47

Sophistry and Misrepresentations of Mr Hume

“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 A new Edition, exhibiting a faithful Collation of the original MS.; with all the suppressed Passages; also the unpublished Notes of Bishop Warburton.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 Clarendon Press. Reprinted by Wells & Lilly, Boston,” North American Review, vol. 27, no. 61 (October 1828), pp. 300–317.

[Edward Brooks]

In the essay reprinted below, the first American edition of Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, provides an opportunity for a critical assessment of Hume’s History. Brooks’s assault on Hume continued in a review essay published the next year, on “Constitutional History,” which is reprinted as the next item below. Edward Brooks is attributed as the author of both reviews in William Cushing, Index to the North American Review (Cambridge, 1878), p. 122. On The North American Review see Neal L. Edgar, A History and Bibliography of American Magazines, 1810–1820 (Metuchen, N.J., 1975), pp. 203–206; Frank Luther Mott, A History of American Magazines, Volume II: 1850–1865 (Cambridge, 1938), pp. 219–61.

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WE shall make no apology for the few remarks we have to offer, on the appearance of the first American edition of ‘The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars.’ The demand for books of this description is one of the best proofs of the progress of good taste, and the spirit of inquiry. It is in the works of contemporary writers that true history is to be found; and this of Lord Clarendon is most valuable of its kind; whether we consider the importance of the events treated of, their peculiar relation to the early history of our own country, or the character and talents of the historian. That it has great faults is admitted; but in the very admission is implied no small compliment to the author, since, in spite of them, it is universally acknowledged to be one of the noblest works in our language.

‘His diction,’ says Johnson, ‘is neither exact, nor in itself suited to the purpose of history. It is the effusion of a mind crowded with ideas, and desirous of imparting them; and therefore always accumulating words, and involving one clause and sentence in another. But there is in his negligence a rude, inartificial majesty, which, without the nicety of labored elegance, swells the mind by its plenitude and diffusion. His narration is not perhaps sufficiently rapid, being stopped too frequently by particularities, which, though they might strike the author who was present at the transactions, will not equally detain the attention of posterity. But his ignorance or carelessness of the art of writing, is amply compensated by his knowledge of nature and of policy; the wisdom of his maxims, the justness of his reasonings, and the variety, distinctness, and strength of his characters.’

However we may be disposed to agree in the truth of these remarks, there are serious defects in Lord Clarendon’s History, as we shall presently show, which the political bias of Johnson led him to overlook. The ‘particularities,’ which he thinks objectionable, do not appear so to us, excepting perhaps in a few instances. On the contrary, one of the great charms of the history, consists in the vivacity, and even humor, with which this great man dilates on the personal adventures of himself and his friends. ‘The object of history,’ says Voltaire, ‘is the human mind;’ and if the work before us be examined by this standard, it will be found that these episodes are full of the most useful as well as delightful matter. We see in them, not only the hearts of other men, but that of the historian himself, laid open to our view. What true lover of history would willingly give up any part of the spirited account of the surrender of Colchester, or of the truly romantic siege and capture of Pontefract Castle, or the curious details of the exiled Charles’s little court, where many a politician may read his own character, and many a family its own history? Still more highly do we value those effusions of tenderness which the author pours out, whenever he has occasion to deplore the loss of a friend in the contests of that dreadful period. His description of the character and death of Lord Falkland is not surpassed in any language. Never did a friend more faithfully fulfil the duties of friendship, and never was a character more deserving of such devotion. Led on by his feelings, the historian runs out into many little details and anecdotes, which at once illustrate the character he is describing, and do honor to the goodness of his own heart. The reader, yielding to the irresistible force of genius, is carried back to the time and place of action. He sees Lord Falkland in the House of Commons, urging with all the eloquence of conviction the cause of conciliation. When it is resolved to decide the contest by arms, he seems to watch his manly form, wasting with anxiety and distress for the fate of his country; he hears his perpetual and mournful ejaculation of ‘Peace, Peace.’ He marks the alacrity with which he prepares for the fatal battle, goes with him to the field, sees him fall before his eyes; and for the moment forgets, even the cause he espoused, in sympathy with his fate.

