PART III:
INTRODUCTION TO PART III
During the last half of the eighteenth century, Hume was best known in America, as in Britain and continental Europe, for his History of England. Hume’s History originally was published in six volumes from 1754 to 1762: The history of Great Britain. Vol. I. Containing the reigns of James I and Charles I (Edinburgh, 1754); The history of Great Britain. Vol. II. Containing the Commonwealth, and the reigns of Charles II and James II (London, 1757); The history of England, under the house of Tudor. Comprehending the reigns of K. Henry VII. K. Henry VIII. K. Edward VI. Q. Mary, and Q. Elizabeth, 2 vols (London, 1759); The history of England, from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the accession of Henry VII, 2 vols (London, 1762). In 1762 all six volumes were offered in a “new edition corrected” published in London as The History of England, from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the revolution in 1688.1 Hume’s earliest American purchasers, like Charles Carroll of Carrollton, tended to put off purchasing the history “by peace meals,” preferring to wait until the six volumes were available as a complete set. From 1762 when James Rivington advertised the complete History for sale in his New York bookstore, Hume’s volumes were a regular offering in the stock of colonial booksellers. Rivington billed Hume’s History as “a Work of the first Class,” and David Hall, John Mein, William Bradford, Noel Garret & Ebenezer Hazard, Edward Cox & Edward Berry, Robert Bell, Henry Knox, and John Sparhawk all carried British editions of the History. Had imported editions not flooded the colonial market, Robert Bell’s extensively advertised subscription edition proposed in 1771 would almost certainly have seen its way to print. Bell’s proposed edition of Hume’s “vehicle of KNOWLEDGE and LIBERTY,” however, apparently could not compete with the established and thriving trade in imports. By 1776, Hume’s History was available to many colonial readers at important libraries like the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Providence Library, the Charleston Library Society, Harvard University Library, and the New York Society Library. At Harvard, where lending records survive, Hume’s History was the most frequently borrowed book in the library for the period from 1773 to 1782. In the decade of the 1780s, even more booksellers carried Hume’s History than had been the case earlier. Some, like Daniel Boinod & Alexander Gaillard of Philadelphia, offered not only editions in English but also the Histoire de Angleterre, contenant la Maison de Tudor, de Stuart & de Plantagent, par M. D. Hume. When James Madison was asked in 1782 to draw up a core list of books for a Congressional library, Hume’s History was included as essential reading. By 1790 Harvard University Library held the History in four complete sets: a 6-volume first complete edition of 1762, an 8-volume 1767 set, and two 8-volume sets of 1786. When Thaddeus Mason Harris drew up the contents of an “ideal” social library in 1793, Hume’s History was included as one “of the most esteemed publications in the English language.” By the time of its first American edition in 1795–6, Hume’s History of England was already an American classic. American presses would continue to turn out reprints of the History during the first half of the nineteenth century. These came in a variety of different formats, from complete sets, often with continuations, to abridged versions for use in schools. It is difficult to establish with certainty, but Hume’s History was perhaps the most widely read history of England in America through until at least the 1850s. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century would Hume begin to lose ground to Thomas Babington Macaulay.2
From as early as 1758, when Benjamin Mecom reprinted passages from Hume’s sketch of Oliver Cromwell in his New-England Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, Hume’s History was the subject of debate in America.3 Part of the History’s popularity in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was owing to the fact that the genre of history was considered as very important. In the British colonies, as in Britain, Hume’s History, like other histories, was often looked to for its lessons on morals and politics. And in the heated atmosphere of pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary America, it was the History’s political lessons which colonial readers and commentators singled out for examination. That was the case with Daniel Dulany, Jr. who quoted from Hume in 1765. In his pamphlet attacking the Stamp Tax, Dulany referred to Hume as a “very penetrating gentleman” who had recommended “a mild government as a proper measure for preserving the dominion of England over her colonies.”4 In 1767 Jonathan Dickinson also found and popularized political lessons drawn from Hume’s History. Dickinson’s “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the inhabitants of the British Colonies,” were extremely influential and were printed and reprinted not only in Pennsylvania but in scores of colonial newspapers up and down the coast. In the “Letters” Dickinson referred to Hume’s writings more than to any others. When the “Letters” came to see their first collected edition in 1767 the frontispiece hailed Dickinson as “The Patriotic American Farmer,” and pictured the lawyer standing in his library, an elbow resting on the “Magna Charta” and “Hume’s History of England” clearly visible on the spine of a book prominently displayed on the shelf behind. For Dickinson, it was the “elegant and ingenious Mr. Hume” whose History established the importance of the English privilege of taxing themselves. It was “this great man, whose political reflections are so much admired,” said Dickinson, who “makes this power one of the foundations of liberty.”5 John Adams was another colonist who found political lessons about liberty in Hume’s History. For Adams, Hume’s narrative was one which traced the “spirit of liberty” in English history. Writing in the pages of the Boston Gazette, for instance, Adams openly quoted Hume to help support his case against Jonathan Sewall’s defense of Massachusetts Governor Francis Bernard.6 Adams employed Hume’s History in similar ways in a later newspaper debate, with William Brattle in 1773.7 Hume’s History provided Adams and other colonists with a storehouse of political case studies that were extracted freely