The Express.
London, England, 1867-01-22 00:00:00

[STAMPED, ld. ADDITIONAL.]

1 MR. GOLD WIN SMITH ON CROMWELL,

Mr. Goldwin Smith's second lecture on English
political history was delivered at Manchester yesterday 4
evening. Lord Answer, M.P., took the chair.
In describing Cromwell's rim to power the lecturer I
paused only upon two points. One was the execution of
the king. Cromwell tried to save the king's life but was
prevented by the king's persistence in perfidy. Probably ,
Cromwell would even have left him his crown could be I
have been trusted to keep to terms. That the execution
was a fatal error of policy, one so sagacious as Cromwell
could hardly have been altogether unaware. His course
was perhaps determined by a real sympathy with the feel-
ings of his soldiery, who cried for impartial justice against
offenders.. Nothing, unhappily, could be less true than
Carlyle's remark that the execution " struck a damp like
that of death through the heart of Flunkeyism universally
in the world." It was Liberty, if anything, that has
" gone about incurably sick of it ever since." The blood
of the royal martyr has been the seed of Flunkeyiam
from that day to this. What man, what woman, feels
any sentimental attachment to the memory of James 11. ?
Another dark spot was the slaughter of the garrisons of
Drogheda and Wexford. The lecturer noticed the excuses
of retributive justice, but added that the excuse failed if
any innoceut perished with the guilty. Coming to the
review of Cromwell's character 64 a prince, he said the
judgment of history upon Cromwell could scarcely be
fixed until the settlement of great questions still open
both in the church and in the state. In this lecture the
,goodness of his caum would be taken for granted,
and the only inquiry would be whether he
served it faithfully and wail, Of his mine there was
little question. Although it was beg before law-loving
England could forgive one who seemed to have set his foot
on law, yet as often as danger threatened the thought re-
turned—not that we may have spin a Marlborough or •
Black Prince, but that the race which produced Cromwell
may, at its need, produce his peer, and the spirit of the
Great Usurper may once more stand forth in arms. Of
Cromwell's honesty there was more doubt. Who could
hope, in so complex a character, to distinguish accurately
the impulses of ambition from those of devotion to •
cause! Cromwell was a fanatic, and all fanatics are
morally the worse for their fanaticism, but his conduct
proved that his religion was sincere. Constant hypo-
crisy would have been fatal to his decision. The double-
miaded man is unstable in all hie ways. The lecturer
declared himself no devotee of the religion of hero-worship
Great men were most precious gifts of Heavek, and
unhappy was the nation which cannot prodnee them at its
need. But their importance in history becomes less as
civilisation goes on. In the last great struggle which the
world has seen, the Cromwell was not a hero, but an in-
telligent and united nation. To whatever age they may
belong, the greatest and most godlike of men are men, not
gods. Cromwell said, " Paint me with all my wrinkles."
Carlyle in his memoir had done—with his genius he could
not fail to do—well ; he would have done better had he
paid his hero the homage of simple truth. This hero-
worship, said the lecturer, becomes the warship of mere
force, which is no more adorable than meta fraud, the
force of those who are physically weak. To moral force
we may bow down, but moral force resides, and can reside,
in those only whose lives embody the moral law. It is
found in the highest degree in those at whomhero-worship
Bastes. Hero-worship sneers at Falkland; yet Falkland,
by his purity and his moderation, has touched and in-
fluenced the hearts of his countrymen for ever. Mr.
Smith then proceeded to show that arbitrary power was
not dear to Cromwell's heart. He was great enough, and
felt himself great enough, to reign among the free. An
ignoble nature like that of Bonaparte might covet des-
potism. A noble nature never cared for the affection of a
dependent or for the obedience of a slave. Cromwell was
the only man in a position to found a government after the
revolution. Then, and throughout his reign, he quelled
anarchy as he had quelled tyranny, and with a merciful
economy of punishment which shows how different is the
vigour of the brave from the vigour of ferocious cowards,
The lecturer spoke of the Long Parliament with respect
and gratitude, but said its continued government would
have been the tyranny of • section. When Cromwell was
set up by the army, it was not • government of mus-
keteers and pikemen. That would be the greatest of
calamities, the deepest of degradations ; and how to escape
the danger of such government, which threatened all
European nation, in their critical transition from the feu-
i dal aristocracy of the past to the democracy of the future,
was now the creasing question for us all. The soldiers of
Cromwell were the best of English chimes, they were
themselves the revolution, and had neither right nor in-
clination to set up military tyranny, but bad a right to
give a chief to the state and support his government.
. He was no Cesar or Bonaparte, no unprincipled
soldier of fortune, but puritanism armed and
crowned. In both the English and the French revolution

