scheme of our Parliamentary government, under Whigs, Tories, Conservatives, or Radicals, from the time of the Revolution of 1689 down to our generation. Our own generation, it seems, adopts the pure democratic ticket, as understood at Athens, Geneva, or Chicago-What do the electors wish? not What is good for the people? This latter principle was the principle of Cromwell, as it was of Walpole, Chatham, Pitt, Canning and Peel. Like theirs, Cromwell's rule was to lead the nation, not to follow it. In so understanding his duty to God and the People, he was not a tyrant, but a Conservative English statesman.

Cromwell felt confident that his own good and strong government would in the end convince the people that it was their true interest to accept his temporary dictatorship in the trust of his gradually instituting constitutional government. The present reviewer still holds that this might have been possible if Cromwell could have lived twenty years more, and had introduced in time the inevitable modifications and rearrangements that circumstances and the nation required. Mr. Firth thinks the hope fallacious, for the enthusiasm of

Puritanism was

And

spent. But Cromwell, though entering on his career as a Puritan zealot, was also one of the most teachable, patient, and conciliatory of statesmen. being a consummately practical man, who, almost alone in history, is the one statesman who succeeded in all his enterprises, it is permissible to think that he might have founded a stable constitution had he been twenty years younger, and lived to develop from a Puritan chief into a national hero of the type of Alfred, or perhaps a master such as William the Conqueror.

This is not the view of Mr. Firth. But in estimating the final result of Cromwell's career, he amply vindicates it from the charge of ultimate nullity to

which Mr. Gardiner and Mr. Morley seem too much inclined to lean. Mr. Firth does not make so much of the fact that Cromwell's institutions did not last. He points out that the failures were more apparent than real. This is his final estimate:

So the Protector's institutions perished with him, and his work ended in apparent failure. Yet he had achieved great things. Thanks to his sword, absolute monarchy failed to take root in English soil. Thanks to his sword, Great Britain emerged from the chaos of the Civil Wars one strong state instead of three separate and hostile communities. Nor were the results of his action entirely negative. The ideas which inspired his policy exerted a lasting influence on the development of the English state. Thirty years after his death the religious liberty for which he fought was established by law. The union with Scotland and Ireland, which the statesmen of the Restoration undid, the statesmen of the eighteenth century effected. The mastery of the seas he had desired to gain, and the greater Britain he had sought to build up, became sober realities. Thus others perfected the work which he had designed and attempted. (P. 486.)

change of breeze, than was the Protector. But, as Mr. Firth paints his career, that is no sign of mental indecision or slowness of apprehension. It is the mark of the practical genius, of indomitable vigilance and alertness of mind. Nor is the failure of Cromwell's institutions any proof that he was without constructive and original power. He never designed his stopgap institutions to be permanent. No permanent institutions could have

been founded in 1653. The Protector spoke of himself as the constable set there to keep order to prevent the return to anarchy or the restoration of the Stuarts. The permanence of Cromwell's work consisted in the revival and ultimate establishment of the great ideas for which he fought with sword and with voice. These ideasliberty of conscience, suppression of absolute monarchy and feudal aristocracy, union of the three kingdoms, mastery of the seas-were all made the real and permanent bases of English policy within a few generations. Cromwell, it is true, did not conceive any of these ideas out of his own brain as things new and original. But he saw how to make them prevail as solid facts in the political sphere. The originality of the man of action consists in making the winning ideas dominant realities in the practical world.

Mr. Firth's account of Cromwell's early life down to the Civil War is a clear summary of the few certain facts, to which he does not seem to have added any new item.

He makes

other to shape a Church that had grown half Calvinistic into conformity with the Anglican ideal" (p. 27.) As to Charles, whom Mr. Firth judges severely, "his policy was a series of intrigues which failed, and a succession of bargains in which he asked much, offered little, and got nothing. As it was purely dynastic in its aim, and at once unprincipled and unsuccessful, it left him with no ally in Europe" (p. 24).

cam

It is when Mr. Firth reaches the Civil War that we find his immense knowledge of the contemporary literature, printed and manuscript, come fully into action. Mr. Firth's paigns and battles are, perhaps, the most effective parts of his book. He has thoroughly exhausted the materials, added some new points, unknown even to Mr. Gardiner, and has given plans of the principal battles and campaigns, differing as he tells us in the preface, from the received accounts in some respects. It is an annoying slip that, in the plan of Naseby (p. 128), the engraver has reversed the positions of the Parliamentary and Royalist forces, which are stated accurately in the text. By the way, should not the cut on p. 101 be described as the Crom well coat-of-arms and crest, and not simply as the "Cromwell crest," seeing that a shield with seven quarterings is displayed? And, as the "Cromwell coat-of-arms" on p. 325 entirely differs both in tinctures and charges from the Cromwell coat on p. 101, some explanation of the various quarterings should be given. The Cromwell coat proper (sable, a lion rampant, argent) is the same on both shields, but the remaining six are all different from the cor. responding quarters.