to be applied to contemporary issues in colonial politics.8 Hume’s thought on the English constitution was especially well known to his colonial American audience. While some eighteenth-century Americans, like Samuel Adams writing as “Candidus” in the Boston Gazette in 1772, were critical of Hume’s constitutional thought,9 others accepted it wholeheartedly. That the constitutional message in Hume’s History was a hotly debated topic in Revolutionary America is clear from a 1773 letter exchange in the Maryland Gazette between Charles Carroll of Carrollton and Daniel Dulany, Jr.10 For Carroll and many other reluctant revolutionaries, Hume’s constitutional message was one that vindicated the colonial drift towards independence. By exposing the counterfeit origins of Whig claims to liberty grounded on an “ancient, fixed constitution,” Hume’s History offered a way for the colonists to divorce themselves from the sway of the English constitution. That was the case when Hume’s conclusion to the second Anglo-Saxon volume was reprinted as “Progress of the human Understanding, from the Extinction of the Saxons, to the Accession of the House of Tudor, From Mr. Hume,” in the pages of the Pennsylvania Magazine; or, American Monthly Museum in 1776.11 The Pennsylvania Magazine reprinted a passage with Hume’s message, which Charles Carroll had cited, that “the constitution of the English government . . . has experienced the same mutability, that has attended all human institutions.” After independence was declared, Hume’s History continued to be read by Americans for political instruction on a variety of topics. Deferential references to Hume’s History abound in American writings of the 1780s, even though there has not been space to reprint many of these below. Examples might be cited in the writings of Aadanus Burke, or John Gardiner, or essays in newspapers like the Pennsylvania Packet. 12 A little later, the eighteen volumes of the first American edition of the Encyclopadeia Or, a Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Miscellaneous Literature were littered with quotations from Hume’s History. Many other passages in the Encyclopadeia had Hume’s History as their base; some of these were referenced but more were not. We might begin to see that when James Madison drew from Hume’s History he was a long way from being unique. Madison’s pamphlet from 1785, A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, and his famous discussion of the causes, nature, and remedy for faction in Federalist #10, both evidence the impact of Hume’s History of England.13 In the 1790s the History continued to be read and praised in the new United States. In America, as was the case in Britain, Hume’s writings were often compared and contrasted on points of style and narrative with the histories of Edward Gibbon and William Robertson.14 Interest in the History was refreshed in 1795–6 with the publication of its first American edition by Robert Campbell in Philadelphia. In a review of Campbell’s subscription edition, The American Monthly Review; or, Literary Chronicle expressed sentiments held by many when it argued that “For accuracy and depth of reasoning, for neatness, and frequency of elegance, of diction, HUME is deservedly celebrated.”15 While it is true that Hume’s anti-religious stance had a negative effect on the History’s reception with some readers, one ought not to overemphasize that effect. As a writer in The Monthly Magazine, and American Review put it in 1799, “Hume was the enemy not of any particular form of religion, but of religion itself. His inferences are, therefore, much too large to be admitted by a Christian reader; but, under certain obvious limitations, they will not be rejected by one who, while he believes in the truth and excellence of religion in general condemns the abuses of enthusiasm and hypocrisy. Hume, therefore, is not without his claims to respect, even from religious readers; while readers of a different kind will hasten to assign him the first place among sages and historians.”16 As an anonymous writer in The Port Folio put it in 1809, “Whatever may be thought of his demerits by the scrupulous, or the pious, as an author, unhappily inclining to the side of infidelity, his talents, as an historian and politician, cannot be too strenuously applauded.”17 In the early nineteenth century, Hume’s History continued to have its defenders and advocates and was the subject of frequent debate and of numerous anecdotes.18 But increasingly in the nineteenth century, the American reception of Hume’s History was a negative one. Thomas Jefferson’s criticisms of Hume as a “Tory” historian are well known,19 and are representative of a much wider disapproval. There has not been space to include all of these critical assessments below, of course, but selections are offered by Edward Brooks, Charles Francis Adams, Leonard Withington, and others.20 Still, what worried Jefferson and many of Hume’s nineteenth-century critics was that “Hume was a Tory; Hume was a Deist; Hume was fond of sly insinuations against purity and piety; and yet, Hume’s history is read by every body, by Whig as well as by Tory, by Americans as well as by Englishmen.”21
1For the early publication details of Hume’s History see T.E. Jessop, A Bibliography of David Hume and of Scottish Philosophy from Francis Hutcheson to Lord Balfour (1938; reprinted New York, 1983). William B. Todd has edited a reliable modern edition of Hume’s The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to The Revolution in 1688, 6 vols (Indianapolis, 1983) [hereafter History].
2See Mark G. Spencer, “The Reception of David Hume's Political Thought in Eighteenth-Century America,” 2 vols (Ph.D. dissertation, The University of Western Ontario, 2001), volume 2, for some statistical evidence related to the circulation of Hume’s History. For strikingly similar trends in Scotland, see Mark R.M. Towsey, Reading the Scottish Enlightenment: Books and their Readers in Provincial Scotland, 1750–1820 (Leiden, 2010).
3Reprinted below.
4Daniel Dulany, Jr., Considerations on the Propriety of Imposing Taxes in the British Colonies, For the Purpose of raising a Revenue, by Act of Parliament (North America, 1765), p. 49, not reprinted below.
5For examples of Dickinson’s use of Hume see, Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, to the inhabitants of the British Colonies (New York, 1903; reprinted New York, 1970), pp. 38–9, 51, 78, 88, 96, 120, not reprinted below.