the most religious part of movement was the deepest.
So it was in all movements. Beneath all the social and
political revolutions now going on, did we not perceive a
revolution in religion ?—• revolution which might one day
clothe itself in some form of power, and cast the world
again in a new mould. The form of government which
Cromwell (after be had attained supremacy) meant to
found wail a monarchy, with himself as king. But it was
to be a constitutional and protestant monarchy, with par-
liamentary government sod taxation, reform of the repre-
sentation, the service of the state freely opened to merit,
law reform, church reform, university reform, union of
the three kingdoms, a pacified and civilised Ire-
land, and above all, that to which Milton's lines
pointed as the chief work of the chief of men—
liberty of conscience. We need not sneer at the
aspirations of the republicans. If some men did
not aspire too high, the world in general would fall too
low. But at that time a republic would have been sue of
party : England required to be made again a nation, and
only a chief raised in some measure above parties could
govern nationally. The first day of Cromwell's reign, in
fact, was the last of confiscation and vengeance, and every
cavalier was safe in person and estate. The case of Waah-
ington was different, for his nation at the end of war was
united it had been struggling with a power that was ex-
ternaL Cromwell did not allow his government to remain
military for an hour longer than be could help; but the
step from civil war tolegal government couldnot be made at
once. The insulting wanner in which he dismissed the
Long Parliament was a stain on Cromwell's character both
as a man and as a statesman. He was probably carried by
his feelings beyond his self-control. The lecturer paid a
tribute to the wise intentions of the derided Barebones
parliament, whose programme of legislation we had not
yet entirely carried out. But that parliament neglected
the demential thing of providing for the foundation of •
government The instrument of government, under
which Cromwell was afterwards made Lord Protector, de-
fended him from the charge of keeping arbitrary power.
Under this provisional constitution government could not
be party government ; a national council was always sitting
even in the parliamentary recess; the army was brought
under the constitution ; the nation was secured from
being entangled in war without its own consent by
the ministers; and the provision for the &bob-
kiwi of rotten boroughs would have saved us
from the work of rotten borough parliaments—
among other things, from our 800,000,000/. of debt. As to
Cromwell's personal disposition, when invited to take the
crown, the lecturer showed inducements of policy, but
was ready to believe that a man who has done great things
may, by the grace of heaven, keep his heart above tinsel.
The still half-feudal instincts of the nation were indulged
with • House of Lords, but it was a failure. An old
aristocracy, Mr. Coldwin Smith said, may be darned to any
extent, but to make a new one when the age of conquest
and conquering races is past is not an easy thing. He
ridiculed the notion that Cromwell's fortitude was ever
shaken by fear. The lecturer noticed also that insurgents
were tried before juries in the counties where rebellion
occurred, so little known to this military despot were our
present theories of martial law. By his interposition to
save Ormond when conspiring in London, the strongest
man of those days had bequeathed a lesson to emasculate
sentimentalists, who sped manhood by affecting a furious
lust of violence and blood. In his foreign policy he talked
of making the name of an Englishman as respected as that
of a Roman, in a strain suited to those times, not to ours.
But he sought to form a Protestant League, and put Eng.
bind at its head, Sall this was a policy which, unlike that
of modern diplomatists, all the nation could understand,
and carried the heart of the nation with it. When Eng-
land is again a united nation, said the lecturer, though
she will not meddle or bluster, she will make herself felt
in the world once more. Cromwell did not trample on
the weak, or send scolding despatches, but in the case of
Savoy he interposed effectually, and right was done.
The lecture was full of hist<eical detail of the utmost
interest, of which only the fragments could be reproduced
in the foregoing brief outline.

