The Press. — London, England, 1857-11-07 00:00:00

1090 man has ever advanced himself to a wonderful height of power, and ruled his fellow-men with almost sovereign sway? And we must remember that the greatness of individuals is often but a sign of the weakness of the people Mr. Carlyle utterly derides " constitution mongers," " speechmakers," and " empty par liamentary logic-mills." One hundred years after Cromwell flourished, there was an Englishman of about the same social rank as Cromwell ori ginally was, and by the mere force of his energy, eloquence, and public spirit he made himself Minister, in defiance of Court and aristocracy. He was at once the greatest orator of his age, and its greatest War Minister. He restored the drooping heart of England, and, by the boldness of his designs and the prompt energy of his plans, he made the name of England as great abroad as ever Cromwell did. The person who did so was called " the Great Commoner," and, without encroaching one hair's breadth on the power of the Crown or the liberty of the subject, he "smote the " House of Bourbon with one hand, and " wielded in the other the democracy of Eng " land ."Would any three of Cromwell's overrated battles make up one equal to Clive's " Plassy ?' Were not the countless difficulties, the plots, conspiracies, abroad and at home, which, in the early years of her reign. beset Queen Elizabeth equal to the difficulties of Cromwell? Had not some of our Henrys and Edwards as good stuff of manhood in them as ever appeared in Cromwell? We might carry these questions still further. But it will be said " that Cromwell rose " from so low a station." There is ignorance of the subject shown in such a comment, and also the class-feeling which prevails upon it. Cromwell was by rank and birth an English gentleman, with first-rate connections. He was the consin•german of Mr. Hampden of Great Hampden, and another cousin (daughter of his uncle Henry) married Oliver St. John, the shipmoney barrister, and a mein her of the famous old stock of the St. Johns. An aunt of Oliver Cromwell was married to the heir of the eminent family of the Whalleys of Notts. In the Fen district the Cromwells had extensive possessions; and it is literally true, as we have always read his history, that Cromwell was a gentleman " by birth, property, " and education.' He had not the personal merit of rising from so low a condition as popular prejudice ignorantly and absurdly supposes : he was a man of position at the commencement of the troubles. These points are worth noting; and as there is still some ignorant delusion on the subject, we shall extract from Mr. Carlyle's interesting ana. But first we shall of ourselves cite the testimony of Waller, which Mr. Carlyle and others have overlooked. In his lines to the Protector, Waller says : The only care which could from }leaven come down Was so much pin and clemency in one, — One whose extraction from a noble him Gives hope again that well born men May shine The meanest in your nature, milli amigood, The noblest rest secured in your blood. Surely Waller, himself a " well-born man," and a most skilful writer, would never have been so silly as to allude to Cromwell's extraction if the Protector had really been a man of mean condition But as we so often have heard and read of " fetid Cockneyism " exulting malig nantly in the fact of " the brewer's son " having crushed tile King and Aristocracy, we shall cite Mr. Carlyle's statement : Oliver Cromwell, afterwards Protector of the Common wealth of England, was born at Huntingdon, in St. John's Parish there, on the ':sth of April 1599. Christened on the '29th of the same month ; as the old Parish-registers of that Church still legibly testify. His Father was Robert Cromwell, younger son of Sir Henry Cromwell, and younger brother of Sir Oliver Crom well. • Knights both ; who Ilweh successively, in rather stinipttious fashion, at the Mansion of Hinchinbrook hind by. His Mother was Elizabeth Steward, daughter of William Steward, Esquire, in Ely ; an opulent man, a kind of hereditary Farmer of the Cathedral Tithes and Church lands round that city ; in which capacity his son, Sir Thomas Steward, Knight, in due time succeeded him, resident also at Ely. After tiacking his pedigree with minuteness. Mr. Carlyle thus describes the Protector's father : For the rect., as documents still testify, this Robert Cromwell did Burgh and Quarter• Session duties ; was not slack but tuoderately active as a country gentleman: sat once in Parliament in his younger years; is found with THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 