It may be worth while to stop for a moment to compare this character with that of Hambden, an equally great and virtuous man of the opposite party, as drawn by the same hand. It is curious in this latter character, to observe the force of prejudice contending in the mind of the historian with a sense of justice and the love of truth. Dr Warburton truly observes, in a note on the character of Hambden, that while the author applies to him in conclusion what was said of Cinna, ‘that he had a head to contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute any mischief,’ every line shows that the historian believed him to be a man of honor and virtue, acting on wrong principles. There is a singular train of resemblance running through the fortunes and characters of these two interesting and ill-fated individuals. They were both distinguished by birth and fortune; Lord Falkland being allied to the greatest names in the kingdom; and Hambden, as Lord Clarendon tells us, ‘of an ancient family and fair estate in the county of Buckingham.’ They were both men of great bravery and accomplishments, distinguished talents, and most winning address. They were both remarkable for a certain frankness and openness of demeanor, as well towards those they despised, as those they esteemed. What is said of Lord Falkland in this particular, is also true of Hambden, as appears from his well known course of conduct. Of the former the following characteristic anecdote is related by lord Clarendon.

‘The truth is, as he was of a most incomparable gentleness, application, and even a demissness and submission to good, and worthy, and entire men; so he was naturally (which could not but be more evident in his place, which objected him to another conversation and intermixture than his own election had done) adversus malos injucundus; and was so ill a dissembler of his dislike and disinclination to ill men, that it was not possible for such not to discern it. There was once, in the House of Commons, such a declared acceptation of the good service an eminent member had done to them, and, as it was said, to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being present, “that the speaker might, in the name of the whole House, give him thanks;” “and then, that every member might, as a testimony of his particular acknowledgment, stir or move his hat towards him;” the which (though not ordered) when very many did, the Lord Falkland (who believed the service itself not to be of that moment, and that an honorable and generous person could not have stooped to it for any recompense), instead of moving his hat, stretched both his arms out, and clasped his hands together upon the crown of his hat, and held it close down to his head; that all men might see how odious that flattery was to him, and the very approbation of the person, though at that time most popular.’

To pursue the comparison; the difference between them in political opinions is by no means so great, as the circumstance of their both meeting death, the one in the king’s army, the other in that of the parliament, would seem to indicate. In this, as in every other revolution, the shades of difference in opinion are as various as the characters of individuals. In the early part of the long parliament, as in the preceding one, Hambden was remarkable for mildness and moderation. This, of course, is imputed by different writers to different motives. That he was sincere, may be inferred from the evidence of Lord Clarendon himself, who says, ‘that after he was among those members accused by the king of high treason, he was much altered, his nature and carriage seeming much fiercer than it did before.’ This the historian sets down to deliberate design, and his former dispassionate conduct, to ‘observation that the season was not ripe, rather than that he approved the moderation.’ An unprejudiced writer would have adopted the obvious solution, that the absurd conduct of the king in the impeachment of the five members, satisfied Hambden, as well as every other clear-sighted man, that the die was cast, and that either the king or themselves must be reduced by force. As Hambden in the first stages of the dispute, excited the distrust of his party by attempting, to use lord Clarendon’s expression, ‘to moderate and soften the violent and distempered humors,’ so the Lord Falkland, as the same historian tells us, ‘by some sharp expressions he used against the archbishop of Canterbury, and his concurring in the first bill to take away the votes of the bishops in the House of Peers, gave occasion to some to believe, and opportunity to others to conclude, that he was no friend to the church and the established government.’ He further says, ‘The great opinion he had of the uprightness and integrity of those persons who appeared most active, especially of Hambden, kept him from suspecting any design against the peace of the kingdom, and though he differed from them commonly in conclusion, he believed long their purposes were honest.’ It is worth observing upon how slight a difference in the outset these two disinterested lovers of their country were driven to take arms against each other; and to complete the parallel between them, if any thing were wanting to add to the horrors of civil war, it is the reflection that two such men, formed to esteem and respect each other, to walk hand in hand in a noble emulation for the good of their country and the happiness of mankind, should each have fallen in arms against his own countrymen, in a petty skirmish, and by an unknown hand. The fate of Hambden is thus related by lord Clarendon in describing the engagement of Chalgrave Field.

‘And one of the prisoners who had been taken in the action said, he was confident Mr Hambden was hurt, for he saw him ride off the field before the action was done, which he never used to do, and with his head hanging down, and resting his hands upon the neck of his horse;” by which he concluded he was hurt. But the news of the next day made the victory much more important than it was thought to have been. There was full information brought of the great loss the enemy had sustained in their quarters, by which three or four regiments were utterly broken and lost. The names of many officers, of the best account, were known, who were either killed upon the place, or so hurt as there remained little hope of their recovery; of which Mr Hambden was one, who would not stay that morning till his own regiment came up, but put himself a volunteer in the head of those troops who were upon their march, and was the principal cause of their precipitation, contrary to his natural temper, which, though full of courage, was usually very wary; but now carried on by his fate, he would by no means expect the general’s coming up; and he was of that universal authority, that no officer paused in obeying him. And so, in the first charge, he received a pistol shot in the shoulder, which broke the bone, and put him to great torture; and after he had endured it about three weeks or less time, he died to the most universal grief of parliament that they could have received from any accident.’

