There is not the slightest evidence that | Considering that the estrangement was he did anything of the kind. He regularly gradual, and that there is no proof whatacted and voted with the moderate party in ever of his having aspired to the lady's this assembly; but the fact of his having hand or (at the time) to the Great Seal, been a member of it was remembered the simplest explanation is the best. He against him when he became a Peer: was willing to go along with Cromwell to the extent of making him Chief Magis"A little bobtail'd lord, urchin of state, A praise-god Barebone peer, whom all men trate, or head of the Executive, under con

hate."

The charge of wriggling in the usurper's ear derives some semblance of plausibility from his being deputed by the House to offer Hampton Court to Cromwell, and becoming one of the fifteen members of the Council of State named in the new Constitution which established the Protectorate for life. He certainly made common cause with Cromwell against the fanatics, and, during a brief interval, had the air of trusting in and being trusted by him. If we may believe Burnet, "he (Shaftesbury) pretended that Cromwell offered to make him king. He was indeed of great use to him in withstanding the enthusiasts of that time. He was one of those who pressed him most to accept of the kingdom, because, as he said afterwards, he was sure it would ruin him." In the closing years of his life Shaftesbury was in the habit of talking loosely and boastfully of his former doings; and, not intending to be taken literally, he may have said something of the sort to intimate the high sense Cromwell entertained of his services, or by way of mystifying Burnet, whose credulity and love of gossip were well known. It is impossible to believe that Cromwell did offer to make him king, or (for it comes to this, if he in turn wished Cromwell to be king) that the throne was bandied between them, or made the subject of an interchange of compliments, like a chair or place of precedence between two courtiers, which each presses the other to accept.

stitutional restrictions, but shrank from the creation of an uncontrolled despotism or dictatorship. His position in the Presbyterian party, to whom he owed his influence, was at stake; and he had obviously no alternative but to become one of the Protector's creatures or to separate from him. How matters stood between them is shown by Shaftesbury's exclusion from the Second Parliament elected under the Instrument of Government; and also by the remark attributed, on respectable authority, to Cromwell, that "there was no one he was more at a loss how to manage than that Marcus Tullius Cirero, the little man with three names." If that little man could have been induced to name his price, the odds are that it would. have been readily paid, even if he had named the Great Seal or a daughter.

Lord Campbell says that upon being refused the hand of "the musical, glibtongued Lady Mary," he (Shaftesbury) finally broke with Oliver, and become a partisan of the banished royal family. This is glaringly incorrect. He did not become a partisan of the royal family until after Oliver's death, when the people, with one accord, flew from petty tyrants to the throne, and the Restoration offered the sole protection against anarchy. His public appearances during the five or six years' interval were limited by the jealousy or hostility he had provoked. The certificate of approbation from the Council, without which no member could take his seat, was refused to more than a hundred members of the Parliament of 1656. Early in 1655, Shaftesbury quietly with- He was one of these, and he joined with drew from Cromwell's Privy Council, and sixty-four others in signing a letter of gradually came to be regarded as a de- complaint to the Speaker, which was folcided opponent of his views. There was lowed up by a spirited Remonstrance to no open rupture or avowed cause of dis- the People, denouncing whoever advised satisfaction, and conjecture has conse- the exclusion, or who should sit and vote quently been busy in imputing motives, in the "mutilated" assembly, as capital public and private, the least creditable enemies of the Commonwealth. The muthe better. Some will have it that Shaftes-tilated assembly proceeded, notwithstandbury aspired to the Great Seal and was ing, to pass the new Constitution, entitled refused others, that he sought the hand the Humble Petition and Advice, under of the Lady Mary, the Protector's daugh- which Parliament was to consist of two ter; that his addresses were declined on Houses; and Cromwell forthwith prothe ground of his dissolute morals; and ceeded to nominate his peers. We need that the disappointment of his ambitious hardly say that Shaftesbury was not one love was the occasion of the breach. of this favoured and speedily discredited

body, but he was allowed to sit in the The homeliness of Strafford's illusHouse of Commons during the Session of trations, in his memorable defence, is 1658, and he played a conspicuous part in no less remarkable than their appositethe opposition to the new Constitution ness: and the new Lords whom the Commons refused to recognize. He was a teller on the division which led to the immediate dissolution of this Parliament, the last called by Oliver, who died in September, 1658, and was succeeded by his son Richard, whose first Parliament met in January, 1659. Shaftesbury was again a member, and an active and influential one. He delivered in it, and published at the time, a carefully prepared speech, which may be accepted as the best specimen extant of his oratory, and one of the best specimens of the oratory of the age.