7, 1857. his elder or other Brothers on various Public Commis. slung for Draining the Fens of that region, or more properly for inquiring into the possibility of such an operation; a thing much noised of then; which Robert Cromwell, among others, reported to be very feasible, very promising, but did not live to see accomplished, or even attempted. His social rank is sufficiently indicated; — and much flunkeyism, falsity, and other carrion ought to be buried! Better than all social rank, he is understood to have been a wise, devout, stedfast, and worthy man, and to have lived a modest and manful life in his station there. And again : In short the stories of Oliver's " poverty," if they were otherwise of any amount, are al false ; and should be mentioned here, if still here, for the last time. The faintly was of the rank of substantial gentry, and duly connected with such in the counties round, for three generations back. And, further, Mr. Carlyle proves the relation ship between Cromwell and the Earl of Essex, citing two original documents in which the great-grandfather of Oliver Cromwell addresses Cromwell Earl of Essex as "your most bounden nephew." Of the grandfather of the Protector, and of Hinehinbrook, Mr. Carlyle writes It was the Father Sir Henry Cromwell, who from his sumptuosity was called the " Golden Knight," that built, or that enlarged, remodelled and as good as built, the Mansion of Hinchinbrook ; which had been a Nunner while Nunneries still were: it was the son, Sir Oliver, likewise an expensive man, that sold it to the Montagues, since Earls of Sandwich, whose seat it still is. A stately pleasant House, among its shady lawns and expanses, on the left bank of the Ouse river, a short half' mile west of Huntingdon ;—still stands pretty much as Oliver Crom well's Grandfather left it; rather kept goad and defended front the inroads of Time and Accident, than substantially altered. Several Portraits of the Cromwells, and other interesting portraits and memorials of the seventeenth and subsequent centuries, are still there. The Cromwell blazonry " on the grEat bay window," which Noble makes so math of, is now gone, destroyed by fire ; has given place to Montague blazonry. Of the house where Cromwell was born it is said : The House where Robert Cromwell dwelt, where his son Oliver and all his family were born, is still familiar to every inhabitant of Huntingdon : but it has been twice rebuilt since that date, and now bears no memorial what• ever which even Tradition can connect with him. It stands at the upper or northern extremity of the Town, — beyond the Market-place we spoke of; on the left or river. ward side of the street. It is at present a solid yellow brick house, with a walled courtyard ; occupied by some townsman of the wealthier sort. The little Brook of Hin - chin, making its way to the Ouse which is not far off, still flows through the courtyard of the place,—offering a convenience for malting or brewing, among other things. Some vague but confident tradition as to Brewing attaches itself to this locality; and traces of evidence, I understand, exist that before Robert Cromwell's time, it had been employed as a Brewery: but of this or even of Robert Cromwell's own brewing, there is, at such a dis tance, in such an element of distracted calumny, exaggera tion, and confusion, little or no certainty to be * had. But whether Robert Cromwell was a brewer or not, it is certain that the Protector's family was eminently connected. In our English social system much impor tance has always been attached to "position" and " connection." We have read no paper in this work with more interest than the alpha betical list of the Long Parliament, which Mr. Carlyle has collected, with praiseworthy in dustry, from various documents. It is a most valuable paper, and would deserve special editing of the genealogical kind. Looked on with reference to dam, the Long Parliament was a far more aristocratic representative of the commonalty than the present House of Commons. Nearly one-half of the Long Parliament, if not more, have living representatives of the families to whom they belonged. And when so proud a body, with so much social and personal pretensions, was arrayed " pro rege, lege, grege," the nar rowness and faction of Cromwell and his immediate followers are plainly seen in con trasting the list of the Long Parliament with the names of the Regicides. With " Dod " in one hand, and Mm'. Car lyle's catalogue (vol. ii. p.:176) in the other, it is most curious to remark the long standing of our