THE RITUALISM QUESTION. Yesterday after-
noon a large and influential meeting of the clergy and
laymen of Tunbridge Wells and the surrounding neigh-
bourhood was held at the Sussex Hotel Assembly-rooms,
" for the purpose of memorials being adopted by mem-
bers of the established church, addressed to her Majesty
the Queen and to kis Grime the Archbishop of Canterbury,
bringing to notice the alarming growth of Romish doc-
trines within the established church, and praying that
effectual means may be taken for their suppression." In
the absence of Lord Nevill, from whom a letter had been
received regretting his inability to attend, but expressing
his hearty noncurrent* in the object of the meeting, Mr.
J. D. Bourdillon was called to the chair. About fifty
clergymen had been invited to attend the meeting, and of
these • large number were present, there being also a
numerous attendance of laymen. Resolutions in accord-
ance with the objects of the meeting, and memorials
founded fiascoes, were adopted.

LTWOPENCE

METROPOLITAN' DISTRZSg.

At the close of the business which yesterday
came under the consideration of the Mansion•hoase Col-

lieries Explosion Relief Committee, and before the mess.
ben of the committee (then present) had separated,
The Loan MAYOR said that he begged to mention to the
gentlemen around him that he had received at all hands
very many urgent applications to form a committee to
receive and dispense the means of meeting the dire and
fearful distress now prevailing throughout the metropolis,
owing to the scarcity of labour and the severity of the
weather, and he had also received many painfully dis-
tressing accounts aa to the extent to which that distress
prevailed up to the present time. He bad, therefore,
deemed it proper to wait no longer, but immediately
to commence operations by asking the members of the
Explosion Committee to join him in forming another com-
mittee, to be designated the Metropolitan Distress Relief
Committee, to raise funds to meet that distress, and by the
aid of local committees to dispense relief all through the
metropolis as in the case of the choler funds. The whole
of the committee had, he was happy to say, acceded to his
request, and the following gentlemen he bad requested to
join the committee be proposed to form, vie.: the Gover-
nor of the Bank of England, Mr. William Leaf, of Old
Change, Mr. R. R. Wade, director of the Union Provincial
Bank ; Mr. Charles Wigrain, Mr. Henry Green, the Rev.
Mr. Rogers, Rector of Biaho ate ; the Rev. F. 0. Blom-
field, Mr. John Holmes, of Bread-street, and Kr. W.
Davenport Bromley, M.P.
A subscription was at once commenced and was
headed by a donation of 100/. from Messrs. Barelay,
Bevan, and Co ; of IUO/. from Mr. John Holmes, and at
from the firm of Holmes Brothers, of Bread-street.
The committee will consist of the gentlemen above-named,
Wirth,: with the following members of the existing com-
mittee—vie., the Lord Mayor, Mr. R. C. L. Bevan, Mr.
MG7rtMoore, Mr. J. P. Galahad, Mr. Alderman Finn*Mr.
e.
T. Gabriel, Colonel Stuart Wortley, Mr. W. J.
Maxwell, Mr. Alderman Bosley, Mr. Alderman Dakin, Mr.
Alderman and Sheriff Waterlow, Mr. Sheriff Lyon*, Mr.
Frederick Thompson, Mr. James Doke Hill, Mr. It. A.
Gray, Mr. R. N. Fowler, Mr. Alderman Cotton, and Mr.
Samuel Morley. The committee will meet to-morrow
(this day) at the Mansion-house at 3 o'clock. It may be
added that several gentlemen connected with Poplar,
Mile-end, and other East-end districts appeared at tam
Mansion-house to urge some movement in behalf of the
distressed population, and 1111111 informed by Mr. Gibbs
(the Lord Mayor's eecretary) that the matter was at that
moonlit being initiated, and in a few days the benefit eff
their information would be gladly received.