breasts of each of the actors, or, by a sort of combined ubiquity and foresight, had known what each intended, and what all were doing, at the same moment. We must be permitted to say, that this piercing into the thoughts and depths of kings, counsellors, and generals, is rather too much for us, and implies qualities which we are reluctant to concede to any author uninspired. By being so lavishly indulged, and so constantly used to serve the purposes of colouring, and of party-interest, it has become nauseous. Simple narrative, orderly statements of proceedings, and unquestionable documentary evidence, are the staple commodities of which history ought to be composed. And we would beg leave to say to all writers of his tory-be kind enough to leave us to make our own reflections, and allow us to look at all your pic tures through our own spectacles. Then, indeed, history will approach to perfection, when it holds up an undimmed and colourless mirror of men and things. The work of Mr. Godwin is to be comprised, we believe, in two volumes, the first of which is now before us, and of which we can speak, not only with great confidence, as an impartial and interesting production; but with great pleasure, as supplying, in its minute references, the most ample means of confirmation or refutation. The following extract from the preface will give the reader a correct idea of the temper of the writer, and of the character of cool, impartial statement which pervades this portion of the work. "The book I here publish is the production of my mature life; and I wish the principle upon which it is formed to be thoroughly understood. It relates to a great and interesting topic, a series of transactions perhaps not to be surpassed in importance by any thing that has occurred on the theatre of the world. I have no desire to be thought to look upon such transactions with indifference. I have no desire to be regarded as having no sentiments or emotions, when any thing singularly good or singularly evil passes under my review. I wish to be considered as feeling as well as thinking. If to treat good and evil as things having no essential difference, be impartiality, such impartiality I disavow. "I will inform my readers what im partiality I aim at, and consider as com If mendable. Its essence consists in a fair and severe cxamination of evidence, and the not suffering any respect of persons, or approbation of a cause, to lead the writer to misapprehend or misrepresent the nature of facts. If I have failed in this, I desire to be considered as guilty of a breach of the genuine duties of an historian; or, to speak in plainer terms, of what I owe to my own character, and to the best interests of the human race. I have not failed in this, I claim to obtain a verdict of Not guilty. I have endeavoured to write with sobriety and a collected mind. I have endeavoured to guard myself against mere declamation, and that form of language in which passion prevails to the obscuring of judgment. I have spoken no otherwise of men and things, than I should wish to speak in the presence of an omniscient judge. I have been anxious to pronounce on all in the atmos phere of a true discrimination, and in the temper of an honest and undebauched sense of moral right. "It is at this time almost universally granted, and will more fully appear in the following pages, that the opponents of Charles the First fought for liberty, and that they had no alternative. I proceed upon these two positions. Let them be granted me; and I fear no charge of false colouring in what follows. If the events of which I treat had preceded the universal deluge, or passed in the remotest island of the South Sea, that ought to make me sober, deliberate, and just in my decisions: it ought not to make me indifferent to human rights, improvement, or happiness. The nearness or remoteness of the scene in respect to place or time, is a consideration of comparatively inferior magnitude : I wish to be wholly unaffected by the remembrance, that the events took place occurred on the very soil where my book about a century previous to my birth, and is written."-pp. vii—ix. Though we have not room for long extracts, and should be sorry to weaken the emotions of surprize and pleasure with which most readers will peruse this volume, yet there are some passages so felicitous in execution, and so discriminative in sentiment and judgment, that we cannot deny ours selves the gratification of presenting one or two specimens. The first chapter contains sketches of the character of Sir Ed. Coke, Selden, Hampden, and Pym, the fathers and founders of the commonwealth. The sketch of Hampden is at once so complete, so concise, and so simply elegant, that we must insert it at length. "John Hampden was one of the most extraordinary men in the records of mankind. The first thing related of him does not tend to impress us with so high an idea of the rank of his mind, as must be excited in every impartial observer by his subsequent conduct. In the summer of 1637, he embarked, with Pym, Cromwel, Sir Arthur Haselrig, and one or two more of the patriots of the day, with the intention of spending the remainder of his life in New England. A much inferior degree of discernment to that which he afterwards displayed, ought to have shewn him, that the posture of affairs at home was rapidly advancing to that condition, which