The death of Lord Falkland, in an action near Glocester, occurred shortly afterwards, in the same year.

‘In the morning before the battle,’ says Lord Clarendon, ‘as always upon action, he was very cheerful, and put himself in the first rank of the Lord Byron’s regiment, who was then advancing upon the enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers; from whence he was shot with a musket in the lower part of the belly, and in the instant falling from his horse, his body was not found till the next morning, till when there was some hope he might have been a prisoner; though his nearest friends, who knew his temper, received small comfort from that imagination. Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four and thirtieth year of his age, having so much despatched the business of life, that the oldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the youngest enter not into the world with more innocence. Whosoever leads such a life, need not care upon how short warning it be taken from him.’

Our regret at the untimely fall of Falkland and Hambden is lessened, when we call to mind, that the former was spared the disgrace and ruin which overwhelmed his party; while the latter was taken away before those clouds arose, which soon after veiled the hopes of the friends of liberty. What effects their influence might have produced on succeeding events, it is useless now to conjecture. We have been the more minute in following out this parallel, as it illustrates not only the characters of the two individuals, but the progress of public opinion in the course of the dispute between the king and the parliament. At the opening of the long parliament, the discontent caused by the arbitrary and illegal conduct of the king and his ministers was universal. The impeachment of the Earl of Strafford, which may be considered as the declaration of hostilities, was carried in the House of Commons by an unanimous vote. No fact can more clearly speak out the state of public feeling. A most able and powerful minister, possessing, besides his great personal accomplishments, the highest favor with his sovereign, and the fullest assurance of his protection, is impeached in an unusually full house, without one dissenting voice. ‘Save only,’ says Clarendon, ‘that the Lord Falkland (who was well known to be far from having any kindness for him), when the proposition was made for the present accusing him of high treason, modestly desired the house to consider, “whether it would not suit better with the gravity of their proceedings, first to digest many of those particulars which had been mentioned by a committee; (declaring himself abundantly satisfied that there was enough to charge him;) before they sent up to accuse him.”’ To this a decisive answer was given by Mr Pym, that the delay would be fatal, as the earl would either persuade the king to dissolve the parliament, or make his escape, and thus frustrate their design. Even Mr Hume, in speaking of the state of opinions at this juncture, has the following remarks.

‘So little apology would be received for past measures, so contagious the general spirit of discontent, that even men of the most moderate tempers, and the most attached to the church and monarchy, exerted themselves with the utmost vigor in the redress of grievances, and in prosecuting the author of them. The lively and animated Digby displayed his eloquence on this occasion, the firm and undaunted Capel, the modest and candid Palmer. In this list, too, of patriot royalists, are found the virtuous names of Hyde [Lord Clarendon] and Falkland. Though, in their ultimate views and intentions, these men differed widely from the former [Pym, Hambden, and others], in their present actions and discourses an entire concurrence and unanimity observed.’

A little further on the same writer adds;

‘Every meeting of the Commons produced some vehement harangue against the usurpations of the bishops, against the high commission, against the late convocation, against the new canons. So disgusted were all lovers of civil liberty, at the doctrines promoted by the clergy, that these invectives were received without control; and no distinction at first appeared between such as desired only to repress the disorders of the hierarchy, and such as pretended totally to abolish episcopal jurisdiction.’

After some farther observations, Mr Hume, with what seems to us strange inconsistency, closes his remarks on the subject of religious disputes with the following paragraph.

‘It may be worth observing, that all historians, who lived near that age, or what perhaps is more decisive, all authors, who have casually made mention of those transactions, still represent the civil disorders and convulsions as proceeding from religious controversy, and consider the political disputes about power and liberty, as entirely subordinate to the other. It is true, had the king been able to support government, and, at the same time, to abstain from all invasion of national privileges, it seems not probable that the Puritans ever could have acquired such authority as to have over-turned the whole constitution. Yet so entire was the subjection into which Charles was now fallen, that had not the wound been poisoned by the infusion of theological hatred, it must have admitted of an easy remedy. Disuse of parliaments, imprisonments and prosecutions of members, ship money, an arbitrary administration; these were loudly complained of; but the grievances which tended chiefly to inflame the parliament and nation, especially the latter, were the surplice, the rails placed about the altar, the bows exacted on approaching it, the breach of the Sabbath, embroidered copes, lawn sleeves, the use of the ring in marriage, and of the cross in baptism. On account of these were the popular leaders content to throw the government into such violent convulsions; and to the disgrace of that age, and of this island, it must be acknowledged that the disorders of Scotland, entirely, and those in England mostly, proceeded from so mean and contemptible an origin.’