"Where has this species of guilt (constructive treason) been so long concealed? Where has this fire been so long buried, during so many centuries that no smoke should appear, till it burst out at once, to consume me and my children. . . . If I sail on the Thames, and split my vessel on an anchor, in case there be no buoy to give warning, the party shall pay me damage; but if the anchor be marked out, then is the striking on it at my own peril. Where is the mark set upon this crime? Where is the token by which I should discover it? It has dence, or human innocence, could save me from lain concealed under water, and no human pruthe destruction with which I am at present threatened.”

The leading speakers were then earnest, plain, and practical, rather than rhetoricai or declamatory. They were rarely The language of the Royal Martyr bore full and flowing, rarely what is commonly no trace of the ambiguity or double-dealcalled eloquent; rarely imaginative in the ing with which he has been charged, and highest sense of the term. Their greatest may be recommended, for idiomatic simeffects were produced by terse, weighty plicity and force, to premiers and cabinets sentences, apt, homely metaphors, sudden by whom royal speeches are composed. turns, quaint allusions, condensed reason- "You have taken the whole machine of ing, and bold apostrophes. They were oc- government to pieces was his warning casionally long-winded. Hume describes address to the Parliament of 1640-“a Pym as opening the charge against Straf- practice frequent with skilful artists when ford "in a long-studied discourse, divided they desire to clear the wheels from any into many heads after his manner; "and rust which may have grown upon them. contemptuously referring to an attempt to The engine may again be restored to its put the Parliamentary champions in bal- former use and motions, provided it be ance with the most illustrious characters put up entire, so as not a pin of it be of antiquity—with Cato, Brutus, Cassius wanting." In the short speech, which he the historian exclaims: "Compare only delivered from the speaker's chair on the one circumstance and consider its conse- occasion of the ill-advised attempt to seize quences. The leizure of those noble an- the five members, he said: " Well, since tients were (sic) totally employed in the the birds are flown, I do expect that you study of Grecian eloquence and philoso- will send them to me as soon as they rephy, in the cultivation of polite letters and turn." Civilized society. The whole discourse Shaftesbury's oratory was formed in the and language of the moderns were pol- same school, and after the best models. luted with mysterious jargon, and full of As he was uniformly plain-spoken, it conthe lowest and most vulgar hypocrisy." tradicts that theory of his character which This was partly true of Vane, Cromwell, would make him prone to dissimulation and many others when the Saints were and deceit. As he left no doubt of his inuppermost: during "Barebone's Parlia- tentions for the time, we may conclude ment or in the worst days of the Rump." that he had no interest in concealing But it was not true of the Parliamentary them; and he would thus present only celebrities of the antecedent or immediately ensuing periods of 1628, 1640, or 1659; not true of Hampden, Holles, Digby, Capel, Hyde, Falkland, and a host of accomplished and highly-cultivated men, whose minds and memories fairly ran over with classical illustrations. Of the two principal speakers, quoted by Hume, in 1628, one, Sir Francis Seymour, refers to Herodotus, and the other, Sir Robert Philips, to Livy.

one instance among many where honesty of purpose has coexisted with instability. There is another point of view in which his speeches throw light upon the inculpated and dubious passages of his career. Was he at any time a demagogue? How did he wield the fierce democracy, if he wielded it? Was it by boldly appealing to popular passions or by adroitly using them? Was he nearest to a Mirabeau or a Talleyrand? Macaulay, referring to the

There is not the slightest evide he did anything of the kind. He acted and voted with the modera this assembly; but the fact of been a member of it was against him when he became : "A little bobtail'd lord, urchin A praise-god Barebone peer, hate."