the constitution of his mind most peculiarly fitted him to grapple with. It is indeed seldom that it can be the duty of a good citizen to go into voluntary banishment from his country. "The government of King Charles, however interfered in the form of an embargo, and prevented the execution of his purpose. Hampden immediately chose his part. From this moment he dismissed the thought of a solitary and retired existence, and became a citizen after the purest model. He was in point of family and property one of the first men in his county; but, till now, he had been but little known out of that narrow circle. Of all the grievances of which the people at this time complained, that which produced the most striking effect was the arbitrary imposition of ship-money. Hampden's estate was assessed to this tax in the amount of twenty shillings. He refused to pay the sum demanded; and accordingly the question came to be solemnly argued before the judges of England. The argument occupied a space of twelve days; and a decision was finally given against Hampden, eight of the judges pronouncing for the crown, and four against it. But, as Clarendon observes, the judgment that was given against him, infinitely more advanced him, than it did the service for which it was given. He was rather of reputation in his own country, than of public discourse or fame in the kingdom, before the business of ship-money: but then he grew the argument of all tongues, every man enquiring who and what he was, that durst,' at the risque of the vengeance of a court, distinguished for its unrelenting and NEW SERIES, No. 2. vindictive character, support the liberty and property of the kingdom.' "Yet all t is was nothing, if he had not possessed qualities, the most singularly adapted to the arduous situation in which he stood. He possessed judgment; all men came to learn from him, and it could not be discerned that he learned from any one. He was modest; he was free from the least taint of overbearing and arrogance; he commonly spoke last, and what he said was of such a nature that it could not be mended. He won the confidence of all; and every man trusted him. His courage was of the firmest sort, equally consummate in council and the field. Al men's eyes were fixed upon him; he was popular and agreeable in all the intercourses of life; he was endowed with a most discerning spirit, and the greatest insinuation and address to bring about whatever he desired. What crowned the rest, was the prevailing opinion of him as a just man, and that his affections seemed to be so publicly guided, that no corrupt and private ends could bias them.' He was, as Clarendon observes, 'possessed with the most absolute spirit of popularity, and the most absolute faculties to govern the people, of any man I ever knew.' Indeed all the above features of character are extracted from the noble historian, being only separated from the tinge of party, and the personal animosity, which misguided his pen. "When the long Parliament met in November 1640, every one looked to him, as their patriæ puter, and the pilot that must steer the vessel through the tempests and rocks which threatened it.' The firm and decisive proceedings indeed with which that assembly commenced, afford no equivocal testimony to the genius by which they must have been directed. Soon after its meeting, Strafford and Laud were committed by it to prison, and several of the King's other ministers fled. A negociation was then opened for an agreement between the contending parties, and Charles entertained a proposition for appointing Pym Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hampden tutor to the Prince of Wales, and the other popular leaders to the principal offices of government. This negociation failed. It would be an inquiry, rather curious than useful, to settle what sort of character Charles the Second, who was now little more than ten years of age, would have been, if the cares of Hampden bad been directed to the unfolding and guiding his dispositions. The nomination however may tend to instruct us in the sentiments of the great English patriot; he seems to have preferred the task of forming a future King, to the more immediate exercise of any of the great functions of government. "Meanwhile the unhappy and misjudg ing sovereign disinissed the thought of moderate measures, and proceeded in that rash course which led to his final catastrophe. The most ill-advised of all his actions was his accusing and demanding the five members, with Hampden at their head, to be delivered up to him by the House of Commons in the fulness of its popularity and power. From this moment, as Clarendon says, the temper of the man seemed to be much altered,' he saw what he had to expect, and what sort of an enemy he had to deal with; and he chose his part with the same characteristic firmness and decision, which he had displayed, when four or five years before he was interrupted in his intended voyage to New England."