6See “[Remainder of Governor Winthrop’s Second Letter to Governor Bradford, begun in our last.],” Boston Gazette, 16 February 1767, selection reprinted below.
7See John Adams, “On the Independence of the Judges,” in Robert J. Taylor, ed., The Papers of John Adams (Cambridge, 1977–), vol. 1, pp. 255, 265–6, not reprinted below.
8See, for instance, Josiah Quincy, Jr., Observations on the Act of Parliament commonly called the Boston Port-Bill; with Thoughts on Civil Society and Standing Armies (Boston, 1774), p. 411, not reprinted below. Loyalist writers, like “Candidus” in Plain Truth, a pamphlet that responded to Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, also referred to Hume’s History.
9For Samuel Adams see Hary Alonzo Cushing, ed., The Writings of Samuel Adams (New York, 1968), vol. 2, pp. 322–6. See, also Charles Lee on Hume as an historian in The Lee Papers, vol. 1 (1754–1776) in Collections of the New-York Historical Society for the Year 1871 (New York, 1872). Neither of these sources have been reprinted below.
10Selections reprinted below.
11“Progress of the human Understanding, from the Extinction of the Saxons, to the Accession of the House of Tudor From Mr. Hume,” Pennsylvania Magazine; or, American Monthly Museum, vol. 2 (1776), pp. 274–7, reprinted below.
12See Aadanus Burke, An Address to the Freemen of the State of South Carolina Containing Political Observations . . . (Charleston, 1783; reprinted Philadelphia, 1783); John Gardiner, An Oration, delivered July 4, 1785, at the Request of the Inhabitants of the Town of Boston, in Celebration of the Anniversary of American Independence (Boston, 1785); “Remarks on the Memorial of the Grand Jury of the City of Philadelphia, praying for that the Legislture would grant a Charter to the said city,” Pennsylvania Packet (30 August 1786). None of these selections are reprinted below.
13Not reprinted below.
14See “O.,” “Original Communications. Parallel between Hume, Robertson and Gibbon,” The Monthly Magazine, and American Review, vol. 1 (May 1799), pp. 90–94; “Anonymous,” “Variety,” The Port Folio, vol. 1 [series 2] (1806), pp. 44–5 “Anonymous,” “Rhetoric — for the Port Folio. Lecture X, Of the peculiarities attached to the correct reading and recitation of Narration, Dialogue, Soliloquy, Address, and works of Sentiment and Imagination,” The Port Folio, vol. 3 [series 3] (1810), pp. 488–90; “Anonymous,” “For the Port Folio. Hume and Robertson Compared,” The Port Folio, vol. 4 [series 3] (1810), pp. 330–33; “Juverna,” “A Parallel Between Hume and Robertson, as Historians,” The Irish Shield and Monthly Milesian, vol. 1 (1829), pp. 403–407; all reprinted below.
15The American Monthly Review; or, Literary Journal, “Art. V. The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688. In Six Vols. Octavo. Illustrated with Plates. By David Hume, Esq. Vol. I. Philadelphia, 1795. Campbell. Boards, 1 Dol. 67 cents to Subscribers,” vol. 3 (1795), pp. 29–43, reprinted below.
16“Original Communications. Parallel between Hume, Robertson and Gibbon,” The Monthly Magazine, and American Review, vol. 1 (May 1799), p. 91.
17“Anonymous,” “The Literary World,” The Port Folio, vol. 1 [series 3] (1809), pp. 98–100, reprinted below.
18“Anonymous,” “Hume and Burnet,” The Philadelphia Repository, vol. 5 (9 March 1805), p. 76; “Anonymous,” “Variety,” The Port Folio, vol. 3 [series 2] (1807), p. 27; “Anonymous,” “Coincidences. Hume and Dryden,” The Port Folio, vol. 2, [series 5] (1816), p. 126; “Anonymous,” “Variety,” Saturday Magazine: National Recorder, vol. 5 (17 March 1821), p. 174; “Anonymous,” “Hume’s History of England,” The Atheneum; or, Spirit of the English Magazines, vol. 1, second series (1824), p. 85; all reprinted below.
19Letters from Jefferson to John Norvell (11 June 1807), to William Duane (12 August 1810), to Horatio G. Spafford (17 March 1814), to [George Washington Lewis] (25 October 1825); selections reprinted below.
20[Edward Brooks], “ART. II — The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, to which is added an Historical View of the Affairs of Ireland. By Edward Earl of Clarendon. A new Edition, exhibiting a faithful Collation of the original MS.; with all the suppressed Passages; also the unpublished Notes of Bishop Warburton. Oxford, at the Clardendon Press. Reprinted by Wells & Lilly, Boston,” North American Review, vol. 27 (Oct. 1828), pp. 300–17; [Edward Brooks], “Constitutional History. Art. X. — 1. History of England from the first Invasion of the Romans. By John Lingard, D.D. London. 1825. 2. History of the British Empire from the Accession of Charles the First, to the Restoration. By George Brodie. Edinburgh. 1822. 3. A Constitutional History of England from the Accession of Henry the Seventh to the Death of George the Second. Second Edition. 3 vols. 8vo. London. 1829. 4. History of the Commonwealth. By William Godwin,” North American Review, vol. 29 (July 1829), pp. 265–81; [Charles Francis Adams], “Art. VII. — Vaughan’s Memorials of the Stuarts. Memorials of the Stuart Dynasty, including the Constitutional and Ecclesiastical History of England from the Decease of Elizabeth to the Abdication of James II. By Robert Vaughan. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1831,” The North American Review, vol. 37 (1833), pp. 164–89; Leonard Withington, “Hume, as a Historian,” The American Quarterly Observer, vol. 1 (1833), pp. 189–205; “Anonymous,” “Art. IV. — The Life of Belisarius. By Lord Mahon. London. John Murray. 1829. 8vo. pp. 473,” Christian Examiner, vol. 7 (1829), pp. 202–12; “Anonymous,” “Review of New Publications. Dean KENNEY’s Principles and Practices of pretended Reformers,” Christian Observer and Advocate, vol. 19 (1820), pp. 666–93; all reprinted below.