How this last quotation is to be reconciled with the fact stated in the foregoing, that the friends of the church in the outset were as eager for redress of grievances in general, as the most rigid of the Puritans, we leave to others to determine. We shall not undertake to expose minutely the sophistry and misrepresentations of Mr Hume in relation to this portion of English history. That task has already been thoroughly performed by several writers, particularly by Mr Brodie in his ‘History of the British Empire from the Accession of Charles the First, to the Restoration,’ a work which wants nothing but the spirit and elegance of Mr Hume, to be one of the most entertaining, as it is one of the most valuable productions of the present day.

With regard, however, to the particular class of grievances on which Mr Hume is so sarcastic, we have a few remarks to make. We agree entirely with that historian, that all writers who have made mention of the transactions of that age, have attached great importance to the religious controversies which then agitated the nation. The violent and oppressive proceedings of the High Commissioners had swelled up a dispute, in its origin trivial and unimportant, into a grave question, involving the liberties and lives of a considerable portion of the community. In this point of view it is immaterial whether the act of oppression is one which affects mind, body, or estate. If the rights of either are invaded, resistance is as justifiable in the one case as the other. We cannot, therefore, perceive the propriety of Mr Hume’s distinction between this class of grievances and the other encroachments on the liberty of the subject. Whatever the extent of the evil may have been, it formed a perfectly just ground of remonstrance; although we have been unable to discover the authority on which Mr Hume asserts, that it was the dispute about religious ceremonies which chiefly tended to inflame the parliament and people. Lord Clarendon, who is of the same party, in describing the state of feeling on the opening of the long parliament, gives a very different account, so far as regards that body.

‘In truth,’ says this historian, ‘in the House of Peers, there were only at that time taken notice of, the lords Say and Brooke, and they believed to be positive enemies to the whole fabric of the church, and to desire a dissolution; the Earl of Warwick himself having never discovered any aversion to episcopacy and much professed the contrary. In the House of Commons, though of the chief leaders, Nathaniel Fiennes, and young Sir Harry Vane, and shortly after Mr Hambden (who had not before owned it) were believed to be for root and branch, which grew shortly after a common expression and discovery of the several tempers; yet Mr Pym was not of that mind, nor Mr Hollis, nor any of the northern men, or those lawyers who drove on most furiously with them; all who were pleased with the government itself of the church.’

Among the leaders of the same party were John Selden and Algernon Sydney. The author of Table Talk will not be charged with fanaticism, and Sydney is thought to have been a free-thinker. Whatever causes of exasperation may have arisen afterwards, it is certain that the evils growing out of the aggressions of the church, were not then looked upon as of paramount importance. To make this appear, we shall in the first place point out some of the leading causes of discontent, independent of religion, and afterwards endeavor to show, that whatever may have been the origin of the theological controversy, it had come, in the year 1640, to involve something more than the rails at the altar, the ring, the cope, and the lawn sleeves. It will require an authority greater even than Mr Hume, to convince the world in our time, that the degree of exasperation which is admitted on all hands to have then pervaded the British empire, is to be attributed to matters of this sort. It is an anomaly which is contradicted by all experience. We will now take a nearer view of the state of England at the period in question, and see what were the causes of uneasiness, as they are gathered from public documents and the testimony of historians of all parties. We shall thus be able to form our own judgment as to the importance of those political disputes about power and liberty, which Mr Hume would have us believe were entirely subordinate to religious controversy.

First on the list, we shall place monopolies, because they constitute the most obnoxious and impolitic of all grievances. It hardly need be stated, that it had been the habit of English sovereigns to provide for a rapacious favorite, or raise a sum of money on any sudden emergency, by granting to individuals or companies the exclusive right of making and selling certain articles, without the least regard to the claims of those who had gained their livelihood by the same means. This abuse had by degrees become so intolerable, that in the reign of James the First, monopolies were declared illegal by act of parliament. Charles, however, in his necessities, not only revived them, but went beyond any of his predecessors in this odious species of exaction. To show the effect of this one item in its full force, it may not be amiss to give the articles thus granted to monopolists in the time of Queen Elizabeth, to which soap and linen rags were added by king Charles. The following is the list of them, as enumerated by Mr Hume.