parliamentary names. In the Long Parliament Sir William Litton sat for Herts, a Howard for Carlisle, a Fitzwilliam for Peter borough, an Irby for Boston, Sir Norton Knatchbull for Romney, Sir Edward Deering for Kent; the Evelyns sat for Reigate and Bletchingley (Surrey), a son of Lord Pembroke then as . now sat for Wilts, and o th er H er b er t s sat for Glainorganshire and Montgomery Sir Thomas Jormyn sat for Bury St. Edmunds, a Knightly for Northamptonshire, a Littleton for Staffordshire ; Walter Long sat for Lud gershall (Wilts), a Rolle for Devon ; two Rus sells sat for Tavistock, Sir James Thynne for Wiltshire, the Verneys for Wycombe and kylesbury, a Vivian for Tregony. The Long Parliament had a Sir John Packington, Robert Cecil, a Sir John Ramsden, a Lo r d Edward Howard, and many other names borne then as now by men of station and honour; and the catalogue shows the fixity of our social system, and how purely political was the revolution in the seventeenth century, as distinguished from the French convulsion, where opinions, manners, and landed property were fundamentally overturned. True to Nature. A Novel. Two Volumes. London : Hurst and Blackett. THIS is a tale of modern domestic English life, gracefully and prettily told. The story is simple enough, and affords little scope for artistic treatment. Sir Hugh and Lady Mon. tagu are the model father and mother of four more or less model daughters, whose matri monial fortunes are sketched with some clever ness. Frances marries a foolish baronet with a good fortune, and abandons herself to the frivolities and vanities of London society. Margaret is unaccountably fascinated and won by a vulgar manufacturer, of the Manchester school of politics, who is stingy and brutal. Clarice, a young lady with ideas as romantic as her name, marries a handsome but brietless young barrister of the proper novel-hero species, whose brother, a distinguished Indian officer, undesignedly obtains the affections of her younger sister Lucy, a charming young lady, whose love is not returned by the uncon scious warrior; as how should it have been, when a gipsy woman had foretold to that young lady a life of hopeless celibacy ? and we all know that the predictions of those inspired Bohemians never fail to be realised—at least in novels. Mrs. Herbert Disbrowe, the bar rister's helpmate, had, however, before she became his wife, refused the tender and re spectful offer of marriage made to her by Mr. Latymer, an old bachelor friend of her father, a man of large property, high fatnily, and noble character, but, alas ! unable to inspire with reciprocal love the pretty young poetess, who had already given her heart to his penniless but goodlooking guest from London. After struggling with poverty, and smarting from the selfish patronage of her sister, Lady Selwyn, till her spirits began to fail and her husband's health to sink, the barrister's household are suddenly not only relieved from pecuniary distress, but elevated to sudden wealth by the death of her old ad►uirer, who leaves all his large estates to his little idol, in spite of the machinations of his heir at law, Mr. Temple—a proper melodramatic villain, who undergoes the shame, defeat, and expo sure suitable to his crimes, and dies a miser able outcast in Italy. The whole work, however, is not devoted to the history of the Montagus. The loves of Colonel Disbrowe, the brother of the poetess's briefless husband, and Miss Vivian will be considered by most novel-readers the most interesting portion of the book. Miss Vivian is a young lady of great beauty and enormous wealth, who is eagerly sought after by the fascinating villain Jasper Temple. She seorn fully rejects his suit, and hills deeply in love with the handsome colonel from India. Maddened with disappointment at the failure of his scheme for re-establishing his fallen fortunes, and smarting with rage atid jealousy, Temple puts a paper into Colonel Disbrowe's hands, purporting to be a letter which Miss Vivian had addressed some time previously, when almost a schoolgirl, to a young man named Seyton who had paid his addresses to her. The colonel—a proud wooer, who conla no more than Montrose bear " a rival near his throne "—carries the accusing document to Miss Vivian, insists on knowing if she acknow ledges its genuineness, and, on her meekly owning that she was the author of the missive, abruptly, and we think somewhat brutally, breaks off his engagement with the poor, humbled girl. In defence of his conduct, however, it must be stated that she had solemnly assured him that he was the first