21See, “The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Cœsar to the Abdication of James the Second, 1688. By David Hume, Esq. A new edition, with the Author’s last corrections and improvements. To which is prefixed a short account of his life, written by himself. Vols. I, II, III. New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 82 Cliff Street. New Haven: T. H. Pease. 1850,” The New Englander, vol. 8 (1850), pp. 322–3, reprinted below.
29
“The famous Oliver Cromwel’s private Life — his Sickness — Death — and Character; from a certain Historian of our own Times,” The New-England Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, no. 2 (October 1758), pp. 3–12; and “The Duty of Authors,” The New-England Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, no. 2 (October 1758), pp. 13–18.
[Benjamin Mecom]
Published in Boston by Benjamin Mecom (1732–76?) under the pseudonym “Urbanus Filter,” The New-England Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure survived for only three numbers. Its contents were truly miscellaneous. In the selections reprinted below, Mecom reprinted Hume’s character sketch of Cromwell as a fanatical enthusiast. (See History, vol. 6, pp. 55–58, 105–10.) Hume’s text is reproduced unadorned but for a single paragraph in which Mecom quietly added (set off in square parenthesis) a contrasting assessment of Cromwell. An elusive editorial comment on Hume was tucked away in a footnote to the journal’s next article, also reprinted below. Reprinting “Of the Duty of Author’s,” an essay from Thomas Gordon’s 1725 collection of essays, The Humourist, Mecom added in a footnote a passage from John Brown’s An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times that ridiculed Hume as an author “bent upon Popularity and Gain.” On Benjamin Mecom see Kevin J. Haynes, “Benjamin Mecom,” ANB, vol. 15, pp. 232–3. On The New-England Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure see API, p. 155; BAP, p. 114; Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, 1741–1850 (Cambridge, 1938), pp. 26, 40–41; Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America, pp. 140–41, 283–4.
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Cromwel’s private Life — his Sickness — Death — and Character. 1653.
[From Hume’s History of Britain.]
OLIVER CROMWEL, in whose hands the dissolution of the Parliament had left the whole power civil and military of three kingdoms, was born at Huntington, the last year of the former century, of a very good family; tho’ he himself, being the son of a second brother, inherited but a small estate from his father. In the course of his education he had been sent to the university; but his genius was found little fitted for the calm and elegant occupations of learning; and he made small proficiency in his studies. He even threw himself into a very dissolute and disorderly course of life; and in gaming, drinking, debauchery, and country riots, he consumed the more early years of his youth, and dissipated part of his fortune. All of a sudden the spirit of reformation seized him; he married, affected a grave and composed behavior, entered into all the zeal and rigor of the puritanical party, and offered to restore to every one whatever sums he had formerly gained by gaming. The same vehemence of temper, which had transported him into the extremes of pleasure, now distinguished his religious habits. His house was the resort of all the zealous clergy of the party; and his hospitality, as well as his liberalities to the silenced and deprived ministers, proved as chargeable as his former debaucheries. Tho’ he had acquired a tolerable fortune by a maternal uncle, he found his affairs so injured by his expences, that he was obliged to take a farm at St. Ives, and apply himself, for some years, to agriculture as a profession. But this expedient served rather to involve him in further debts and difficulties. The long Prayers which he said to his family in the morning and again in the afternoon, consumed his own time and that of his ploughmen; and he reserved no leisure for the care of his temporal affairs. His active mind, superior to the low occupations to which he was condemned, preyed upon itself; and he indulged his imagination in visions, illuminations, revelations; the great nourishment to that hypocondriacal temper, to which he was ever subject. Urged by his wants and his devotions, he had formed a party with Hampden, his near kinsman, who was pressed only by the latter motive, to transport himself into New England, now become the retreat of the more zealous among the puritanical party; and it was an order of council, which obliged them to disembark and remain in England. The earl of Bedford who possessed a large estate in the Fen Country, near the Isle of Ely, having undertaken to drain these morasses, was obliged to apply to the King; and by the powers of royal prerogative, he got commissioners appointed, who conducted that work, and divided the new acquired land among the several proprietors. He met with opposition from many, among whom Cromwel distinguished himself; and this was the first public opportunity, which he had met with, of discovering the factious zeal and obstinacy of his character.
From accident and intrigue he was chosen, by the town of Cambridge, member of the long Parliament. His domestic affairs were then in great disorder; and he seemed not to possess any talents, which could qualify him to rise in that public sphere, into which he was now at last entered. His person was ungraceful, his dress slovenly, his voice untuneable, his elocution homely, tedious, obscure, and embarrassed. The fervor of his spirit frequently prompted him to rise in the house; but he was heard with no attention: His name, for above two years, is not to be found oftener than twice in any committee; and those committees, into which he was admitted, were chosen for affairs, which would more interest the zealots than the men of business. Amidst the eloquent speakers and fine gentlemen of the house, he was entirely overlooked; and his friend Hambden alone was acquainted with the depth of his genius, and foretold that, if a civil war should ensue, he would soon rise to eminence and distinction.