‘Currants, salt, iron, powder, cards, calfskins, felts, pouldavies, ox-shin-bones, train oil, lists of cloth, potashes, aniseeds, vinegar, sea-coals, steel, aquavitæ, brushes, pots, bottles, saltpetre, lead, accidence, oil, calamine stone, oil of blubber, glasses, paper, starch, tin, sulphur, new drapery, dried pilchards, transportation of iron ordnance, of beer, of horn, of leather, importation of Spanish wool, of Irish yarn.’ ‘These monopolists were so exorbitant in their demands,’ continues Mr Hume, ‘that in some places they raised the price of salt from sixteen pence a bushel to fourteen or fifteen shillings.’ ‘In order to secure themselves against incroachments, the patentees were armed with high and arbitrary powers, from the council, by which they were enabled to oppress the people at pleasure, and to exact money from such as they thought proper to accuse of interfering with their patent.’ ‘And while all domestic intercourse was thus restrained, lest any scope should remain for industry, almost every species of foreign commerce was confined to exclusive companies, who bought and sold at any price that they themselves thought proper to offer or exact.’

Besides all this, King Charles’s privy council, without consent of parliament, had not only continued the rude species of impost, called tonnage and poundage, but, by its own authority, added fifteen per centum to the Tariff, or Book of Rates. In addition to these burdens, the city of London had been, in the most arbitrary manner, deprived of its charter, which it was obliged to repurchase by the payment of a heavy fine. If these were vexatious impositions on the trading and commercial classes, we shall find that the other orders of citizens were by no means exempted. One of the well known expedients of this monarch to supply his necessities, was that of forced loans, by which every subject in the kingdom was doomed to pay any sum the privy council should think proper to exact. At the period in question, many of the first men in England were lying in prison for having refused to submit to this oppression. Ship money too had been introduced, under pretence of public danger, in time of profound peace, and each county was assessed a given sum to provide the king a ship. The nobility and gentry were vexed with the obsolete demands of knight’s fees and wardships; the landlords generally were in a state of alarm, in consequence of the seizure of large tracts of country to make additions to the king’s forests; while the tenantry were equally exasperated, by the billeting of soldiers upon them without consent or remuneration. To complete the general disgust, commissions had been issued in the several counties with authority to supersede the established tribunals, and to try and punish offences by martial law. When it is considered that most or all the foregoing were matters cognizable in the Court of Star Chamber, and that the king by consenting to the petition of right in 1628, twelve years before, had expressly abolished them; it cannot but strike every man of reflection with surprise, that Mr Hume should so far have lost sight of the duty of an historian, as to throw these circumstances into the shade. It was the obvious design of this accomplished writer to justify the Stuarts, particularly Charles the First, by seeking precedents in the preceding reigns for all the odious measures of that unhappy and misguided prince. In order to bring about this object, he is obliged to resort to some unworthy expedients. All the enormities of Queen Elizabeth’s government are enumerated by him with great exactness, and condemned in the broadest terms, while the instances in which the Stuarts went beyond that princess in the exercise of the prerogative, are either palliated, or passed wholly by. We shall cite one instance out of many. It is that of ship money. In relating the events of the year 1626, the second of King Charles’s reign, Mr Hume says,

‘In order to equip a fleet, a distribution by order of the council was made to all the maritime towns; and each of them was required, with the assistance of the adjacent counties, to arm so many vessels as were appointed them. The city of London was rated at twenty ships. This is the first appearance, in Charles’s reign, of ship money; a taxation which had once been imposed by Queen Elizabeth, but which afterwards, when carried a few steps farther by Charles, created such violent discontents.’

Here is a statement which is not absolutely untrue, and yet it is not difficult to prove, that Charles is the first English monarch who ever exacted ship money of his subjects as a source of revenue. A faint resemblance to this tax is found in the ancient Dane-gelt, a primitive kind of tax, resorted to when the kingdom was threatened with an incursion of the Danes; the proprietor of a given number of acres being called on to provide a horseman, those of a greater amount to furnish a ship. This had, however, been long disused, and no precedent can be found later than the reign of Edward the Third, for anything resembling it. Even the writs of that period merely authorized the crown to impress ships in the seaports on any sudden emergency, to be paid for by the public. The only precedent then was to be found, according to Mr Hume, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and what was it? That most dreadful exigency, the invasion of England by the Spaniards; one of those emergencies when all laws are suspended, — when the lives and properties of all are surrendered up for the general defence. That great princess, in this appalling crisis, did no more than second the zeal of her subjects, every class of whom was called on to contribute its share to the public service. The only question was, how it could be most effectually employed, all men seeing that their liberties and property were at stake.

