. Guizot's experience has taught him, clearly enough, that absolute power, on emerging from great social disturbances, takes its chief delight and achieves its completest triumphs in the promotion of material prosperity, still, in regard to Cromwell, he frankly admits that few despots have so carefully confined themselves within the limits of practical necessity, and allowed the human mind such a wide range of freedom. He sees in him the practical saviour of the two old Universities, and the founder of the University of Durham. He is glad to record that he offered Hobbes the post of a secretary in his household, that he continued the employment of Milton, and that he took no offence at either Selden or Casaubon, when the one declined his pension, and the other his invitation to write a history of the civil wars. He dwells with pleasure on his kindness to the learned Usher, on his desire to stand well with Cudworth and with Taylor, on his frank patronage of all the lettered