Cromwel himself seems to have been conscious where his strength lay; and partly from that motive, partly from the uncontroleable fury of his zeal, he always joined that party, which pushed every thing to extremity against the King. He was very active for the famous remonstrance, which was the signal for all the ensuing commotions; and when, after a long debate, it was carried by a small majority, he told lord Falkland, that, if the question had been lost, he was resolved, next day, to have converted into ready money the remains of his fortune, and immediately to have left the kingdom. Nor was this resolution, he said, peculiar to himself: many others of his party he knew to be equally determined.
He was no less than forty-three years of age, when he first embraced the military profession; and by force of genius, without any master, he soon became an excellent officer; tho’ perhaps he never reached the fame of a consummate commander. He raised a troop of horse, fixed his quarters in Cambridge, exerted great severity towards that university, which zealously adhered to the royal party; and showed himself a man who would go all lengths, in favour of that cause which he had espoused. He would not allow his soldiers to perplex their heads with those subtilities of fighting by the King’s authority against his person, and of obeying his Majesty’s orders signified by both houses of Parliament: he plainly told them, that if he met the king in battle, he would fire a pistol in his face as readily as against any other man. His troop of horse he soon augmented to a regiment, and first instituted that discipline and inspired that spirit, which rendered the parliamentary armies, in the end, victorious. Your troops (said he to Hambden, according to his own account ——— Conference held at Whitehall) are, most of them, old decayed serving-men and tapsters, and such kind of fellows; the king’s forces are composed of gentlemen’s younger sons, and persons of good quality. And do you think, that the mean spirits of such base and low fellows as ours, will ever be able to encounter gentlemen, that have honor and courage and resolution in them? You must get men of spirit; and take it not ill that I say, of a spirit that is likely to go as far as gentlemen will go; or else I am sure you will still be beaten, as you have hitherto been, in every encounter. He did as he proposed. He inlisted free-holders and farmers sons. He carefully invited into his regiment all the zealous fanatics thro’out England. When collected in a body, their enthusiastic spirit still rose to a higher pitch. Their colonel, from his own natural character, as much as from policy, was sufficiently inclined to increase the flame. He preached, he prayed, he fought, he punished, he rewarded. The wild enthusiasm, along with valour and discipline, still propagated itself; and all men cast their eyes on so pious and so successful a leader. From low commands he rose with great rapidity to be really the first, tho’ in appearance only the second, in the army. By fraud and violence, he soon rendered himself the first in the state. In proportion to the increase of his authority, his talents seemed always to expand themselves; and he displayed every day new abilities, which had lain dormant till the very emergence, by which they were called forth into action. All Europe stood astonished to see a nation, so turbulent and unruly, who, for encroachments on their privileges, had dethroned and murdered an excellent Prince, descended from a long line of monarchs, now at last subdued and reduced to slavery by one, who, a few years before, was no better than a private gentleman, whose name was not known in the nation, and who was very little regarded even in that low sphere, to which he had always been confined.
1658 — All composure of mind was now forever fled from Cromwel, the Protector. He found that the grandeur which with so much guilt and courage he had attained, could not ensure him that tranquility, which it belongs to virtue alone and moderation fully to ascertain. Overwhelmed with the load of public affairs, dreading perpetually some fatal accident in his distempered government, seeing nothing around him but treacherous friends or enraged enemies, possessing the confidence of no party, resting his title on no principle civil or religious, his power he found to depend on so delicate a poise of factions and interests, as the smallest event was able, without any preparation, in a moment to overturn. Death too, which with such signal intrepidity he had braved in the field, being incessantly threatened by the poniards of fanatical or interested assassins, was ever present to his terrified apprehension, and haunted him in every scene of business or repose. Each action of his life betrayed the terrors under which he laboured. The aspect of strangers was uneasy to him: with a piercing and anxious eye he surveyed every face to which he was not daily accustomed. He never moved a step without strong guards attending him: he wore armor below his cloaths, and farther secured himself by offensive weapons; a sword, falchion, and pistols, which he always carried about him. He returned from no place by the direct road, or by the same way which he went. Every journey he performed with hurry and precipitation. Seldom he slept above three nights together in the same chamber: and he never let it be known beforehand what chamber he intended to choose, nor entrusted himself in any which was not provided with back-doors. Society terrified him, while he reflected on his numerous, unknown, and implacable enemies: solitude astonished him, by withdrawing that protection, which he found so necessary for his security.
Cromwel’s Sickness. — His body also, from the contagion of his anxious mind, began to be affected; and his health seemed very sensibly to decline. He was seized with a slow fever, which changed into a tertian ague. For the space of a week no dangerous symptoms appeared; and in the intervals of the fits he was able to walk abroad. At length the fever increased, and he himself began to entertain some thoughts of death, and to cast his eye towards that future existence, whose idea had once been intimately present to him; thô since, in the hurry of affairs and the shock of wars and factions, it had, no doubt, been considerably obliterated. He asked Goodwin, one of his preachers, if the doctrine was true, that the elect could never fall or suffer a final reprobation. Nothing more certain, replied the preacher. Then am I safe (said the Protector) for I am sure that once I was in a state of grace.