Mr. Firth traces, with great care and abundant learning, the process by which Cromwell, civilian, farmer and Puritan as he was, made himself & consummate soldier. It is thought that,

bounds." Thereupon the two great powers of the continent, France and Spain, were bidding against each other for a British alliance. Long did Oliver hesitate which to accept. Both were Catholic, both our rivals, both presented possible dangers. The vacillation which has been imputed to the Protector was really statesmanlike foresight. His changes of policy were due to extraordinary difficulties in the situation. At last, under the hostile attitude of Spain, Cromwell allied himself with France, and gained Dunkirk. Mr. Firth is not prepared to condemn his policy of preferring a French to a Spanish alliance. It was impossible at that time to foresee the coming decadence of Spain, the overweening ambition of Louis XIV, and the folly and servility of the Stuarts of the Restoration.

Of the success of Cromwell's colonial policy Mr. Firth has an even higher estimate.

Cromwell was the first English ruler who systematically employed the power of government to increase and extend the colonial possessions of England. His colonial policy was not a subordinate part of his foreign policy, but an independent scheme of action, based on definite principles and persistently pursued.

All the English colonies grew up during the lifetime of Cromwell, and during the Protectorate these were extended and consolidated into what might be called the nucleus of the Empire. Mr. Firth thinks Cromwell had at one time the idea of emigrating, and all through his life he had the keenest interest in New England. Ever since 1643, he was officially connected with the government of the colonies. These American colonies exercised great influence on the development of democ

"The imperial purpose which had inspired the colonial policy of the Commonwealth found its fullest expression in the actions of the Protector" (p. 393). In the internal affairs of the colonies Cromwell interfered very little. But he waged war zealously to extend the British colonies on the American continent, whether against French, Dutch or Spaniards. In spite of the failure of Penn and Venables in Hispaniola, the capture of Jamaica laid the foundation of British West Indies.

In reality it was the most fruitful part of his external policy and produced the most abiding results. . Thus the colonial policy which Cromwell and the statesmen of the Republic had initiated became the permanent policy of succeeding rulers, and it became so because it represented, not the views of a particular party, but the aspirations and the interests of Englishmen in general. (P. 408.)

It must be taken as a plain truth of history that Cromwell is the first consistent and systematic architect of British Imperialism. As such he has been, and he will be, praised or blamed by those who glory in or those who condemn the huge structure which has been built up on those foundations. But those who deplore that such barbarous excrescences on the glorious roll of English history should be linked with the memory of so pure a name, do not forget that the Protector of the middle of the seventeenth century must not be judged by the canons of any school in the end of the nineteenth century; that the standard we use must be relative, not absolute; that Cromwell, however wise and just,

could not rise above the best ideals of his age, beyond the only religion conceivable to a Bible Christian.

full and conclusive estimate of our great Puritan statesman, which, whilst it is based on a learning and research greater than any other biography of The Cornhill Magazine.

Cromwell in our language, is certainly second to none other in lucidity, literary art, and sound judgment.

Frederic Harrison.

CHAPTER IV.

The Chief Constable was at the other end of the compartment, and Mr. Charles Ashdon had taken the corner opposite myself. When he had looked once more at me he gave an exclamation of wonder.

"Upon my word," he said, "the Carlyle man!"

I was so taken aback by what had happened that I scarcely noticed the rudeness of the remark. But, without the slightest sign of guilt or consternation, he apologized at once.

"I beg your pardon, sir. That slipped out unawares. So startled, you know, to see you here like this."

He replaced his hat, and returned the handkerchief to his pocket. Then he began to realize the strangeness of our meeting, and was visibly puzzled. He looked hard at my clothes, for I still wore the garments which I had borrowed for my meeting. After that he turned his attention to my companion, and gave him a sharp and scrutinizing glance. For myself, I scarcely knew what to think, and could only wait in bewilderment. My feeling was that everything was in confusion; that a house of cards was falling about my ears. I was aware, however, that the Chief of Police was watching both of us from his corner with quiet interest.

"A friend of yours?" asked Mr. Ashdon, suddenly.

"Ye-es," I stammered. "Mr.-Mr.-" "Wade," said the Chief of Police, with a nod. "Mr. Wade."

The representative of Fillottsons nodded in return. "Glad to see you, Mr. Wade," he said, genially. "I fancy I've met you somewhere before."

Then he turned back to me. "Upon my word," he began again, "but this is a surprise! I thought you intended to stay at Leachester for the night, you know. Going down to Boltport?"

"No," I replied. "I-we-we're going to Hinton Junction."

"Indeed? Friends there?"

There was no other way out of it. "Yes," I said.

It was plain to me by this time that I had made an awkward mistake, and had brought myself into a delicate situation. It was borne in upon my consciousness, as soon as I looked at the man's face, that there was a shocking blunder somewhere. If he had been guilty he would have been alarmed at this meeting; but he showed not the slightest trace of alarm. He was no burglar, no diamond thief! I could read it in his face, in his voice, in his

manner.

I tried to pull myself together, as the saying goes, and to recover my presence of mind; but this was a difficult thing to do. Rarely indeed have I found myself in such a painful and puzzling position. Mr. Ashdon was surveying me once more with visible