CAN SAY WAS THE BOy Council; they are the highest sopranar tagit mig laws and abrogating old; from

nature; they have their part in and determining of the reasons for

Amor them we take our great officers of State; commonly our generals at land, and inirals at sea. In conclusion, they are be of the essence and constitution of our old

cest share in the administration. Now, cer

We read that Stateshment; and have, besides, the greatest and mata me crator, and july, Sir, to judge according to the dictates of free adstrie of his greeches a reason, one would imagine some small faculties We call inter that what the such a calling; and those such as are not usuthe recorded effects of some and endowments to be necessary for discharging baba sars of his favorite is ally acquired in shops and warehouses, nor me of the peculiar object of his found by following the plough: and what other tudesonry's ascendecor was felt. have been versed in but those which more re4 shore au in the House of Lords bred in but their shops, what other arts they FIESTADO: Chat it was in small circles academies most of their lordships have been He never appeals to the passions of his/ heads, I think we are yet to be informed. Sir, He is ever rebement or declamatory. quired good arms and good shoulders than good ther prentices when these have gained ignorant and illiterate masters; nay, we trust

The charge of wriggling ear derives some semblar from his being deputed offer Hampton Court to coming one of the fifte Council of State nam stitution which estab ate for life. He c cause with Cromwe and, during a bri of trusting in ar If we may belie bury) pretended make him king use to him ir asts of that who pressed kingdom, be he was sur closing yea the habit of his for to be ta somethin sense C or by credul known

anteres be acpeals to their reason, or to

the strength of reason, and appeals in a

we commit not the education of our children to

not our horses to unskilful grooms. I beseech you, let us think it belongs to us to have some

mander which it requires no smal degree care into whose hands we commit the managefinement and culture to appreciate.ment of the commonwealth; and if we cannot His sorod sense. his ample stores of knowl- have persons of birth and fortune to be our edge and observation, his dexterity, his rulers, to whose quality we would willingly ferty, his trony, his wit would be lost submit, I beseech you, Sir, for our credit and spa & turéalest assembly as surely as safety's sake, let us seek men at least of parts bis te person would be submerged in a and education, to whose abilities we may have crovi and not a fragment of his compo- some reason to give way. If a patient dies sa has been preserved which does not unders a physician's hand, the law esteems that bear the impress of a certain description not a felony, but a misfortune, in the physician: of fastidiomsness. Strange to say, these but it has been held by some, if one who is no fragments manifest that very proneness to and the party miscarries, the law makes the generalization which Macaulay supposes empiric a felon: and sure, in all men's opinion, distinctive of Halifax. The speech against the patient a fool. To conclude, Sir, for great Cromwell's peers abounds in maxims and men to govern is ordinary; for able men it is theories, in fine strokes of satire, and in natural; knaves many times come to it by force reasonings which are sometimes almost and necessity, and fools sometimes by chance;

pazzling from their subtlety:

"One of the few requests the Portuguese |

physician undertakes the management of a cure,

but universal choice and election of fools and knaves for government was never yet made by

made to Phillip the Second, King of Spain, when any who were not themselves like those they

he got that kingdom, as his late Highness did | this, by an army, was, that he would not make Dobility contemptible by advancing such to that| degree whose quality or virtue could be noways | thought to deserve it. Nor have we formerly

-put

chose."

He thus disposes of their claims on the score of services:

"Mr. Speaker, I shall be as forward as any

been less apprehensive of such inconveniences man to declare their services, and acknowlone of the Bishop of Ely's accusations, that cas- same honour is not purchased by the blood of ourselves. It was, in Richard the First's time, edge them; though I might tell you that the tles and forts of great trust he did "obscuris et an enemy and of a citizen; that for victories in of obscure and unknown men. But we, Mr. city, I have not read that the conquerors have up the power of our laws, and, in that, the not much more indulgent to his country than

ignotis hominibus tradere ".

in the hands civil wars, till our armies marched through the

Speaker, to such a kind of men are

delivering been so void of shame as to triumph. Cæsar, our late Protector, did not so much as write

us.

of irony (says Sydney Smith, ctures) consists in the surprise by the discovery of that relation exists between the apparent praise e real blame. I shall quote a noble men of irony, from the Preface of ling no Murder."" It would be diffiit to find a better, if not nobler, specien than a passage in the speech before

18 victory at Pharsalia; much |clared innocent." The only evidence
of thanksgiving to his gods, against him was that of a boy, who stated
feasts, for having been a pros-that he had carried a letter from him to
Booth. A fragment of his biography con-
tains a detailed account of the manner in
which Monk was with difficulty induced to
take a decided course principally under
the persuasion or compulsion of his wife,
a strong-minded and high-spirited woman,
who deserves to be placed alongside of
Lady Fairfax and Mrs. Hutchinson in the
traditionally related that, as Shaftesbury
female Valhalla, when there is one.
was returning from the City after an at-
tempt to bring about a concert with Monk,
the mob surrounded the carriage, crying
out, "Down with the Rump." He put his
head out at the window, and exclaimed:
"What, gentlemen, not one good piece
in a rump?" The joke told, and he was
loudly cheered as he passed on.