His physicians were sensible of the perilous condition, to which his distemper had reduced him: but his chaplains by their prayers, visions and revelations, so buoyed up his hopes, that he began to believe his life out of all danger. A favourable answer, it was pretended, had been returned by heaven to the petitions of all the godly; and he relied on their asseverations much more than on the opinion of the most experienced physicians. I tell you (he cried with confidence to the latter) I shall not dye of this distemper: I am well assured of my recovery. It is promised by the Lord, not only to my supplications, but also to that of men who hold a stricter commerce and more intimate correspondence with him. Ye may have skill in your profession, but nature can do more than all the physicians in the world, and God is far above nature. Nay, to such a degree of madness did their enthusiastic assurances amount, that upon a fast day which on his account was observed, as well at Hampton Court as at Whitehall, they did not so much pray for his health, as give thanks for the undoubted pledges which they had received of his recovery. He himself was overheard offering up his addresses to heaven; and so far had the illusions of fanaticism prevailed over the plainest dictates of natural morality, that he assumed more the character of a mediator, in interceding for his people, than that of a criminal, whose atrocious violation of social duty had, from every tribunal human and divine, merited the severest vengeance.
Meanwhile all the symptoms began to wear a more fatal aspect; and the physicians were obliged to break silence, and to declare that the Protector could not survive the next fit, with which he was threatened. The council was alarmed. A deputation was sent to know his will with regard to his successor. His senses were gone, and he could not now express his intentions. They asked him whether he did not mean that his eldest son Richard should succeed him in the Protectorship. A simple affirmative was or seemed to be extorted from him. Soon after, on the third of September, that very day which he had always considered as the most fortunate for him, he expired. A violent tempest, which immediately succeeded his death, served as a subject of discourse to the vulgar. His partizans, as well as his opponents, were fond of remarking this event; and each of them endeavoured by forced inferences, to interpret it as a confirmation of their particular prejudices.
Cromwel’s Character, &c. — The writers attached to the memory of this wonderful person, make his character, with regard to abilities, bear the air of the most extravagant panegeric: his enemies form such a representation of his moral qualities as resembles the most violent invective. Both of them, it must be confessed, are supported by such striking circumstances in his conduct and fortune, as bestow on their representation a great air of probability.
“What can be more extraordinary [it is said by Cowley’s Discourses] “than that a person, of private birth and education, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which have sometimes, nor shining talents of mind, which have often, raised men to the highest dignities, should have the courage to attempt and the abilities to execute so extraordinary a design as the subverting one of the most ancient and best established monarchies in the world? That he should have the power and boldness to put his Prince and master to an open and infamous death? Should banish that numerous and strongly allied family? Cover all these temerities under a seeming obedience to a Parliament, in whose service he pretended to be retained? Trample too upon that Parliament in their turn, and scornfully expel them so soon as they gave him ground of dissatisfaction? Erect in their place the dominion of the saints, and give reality to the most visionary idea, which the heated imagination of any fanatic was ever able to entertain? Suppress again that monster in its infancy, and openly set up himself above all things that ever were called sovereign in England? Overcome first all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice? Serve all parties patiently for a while, and command them victoriously at last? Over-run each corner of the three nations, and subdue with equal felicity both the riches of the south, and the poverty of the north? Be feared and courted by all foreign Princes, and be adopted a brother to the Gods of the earth? Call together Parliaments with a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of his mouth? Reduce to subjection a warlike and discontented nation, by means of a mutinous army? Command a mutinous army by means of seditious and factious officers? Be humbly and daily petitioned, that he would be pleased, at the rate of millions a year, to be hired as master of those who had hired him before to be their servant? Have the estates and lives of three nations as much at his disposal as was once the little inheritance of his father, and be as noble and liberal in the spending of them? And lastly (for there is no end of enumerating every particular of his glory) with one word bequeath all his power and splendor to his posterity? Dye possessed of peace at home, and triumph abroad? Be buried among kings, and with more than regal solemnity? And leave a name behind him not to be extinguished but with the whole world; which, as it was too little for his praise, so might it have been for his conquests, if the short line of his mortal life could have stretched out the extent of his immortal designs?”
My intention is not to disfigure this picture, drawn by so masterly a hand: I shall only endeavour to remove from it somewhat of the marvellous; a circumstance which, on all occasions, gives so much ground for doubt and suspicion. It seems to me, that the occurrence of Cromwel’s life, where his abilities are principally discovered, is his rising from a private station, in opposition to so many rivals, so much advanced before him to a high command and authority in the army. His great courage, his signal military talents, his eminent dexterity and address were all requisite for this important acquisition. Yet will not this promotion appear the effect of supernatural abilities, when we consider that Fairfax, himself a private gentleman, who had not the advantage of a seat in Parliament, had, through the same steps, attained even a superior rank, and, if endued with common capacity and penetration, had been able to retain it. To incite such an army to rebellion against the Parliament, required no uncommon art or industry: to have kept them in obedience had been the more difficult enterprize. When the breach was once formed betwixt the military and civil powers, a supreme and absolute authority is from that moment devolved on the general; and if he is afterwards pleased to employ artifice or policy, it may be regarded, on most occasions, as great condescension, if not a superfluous caution. That Cromwel was ever able really to blind or over-reach either the King or the Republicans, does not appear: as they possessed no means of resisting the force under his command, they were glad to temporize with him, and, by seeming to be deceived, wait for opportunities of freeing themselves from his dominion. If he seduced the military fanatics, it is to be considered, that their interest and his evidently concurred; that their ignorance and low education exposed them to the grossest imposition, and that he himself was at bottom as frantic an enthusiast as the worst of them, and, in order to obtain their confidence, needed but to display those vulgar and ridiculous habits which he had early acquired, and on which he set so high a value. An army is so forcible and at the same time so coarse a weapon, that any hand, which wields it may, without much dexterity, perform any operation and attain any ascendant in human society.