‘At this time,’ says Mr Hume, ‘the royal navy consisted only of twenty-eight sail, many of which were of small size, while the Spanish fleet amounted to one hundred and thirty galleons. All the commercial towns in England were required to furnish ships to reënforce this small navy; and they discovered, on the present occasion, great alacrity in defending their liberty and religion, against the imminent perils with which they were menaced. The citizens of London, in order to show their zeal in the common cause, instead of fifteen vessels which they were commanded to equip, voluntarily fitted out double the number. The gentry and nobility hired, and armed, and manned, forty-three ships at their own charge; and all the loans of money which the queen demanded were frankly granted by the persons applied to.’

This is Mr Hume’s precedent; which, it may be observed, extends equally to forced loans, as to ship money, the former of which, he himself expressly states, was once recommended by Lord Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, but never carried into effect. This is a most extraordinary authority to bring forward for a tax of any sort. Upon the same principle, the military associations formed throughout the kingdom, when threatened with invasion by Bonaparte, would at any time be a sufficient precedent for a levy en masse. But allowing Mr Hume the advantage of it as far as it will serve him, we will proceed to examine the few steps taken by King Charles in advance of Queen Elizabeth, in this species of taxation. The first and by no means a trifling one, as will be seen by and by, is not thought worth mentioning at all by the historian; namely, the alerting of the patents by which the judges held their offices, from the tenure of good behavior, to that of the king’s pleasure. Another very important step, was demanding this tax at a time when no immediate danger existed, which certainly could not be said in the case of Queen Elizabeth. The first writs in the reign of Charles were directed to the seaport towns only, demanding, not ship money, but a given number of vessels. The next step was in 1634, to levy ship money upon the whole kingdom; each county being rated at a particular sum, which was afterwards assessed upon the individuals. This caused universal discontent; insomuch that the king, in order to discourage all opposition, proposed this question to the judges; ‘Whether in case of necessity, for the defence of the kingdom, he might not impose this taxation; and whether he were not the sole judge of the necessity?’ ‘These guardians of the law and liberty,’ says Mr Hume, ‘replied with great complaisance, “that in a case of necessity, he might impose that taxation, and that he was the sole judge of the necessity.”’ Here was a stride which at once overstepped all the boundaries of law, and left the subject completely at the mercy of the crown. In this stage of the question it was, that Mr Hambden resolved, rather than tamely submit to so illegal an imposition, to stand a prosecution, and expose himself to all the indignation of the court. The case was argued twelve days in the exchequer chamber before the twelve judges, who gave judgment for the crown, four of them dissenting. The observations of Lord Clarendon on this decision, and on the characters of Noy and Finch, principally in reference to the matter of the ship money, although too long to be here inserted, discover a candor and sincerity we in vain look for in Mr Hume, and are enough of themselves to refute the proposition of the latter, in regard to the main origin of the civil wars.

We will now proceed to take a very general view of the progress of this controversy, and the actual state of the question, when the long parliament was convened; by which we think it will appear, that so far from being the puerile affair Mr Hume would be glad to represent it, the narrow policy of King Charles and his predecessors had raised up, from a small beginning, a system of persecution, which was only equalled by the enormities already enumerated. The complaint of the nonconformists, from the accession of Queen Elizabeth, had always been, the compelling by laws, the use of habits and ceremonies in themselves indifferent. When the Protestant religion was reëstablished, on the accession of that princess, very little difference of opinion existed among the members of the English church in regard to articles of belief. A large body, however, both of the clergy and laity, were disposed to follow the example of their neighbors, the Scotch, and the reformed churches on the continent, in laying aside, not only the faith, but the vestments and ceremonies of the Romish church. A very strong party was equally bent on retaining them, among whom was the queen herself, who so far forgot her usual good sense, as to enter warmly into the controversy. In the first year of her reign were passed the acts of supremacy and uniformity, by the former of which the queen was authorized to establish a Court of High Commission, ‘with full power in ecclesiastical matters, to visit, reform, redress, order, correct, and amend all errors, heresies, schisms, abuses, contempts, offences, and enormities whatsoever.’ By virtue of this act, a Court of High Commission was soon raised, and not long after, the clergy were assembled in convocation, to settle the articles of belief, as well as the rites and ceremonies of the church. The vote for retaining the ceremonies passed the lower house of convocation by a single voice. The parochial clergy, however, were not very rigid in their adherence to all the forms prescribed, which gave so great offence to some of the bishops, that the matter was laid before the queen. Among other things equally momentous, it was represented to her majesty, ‘that some administer the communion with surplice and cope; some with surplice alone; others with none; some with chalice, others with a communion cup; others with a common cup; some with unleavened bread, and some with leavened. That some receive kneeling, others standing, others sitting; some baptize in a font, some in a bason, some sign with the sign of the cross, others sign not; some minister in a surplice, others, without; some with a square cap, some with a round cap, some with a button cap, some with a hat; some in scholars’ clothes, some in others.’ The queen was highly displeased with this report, and gave orders that all ministers who did not comply with the act of uniformity, should be deprived of their livings, or otherwise dealt with, as the Court of High Commission should direct. Here was a door opened for the most serious disputes, both parties as usual being tenacious and intolerant, just in proportion as the matter in question was futile and insignificant. The nonconforming ministers were hunted and vexed, until they began, to use Mr Neal’s expression, ‘to break off from the public churches, and to assemble as they had opportunity, in private houses, or elsewhere, to worship God in a manner that might not offend against the light of their consciences.’ ‘Here,’ he adds, ‘was the era or date of the separation,’ the inevitable consequence of the previous coercive measures. Thus matters went on for nearly twenty years, until the vexations of the nonconformists were become so intolerable, that notwithstanding the well known prejudice of the queen, in the year 1593, the subject was brought before parliament.