-pp. 11–15. One or two more short citations will satisfy our readers, that Mr. Godwin's work is well worthy their attentive perusal. In the chapter relating particularly to religion, we find the following passages: "During the period of these military transactions, many interesting particulars occurred in the assembly of divines and the Parliament. A majority of the reflecting and religious part of the nation had been thoroughly disgusted with the episcopal government of the church, as administered by Laud and his compeers, men of a haughty and insolent temper, wedded to pomp and splendour, detesting the puritans, looking with comparative favour upon the privileges and system of the Church of Rome, servile to the court, advocates on all occasions of passive obedience in matters of civil policy, thoroughly imbued with an intolerant spirit, and ever ready, when the question was of suppressing obnoxious tenets, to employ the most odious severities, in the shape of heavy fines, tedious and strait imprisonment, the Scourge, the knife, and the pillory. It seems certain, whatever some historians may have alleged to the contrary, that a great majority of the nation was at the meeting of the Long Parliament hostile to the institution of Bishops. There were no doubt many pious and excellent men, among those who filled conspicuous stations in the hierarchy. There was a considerable portion of the nobility, gentry," and others, who looked with partial regard upon the ecclesiastical system of their fathers. But that is mere human nature; and in cases of this sort it can scarcely be otherwise. The active and operant part of the community, the vigour and energy of the living principle in the body politic, was almost exclusively on the other side.' -pp. 333, 334. the most earnest zeal, the Independents, who maintained nearly the same tenets on this subject with the party last mentioned. They were led to the conclusions they adopted, by somewhat of a different process. Like the Presbyterians, they cor dially disapproved of the pomp and hierarchy of the Church of England. But they went further. They equally disapproved of the synods, provincial and general, the classes and incorporations of Presbytery, a system scarcely less complicated, though infinitely less dazzling, than that of diocesan Episcopacy. They held, that a church was a body of Christians assembled in one place appropriated for their worship, and that every such body was complete in itself, that they had a right to draw up the rules by which they thought proper to be regulated, and that no man not a member of their assembly, and no body of men, was entitled to interfere with their proceedings. Demanding toleration on these grounds, they felt that they were equally bound to concede and assert it for others; and they preferred to see a number of churches with different sentiments and institutes within the same political community, to the idea of remedying the evil, and exterminating error, by means of exclusive regulations and the menaces and severities of punishment.”—pp. 336, 337. Upon the justice, and nothing but justice of the latter extract, we should be disposed to make some remarks, did we not consider ourselves in a great degree inheritors of these very principles of church polity; but we are silentf civil policy, thoroughly let the world judge. The testimony of Mr. Godwin would have been of no worth in this much obscured subject, had it not been the testimony of a man, whose principles have been long enough known to have no affinity to our own, and who cannot be charged here either with interest or prejudice, return for the candour and impartiality with which he has treated all religious parties, we may be permitted, without being suspected of any sympathy in that creed, which he has been com monly supposed to profess, to offer our cordial and hearty thanks for the service he has rendered the English nation, and to recommend all our readers to avail themselves speedily of the pleasure and profit of perusing his work. But what is scarcely less worthy of notice, there was at this time a sect of Christians, penetrated with the fervours of In . Literaria Rediviva; or, The Book Worm. Reliquia Wottoniana, or a Collection of Lives, Letters, Poems, with Characters of sundry Personages, &c. &c. &c. by the curious pencil of the ever-memorable Sir Henry Wotton, Knt. &c. &c. &c. Fourth edition. London, 1685. London, 1685. 8vo. WHILST we were excogitating a brief introduction to this curious volume, Mr. Addison's ingenious idea of adjusting the relative merit of authors by the dimensions of their productions, forced itself into our mind. The impression was so lively that we could almost behold our diminutive lucubrations, seldom exceeding four pages of an ordinary octavo, filed in the records of Parnassus, immediately under the brochures and squibs of the day, amidst the contemptuous sneers of the authors of more ponderous publications. We dropped our pen, and our readers might, perhaps, have vainly searched the list contained in the envelope of our February number, for the Book-worm, had not our sudden despondency been checked by a thought of a brighter colour. If the enlightened Romans (our meditations appealing from fable to reality)-if the enlightened Romans thought the highest rewards due to him who saved the life of a citizen, assuredly he who is in any degree instrumental in preserving the existence of a book, that life of reason, and condensation of intellect, may deserve some praise, and receive some plaudit. We resumed our pen, and proceeded in our lucubrations. Amongst the various species of literary aliment with which the genius and industry of our forefathers have abundantly supplied the insatiable appetite of our brethren, the heluones librorum, none has