The domestic administration of Cromwel, tho’ it discovers great ability, was conducted without any plan either of liberty or arbitrary power: perhaps his difficult situation admitted of neither. His foreign enter-prizes, tho’ full of intrepidity, were pernicious to national interest, and seem more the result of impetuous fury or narrow prejudices, than of cool foresight and deliberation. An eminent personage, however, he was in many respects, and even a superior genius; but unequal and irregular in his operations. And though not defective in any talent, except that of elocution, the abilities which in him were most admirable, and which most contributed to his marvellous success, were the magnanimous resolution of his enterprizes, and his peculiar dexterity in discovering the characters, and practising on the weaknesses of mankind.
If we survey the moral character of Cromwel with that indulgence which is due to the blindness infirmities [sic] and imperfection of the human species, we shall not be inclined to load his memory with such violent reproaches as those which his enemies usually throw upon it. Amidst the passion and prejudices of that time, that he should prefer the parliamentary to the royal cause, will not appear very extraordinary; since, even at present; many men of sense and knowledge are disposed to think, that the question with regard to the Justice of the quarrel, may be regarded as very doubtful and ambiguous. The murder of the king, the most atrocious of all his actions, was to him covered under a mighty cloud of republican and fanatical illusions; and it is not impossible that he might believe it, as many others did, the most meritorious action which he could perform. His subsequent usurpation was the effect of necessity, as well as of ambition; nor is it easy to see how the various factions could at that time have been restrained without a mixture of military and arbitrary authority. The private deportment of Cromwel as a son, a husband, a father, a friend, is exposed to no considerable censure, if it does not rather merit praise. And, upon the whole, his character does not appear more extraordinary and unusual by the mixture of so much absurdity with so much penetration, than by his tempering such violent ambition, and such enraged fanaticism, with so much regard to justice and humanity.
[Another author, speaking of Cromwel, says “He is owned to have been a person of singular courage, and of great abilities. It is said he was an enthusiast. But the good sense that appeared in all his actions, public and private, is a sufficient testimony that enthusiasm had not the ascendant over him. It seems more probable that he suited his dissimulation to all parties and tempers. The worst of his enemies call him a lover of justice, for whatever arbitrary proceedings he has been charged with, were only where his authority was controverted, which, as things then were, it was necessary to have established, in order that the law, in other cases, might have due course. And how well did he maintain the honour of the English nation in foreign parts! He retrieved the credit of it that had been gradually sinking through too long reigns of near fifty years; acquired the real mastery of the British channel, extended his dominions into remote parts; and, in fine, rendered himself the arbiter of Europe. We may, then, venture to say, that he was most eminently qualified for the power he usurped.”]
Cromwel was in the fifty-ninth year of his age when he died. He was of a robust frame of body, and of a manly, though not an agreeable aspect. He left only two sons and three daughters. His father died when he was young. His mother lived till after he was Protector; and, contrary to her orders, he buried her with great pomp in Westminster abbey. She could not be persuaded that his power or person was ever in security. At every noise which she heard, she exclaimed that her son was murdered; and was never satisfied that he was alive, if she did not receive frequent visits from him. She was a decent woman; and by her frugality and industry had raised and educated a numerous family upon a small fortune. She had even been obliged to set up a brewery at Huntingdon, which she managed to good advantage. Hence Cromwel, in the invectives of that age, is often stigmatized with the name of the Brewer.
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From the HUMOURIST.
Of the Duty of Authors.
THE different Notions that different Men usually entertain of the same Thing, have made it a Question among some sanguine Philosophers, whether Virtue and Vice are not merely imaginary Beings, or have any other Existence than what Climates, Customs, Opinions, and frequently Caprice and Humour, are pleased to give them. Moral Good and Evil (say they) are confined to Countries; they vary according to the Turn of Mind, Temper and Manners of the Inhabitants, to the Form of Government under which they live, to the Nature of its Religion and Laws. In some Places a Man would be punished with Death, for an Action which in others would entitle him to the highest Honour and Reward. Our Weakness, our Want of Resolution, of Sagacity, of Knowledge, of Abilities to receive it, render it impossible for us to fix any Criterion whereby to judge of Right and Wrong, Truth and Falsehood, Justice and Injustice, to distinguish between Reality and Appearances, to search beyond the Surface of Things; and therefore it is that we can never agree in our Opinions concerning them, nor free our Minds from the Errors which in a great Measure occasion all the Follies, Infelicities, and Misfortunes of Life.