‘Morice, chancellor of the dutchy, and attorney of the court of wards, made a motion for redressing the abuses in the bishops’ courts, but above all in the High Commission; where subscriptions, he said, were exacted to articles at the pleasure of the prelates; where oaths were imposed, obliging persons to answer to all questions without distinction, even though they should tend to their own condemnation; and where every one, who refused entire satisfaction to the commissioners, was imprisoned without relief or remedy.’ This step threw her majesty into a great rage; ‘she charged the speaker,’ says Mr Hume, ‘on his allegiance, if any such bills were offered, absolutely to refuse them a reading, and not so much as to permit them to be debated. This command of the queen was submitted to without further question. Morrice was seized in the house itself, by a sergeant at arms, discharged from his office of chancellor of the dutchy, incapacitated from any practice in his profession as a common lawyer, and kept some years prisoner in the Tilbury Castle.’ ‘The queen,’ continues the same historian, ‘having thus expressly pointed out both what the house should and should not do, the commons were as obsequious to the one as the other of her injunctions. They passed a law against recusants; such a law as was suited to the severe character of Elizabeth, and to the persecuting spirit of that age. It was entitled, An act to restrain her majesty’s subjects in their due obedience; and was meant, as the preamble declares, to obviate such inconveniences and perils, as might grow from the wicked practices of seditious sectarians and disloyal persons; for these two species of criminals were always at that time confounded together, as equally dangerous to the peace of society. It was enacted, that any person, above sixteen years of age, who obstinately refused, during the space of a month, to attend public worship, should be committed to prison; that if, after being condemned for this offence, he persist three months in his refusal, he must abjure the realm; and that, if he either refuse this condition, or return after banishment, he is to suffer capitally as a felon, without benefit of clergy.’

This act should have been entitled, ‘An act for the encouragement and propagation of heresy and nonconformity.’

It is unnecessary to recite the instances of suffering and injustice during the remainder of this, and a part of the subsequent reign, resulting from this law; but it should never be forgotten, that it was shortly after the passing of it, that the migration to Holland took place, which more than twenty years afterwards led to the settlement of New England. We have just seen Mr Hume’s opinion on his subject in the reign of Elizabeth. In that of Charles, he thinks resistance to such measures reflects disgrace upon the age; an age in which the very paragraph just cited might have cost the free-thinking historian his head. King James, with all his faults, was not of a persecuting temper, and happily, not long after his accession, on the death of Dr Bancroft, the primacy fell into the hands of Dr Abbott. During the life of this mild and judicious prelate, the church enjoyed a state of comparative peace. In the year 1633, the bigoted and intolerant Laud succeeded Abbott in the primacy, and, as if the unhappy Charles was doomed to inevitable destruction, rekindled the slumbering fires of religious persecution. This haughty prelate went beyond any of his predecessors in his zeal for conformity, insomuch that great numbers of the Puritans were driven to seek relief in exile. Even this, which was permitted by the act of Elizabeth, was denied them at last, and nothing was left for them, but to wait with patience for some favorable turn of affairs.