"But, Sir, I leave this argument; and, to be as good as my word, come to put you in mind of some of their services, and the obligations you owe them for the same. To speak nothing of one of my Lords Commissioners' valor at Bristol, nor of another noble lord's brave adventure at the Bear-garden,t I must tell you, Sir, that most of them have had the courage to do things which I may boldly say, few other Christians durst so have adventured their souls to have attempted: they have not only subdued their enemies, but their masters that raised and maintained them; they have not only conquered Scotland and Ireland, but rebellious England too, and there suppressed a malignant' party of magistrates and laws; and that nothing should be wanting to make them indeed complete conquerors, without the help of philosophy they have even conquered themselves. All shame they have subdued as perfectly as all justice; the oaths they have taken they have as easily digested as their old General could himself; public covenants and engagements they have trampled under foot. In conclusion, so entire a victory they have over themselves, that their consciences are as much their servants, Mr. Speaker, as we are. But give me leave to conclude with that which is more admirable than all this, and shows the confidence they have of themselves and us: after having many times trampled on the authority of the House of Commons, and no less than five times dissolved them, they hope, for those good services to the House of Commons, to be made a House of Lords."

Shaftesbury played an active and influential part in the plots, councils, and machinations which led to the Restoration; but there is no ground for the accusation of rashness or undue zeal levelled at him by M. Guizot, who says that, " cused, with good reason, of complicity in the insurrection (Booth's), Sir Anthony Cooper, on the report of Nevil, was de

ac

It is

During the next twelve or thirteen years his chosen field of ambition was the Court, and his freshly-revived loyalty seemed fixed. He was one of the twelve Commissioners deputed by the Commons to meet the restored monarch, and one of the small batch of Privy Councillors named during the two days' halt at Canterbury. He was also an acting member of the tribunal specially appointed for the trial, which meant condemnation, of the regicides; for which politic compliancy Mrs. Hutchinson brands him as a "vile traitor," on the strength of his pledge to her husband that, "if the King was brought back, not a hair of any man's head, nor a penny of any man's estate, should be touched for what had passed." The most Mr. Christie can urge in mitigation is, that Monk gave a similar pledge to Ludlow, saying that, "if he suffered such a thing, he should be the arrantest rogue alive; and that Monk was also one of the judges. Shaftesbury spoke repeatedly in the Convention Parliament, and it was he who moved the adjournment of a debate on religion, which lasted till ten at night, when the House (as recorded in the "Parliamentary History ") "sat an hour in the dark before candles were suffered to be brought in, and they were twice blown out, but the third time they were preserved, though with great disorder." He was raised to the Upper House in April, 1661, as Baron Ashley, of Wimborne St. Giles, by a Patent, reciting that "at length by his counsels, in concert with our beloved and faithful George Monk, knight, &c., &c., he did a service worthy to be remembered, and most grateful to us, in the great business of restoring us to our

"One of the few requests the Portuguese made to Phillip the Second, King of Spain, when he got that kingdom, as his late Highness did this, by an army, was, that he would not make nobility contemptible by advancing such to that degree whose quality or virtue could be noways thought to deserve it. Nor have we formerly "Mr. Speaker, I shall be as forward as any been less apprehensive of such inconveniences man to declare their services, and acknowlourselves. It was, in Richard the First's time, edge them; though I might tell you that the one of the Bishop of Ely's accusations, that cas-same honour is not purchased by the blood of tles and forts of great trust he did "obscuris et ignotis hominibus tradere ". put in the hands of obscure and unknown men. But we, Mr. Speaker, to such a kind of men are delivering up the power of our laws, and, in that, the power of all.