Whatever Foundation there may be in Reason or Nature for this Hypothesis, those Gentlemen who confidently advance it, shew themselves by that Means to have but little Regard for Mankind, or the Good of Human Society. All Truths are not fit to be told. The Bulk of the People should be taught no more than what immediately concerns the Purposes of Living: To be industrious, to be peaceable, to be obedient to their Governors, to be content with their Condition, is all they ought to be acquainted with; every Thing else is idle and impertinent to them, and will make them either Enthusiasts or Madmen; it will make them dangerous to the State and uneasy to themselves; and, as it always happens to ordinary Capacities, the more they endeavour to know, the less will they be able to understand. In too great a Thirst after Knowledge they seldom fail to lose their common Sense; it occasions them to be lazy, insolent and proud, and while they busy themselves about vain and fruitless Speculations, which they can never satisfy themselves in, or which would signify Nothing if they did, they neglect all the Business and Duties of Life.
However Circumstances or Times may alter the Nature of Things, and whether there be any Reality in Virtue or no, it is certain that it is the Duty of every Man to conform himself to the Laws and Customs of the Community in which he lives, and not out of a wretched Affection of superior Talents and Understanding to others, to advance new Notions and new Opinions, and endeavour to render the old received Ones ridiculous to the Rabble: Man must be kept ignorant to be happy; they must be deceived and ensnared like Children into their own Good; they are in no Wise capable of judging of Things abstracted, and out of the common Road; and therefore the Authors who trouble themselves or others with such kind of Writings, can have no End in it either prudent or honest; every Hour that a Tradesman or a Labourer spends from his Business, except in lawful and necessary Recreations, is an Injury done to his Country, as well as to himself and Family; he ought to consider what Advantage the Nation reaps from his Work, and that to be a good Patriot (a Character that at present every Body seems to be fond of) he must be an industrious Pains taking Man.
It has been often observed, that when once People begin to throw off the Prejudices of Education, and set up to think for themselves, they seldom stop there; that from disbelieving the Stories of Witches and Apparitions, without we proceed with the greatest Caution, we shall be apt to carry our Doubts a little farther, and so by Degrees (however averse we might have been to it at first) bring ourselves to believe the whole Business of Religion a Fable. This, it is much to be feared, is pretty near the Case at present; that general Dissolution and Corruption of Manners which prevails among the People, perhaps more now than ever, could be hardly owing to any other Cause except this; Religion will still be some Check with Vice, while it continues to have any Footing at all in the World, and therefore Men would act at least with more Fear and Restraint if its Power was not almost at an End.
The remedying of this Evil; the bringing People to a due Sense of Religion and Virtue again, would be worth the While of some of us sage Instructors of the Times to attempt, if we could find Leisure from our more important political Concerns to turn our Tho’ts that Way: I cannot indeed but acknowledge that it is expected of us, that we should keep a watchful Eye over the Administration; that we should from Time to Time make the strictest Inquiries into their Conduct, and lay it before our worthy Patrons and Readers, with proper Reflections and Animadversions thereupon; and therefore that it would be beneath even the Meanest among us to write dull and heavy Lectures of Morality (for every Thing of that Kind must be so) which no Body would read; or if any did, which would be more becoming Pedants than Politicians to give. I will farther allow that it might tend in a good Measure to spoil the SALE of our Works,* the first and most immediate Concern of an Author, and afford a favourable Opportunity for some new Writer to sit up; who by pursuing the contrary Scheme, might get the Start of us in the Esteem of the Town, and live and flourish upon our Ruin. And yet methinks notwithstanding all these Difficulties that lie in our Way, we ought to employ the good Opinion that our Readers and Admirers have of us to their own Advantage, and try if we cannot with as much Ease make them honest Men, as we have made them deep Politicians; if we cannot as well teach them their own Duty, as that of Princes and Ministers of State; if they will not as readily learn to manage their own Families at Home, as to settle the Affairs of the Nation.
Indeed if we would put our excellent Talents to a proper Use, we might by our Writings promote, in a great Measure, the Cause of Religion and Virtue. Our Genius is very well adapted to that of our Readers, and if we were not to use them to Treason and Nonsense, they might find Entertainment in better Things; the Fault is chiefly on our own Side. Let us then, to make Atonement for what is past, endeavour to alter our Conduct for the future; we should soon perceive the good Effects of it, and by this Means might have a Share in healing those Divisions and Distractions which we have occasioned. To turn the Hearts of the People against the Government, to set them at Variance with one another, to stir them up to Tumult and Sedition, to create Disturbances in the State, and Schisms in the Church; to vilify and blacken the Characters of innocent Men upon account of their religious or political Principles, and to breed Feuds and Dissentions in private Families, have been the Means that we have hitherto pursued to acquire Wealth and Reputation: Let us put in Practice the contrary Methods, and see if the Taste of the Town is so absolutely depraved, that they will endure Nothing which is not stuffed with Treason, Blasphemy, and Nonsense.
*In Confirmation of this Truth, we may illuminate this Part of our Subject with a not incurious Anecdote. —
——A certain Historian of our own Times, bent upon Popularity and Gain, published a large Volume and omitted no Opportunity that offered, to disgrace Religion: A large Impression was published and a small Part sold. The Author being asked, Why he had so larged his Work with Irreligion? his Answer implied, He had done it that his Book might sell. — It was whispered him, that he had totally mistaken the Spirit of the Times: that no Allurements could engage the fashionable infidel World to travel through a large Quarto: and that as the few Readers of Quartoes that yet remain, lie mostly among the serious Part of Mankind, he had offended his best Customers, and ruined the Sale of his Book. This Information had a notable Effect: for a second Volume, as large and instructive as the first, hath appeared; not a Smack of Irreligion is to be found in it; and an Apology for the first concludes the Whole. B’s E. T.