This was the state of things with regard to religion, in 1640, when the long parliament met. Now, that the origin of this controversy was altogether trivial, we readily grant. The omitting to wear a cope or a surplice, is certainly a small matter; what then are we to think of a government, which punishes such an offence with fine, pillory, and imprisonment? The more insignificant the question, the more atrocious the oppression. If anything marks the utmost refinement in despotism, it is the interference of the state in the common concerns of life, and punishing as crimes, actions in themselves innocent. We have seen in our own days an example of this species of legislation. The late Emperor Paul the First carried his paternal care of his subjects so far, as to regulate the most minute article of dress by an imperial decree. Instances occurred during his reign, of persons of the first rank being executed or sent to Siberia, for appearing in the streets with a shoe-tie of an illegal shape, or with the cock of the hat a little out of the line of the nose. Upon Mr Hume’s principle, what had the gentlemen to complain of? They knew the law, or might have known it, and had nothing to do but wear their clothes agreeably to statute. Yet can there be the least question, if we may suppose such a thing as a Russian House of Commons, that these would there have been insisted on, and justly, as the worst of all grievances? Would not the minister who recommended, and the officers who enforced them, have been the first objects of popular vengeance? No man can doubt it; and yet some Russian Hume one hundred years afterwards, might with great plausibility, after enumerating some of the grosser measures of the government of that day, observe, that ‘these were loudly complained of; but the grievances which tended chiefly to inflame the nation, were shoe-strings, and cocked hats.’

This state of affairs in policy and religion may well account for the unanimity which prevailed at the opening of the long parliament. Beyond that period we have not room to extend our remarks. From what has already been said, it will be seen that Mr Hume’s account of this epoch in English history, is to be received with great caution. Lord Clarendon, with all his bigotry, is a much safer authority. He avows his object to be the defence of the royal cause. Mr Hume, with equal prejudice and partiality, has a great show of fairness and candor. The former supports his side of the question after the fashion of his day, upon the basis of divine right. He advances his creed with an honest bluntness which puts the reader at his ease. He confesses many things of his party, without any expression of disapprobation, which no party at the present time would have the effrontery to acknowledge. Accordingly we find that Mr Hume makes but little use of Lord Clarendon in the early stages of the dispute. He prefers to cite the popular historians even for undisputed facts. The change which had taken place in public opinion when Mr Hume’s work appeared, will easily account for this circumstance. That sagacious writer well knew, that the Stuarts were not to be defended at that time of day, by the doctrines of Sir Robert Filmer. The most he could hope for was to palliate and gloss over, what he had not the hardihood to defend, a task which he has accomplished with an address worthy of a better end. The train by which the reader is led on, is laid so far back, and followed up with such adroitness, that, before he is aware, the wily historian has him in his toils. When the mind has been thus deluded, the sympathies are artfully plied with the sufferings, in themselves sufficiently moving, of the individuals who fell a sacrifice to popular vengeance. The fates of Strafford, of Laud, and of Charles himself, are placed before us, by the partial historian, in so moving a way as to disarm our resentment at enormities which, if presented in their proper colors, would make even the ‘True blue Club’ turn pale in their seats.

It must not be inferred from these remarks, that we are insensible to the merits of Mr Hume as an historian. His exquisite skill in unravelling the labyrinth of early British history; the masterly discrimination with which he has exposed the absurdities of monkish invention; his clear and lucid view of the progress of the English constitution; his able developement of the foreign policy of Great Britain; and the pure and elegant language in which he has clothed his ideas, entitle him to be classed among the best writers of ancient or modern times. His authority, on most points, may be relied on until we come down to the rise of the party distinctions, which have existed in England under various modifications for more than two hundred years; since which time, it is but justice to Mr Hume to say, that an impartial English history is not to be found. We should be glad to pursue the subject still further, and to trace the progress of opinion during the stormy period which succeeded the assembling of the long parliament; the events of which are feelingly and minutely described by Lord Clarendon. We have, however, only room to add, that the American impression of Lord Clarendon’s history is a reprint of the late Oxford edition, excepting that the passages in the original manuscript, which were suppressed in former editions, are, in the American copy, incorporated with the text. This we think an improvement upon the English edition, in which these passages are placed by themselves in the margin. The notes of Bishop Warburton are inserted at the foot of each page, instead of being collected at the end of the volume, as in the English copy. These notes seem not to have been intended for publication. We should suppose them to be cursory observations, noted down, as they suggested themselves, in the margin of the book. They are for the most part of no great value, excepting as they discover a degree of liberality, which the general tenor of the Bishop’s writings would hardly lead one to expect.