afforded us more delight than that class antiently called Reliquiæ, &c. &c. We have thought of them as some have thought of a lady's postscript, that the mind of the author was discovered in them, more clearly than in the previous and more elaborate writing. Perhaps it would be difficult to assign the true reason why these gleanings in the field of intellect are so highly prized by us. Whether it be that ofter the author has exercised upon them the limæ labor, and kept them from the public eye till the last polish was bestowed, whilst his more easy and crude conceptions, like nature's common productions, are of easy parturition; or whether they sometimes treat on subjects which the author's prudence would not permit him openly to canvass in his own life-time, and so have the strongest hold on our affections by gratifying our curiosity, ever de lighting in the mysterious; or whether it be in those volumes, which consist of unfinished and even rude remains, (for many are of this character,) that we perceive the greatness of intellect which, in itself, is too overpowering and too transcendent for our self-love to delight in, veiled, and softened down, and diminished to a pleasing equality: from whichsoever of these reasons it may proceed, it is certain that works of this class are perused with a greater zest by our fraternity than perhaps any others. It is needless to descend to instances. The principle is so generally acknowledged, that the public purveyors have sometimes carried it to the most ridiculous excess. Every trifle, every sketch, nay, even the private correspondence of a deceased author, has been sedulously collected, and obtruded on the public notice, often with no regard either to the reputation of the deceased, or to the understanding of the world. Whilst we consider such instances as abuses of the principle to which we have alluded, they must, however, be ac knowledged as powerful corroborations of its existence. The respectable name of the editor of this volume, Mr., or, as he has been stiled, honest Isaak Walton, is the best voucher that nothing of this nature has transpired in the publication of Sir Henry Wotton's "Remains." The work itself has had the singular fate to be traduced only by one critic, (as far as our reading extends,) and that the sarcastic Horace Walpole; and when it is remembered that the same gentleman endeavoured to depreciate the genius of Sir Philip Sydney, we apprehend that our readers will not be influenced by his opinion. Happy is it for the reputation of Sir Henry Wotton's Reliquiæ, if none but the contemner of Sydney can adventure its depreciation. violent, reserved, haughty, and constantly engaged in broils, which disposition eventually brought him and his patron to a disgraceful end: Wotton mild, candid, humble, and peaceable in the extreme, on account of which traits of character he was much esteemed by James on his accession to the English throne. On the execution of Essex, Sir Henry found it necessary to abscond for a time, though innocent of any participation in his master's crime. Whilst thus absent, he was employed by the Great-Duke of Florence in conveying to James the VIth, of Scotland, the intelligence of a plot against his life, which circumstance was a happy introduction to the favour of that monarch, who, on his arrival in England, after the death of Elizabeth, immediately recalled Sir Henry and rewarded him with knighthood. Sir Henry was now dispatched on various embassies, an employment for which he was eminently qualified, Sir Henry was born in Kent, in by his accurate knowledge of the the year 1568, and descended of European languages. Whilst at an ancient family in that county. Venice, he and his chaplain, the His father was the very excellent learned Bedel, were intrusted with Thomas Wotton, to whom Lam- the original manuscript of Father barde addressed his "Perambu- Paul's " History of the Council lation of Kent." Nicholas Wotton, of Trent." By their care it was the ambassador, was also of this despatched to England, and printed family. After the usual university both in English and Latin. On studies, Sir Henry entered into his return from foreign employpublic life as secretary to the noble ments, Sir Henry took orders in Earl of Essex, in which situation the Church of England, and was he had for a companion Cuffe, the appointed Provost of Eaton Colauthor of a curious Treatise " On lege, where he finished his days in the Difference of Man's Age." the midst of those studies which he Hyde, in his "Historia Religionis had assiduously cultivated even in Veterum Persarum," says, that the his public engagements, and in the old Persians always deliberated duties of that religion of which he twice on any important national had been for many years a devoted transaction; once, when drunk, and consistent servant. The latter that they might not want vigour; is a trait of Sir Henry's character once, when sober, that they might which we dwell upon with peculiar not want discretion. We presume pleasure. Spirituality of mind is some reason similar to this must so rare an ingredient in the general have induced the Earl to his choice qualifications of statesmen, that of these two secretaries, men, in we have been sometimes inclined every point of view, intellectual to believe it utterly incompatible antipodes to each other. Cuffe with the duties of that class of men: |