The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-31 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

COIII23fENTARIES ON THE LIFE AND
REIGN OF CHARLES THE FIRST.
2 Vols. By Isaac Disraeli. Edited by his Son.
London: Henry Colburn.
Several years since, the present remarkable contri-
bution to historical literature was originally published.
The new edition, now lying before us, possesses conse-
quently but the attraction of a reprint, well revised
and judiciously corrected. Issued as it is, however,
at a moment so peculiarly appropriate, it will be
welcomed with no common eagerness by the majo-
rity of the reading community. It comes to usindeed,
just now, as aptly as the essays written by M.
Guizot upon the characters of Monk and Washing-
ton came of late to the great multitude of intelligent
Frenchmen. It comprises within itself at once a
warning and an example. In one chapter it has par-
ticular reference to " The Genius of the Papacy."
In another it takes into account " The critical and
variable situation of English Sovereigns with regard
to their Roman Catholic subjects." It consequently
arrests the attention of the masses throughout these
kingdoms at the existing crisis with a power appor-
tioned to the influence of existing circumstances.
We doubt not, therefore, that of all the valuable
compilations for which we are indebted to the industry
and erudition of Isaac Disraeli, this will, for a while
at least, be incontestably the favourite. It will be pa
ramount in public esteem for the time being, beyond
even his memorable and estimable "Curiosities of
Literature." Those who have already perused its pages
will revert to them with only increased avidity, and
this not merely because of their having passed under
the scrupulous revision of their author, now, alas !
deceased, but because of their extraordinary applica-
tion to events now transpiring amongst ourselves, and
provoking, by their unusual importance, the scrutiny
more or less of the entire of Christendom. Those
again who, on the contrary,' have yet to acquaint
themselves with the fruits of Mr. Disraeli's research
in regard to English history immediately prior to the
foundation of the Commonwealth, will find their cu-
riosity stimulated in no ordinary manner by the reflec-
tion that now-a-days we are being afforded a striking
illustration of the veracity of the old saving, that the
annals of a country are little better than perpetual
repetition. From the crimes perpetrated by a by-
gone Government, the Cabinet of the day may learn
great lessons of admonition. From the weakness or
'ferocity exhibited by the mob in Jays long since de-
parted, the multitude of the hour may, in the
record preserved of the frightful consequences of
those excesses, perceive the folly of allowing themselves
to be carried away by the impulse of passion or by the
contagion of a diseased excitement. The brilliant author
of " Coningsby " has performed his duties as editor
with all filial assiduity, and with an earnest regard
for the maintenance of his progenitor's reputation.
His "advertisement," although unsatisfactorily short,
is pithy and to the purpose, directing the notice of all
men to the words of wisdom contained in these two
volumes of Commentaries, words which it were well
the public, and not only the ,but the Legisla-
ture, considered betimes in a light appropriate to
their true application. The history of the " decline
and fall" of monarchical power during the latter por-
tion of the reign of King Charles the First is itself
an epic crowded with a variety of solemn and moving
incidents. The loyal devotion of the Cavaliers, the
democratic enthusiasm of the Roundheads, the fer-
vour of those who clung with passionate tenacity to
the Crown, and the sincere fanaticism of those who
assumed the designation of the Covenanters, make up
a picture which for its emotional intensity has
scarcely a rival among the many startling spectacles
displayed in the annals of humanity. Removed as
we are by so long a period from the time when that
heroic generation convulsed the whole framework of
English'society by their contentions, we can now
happily look without prejudice at the many chivalrous
deeds performed on both sides indiscriminately, on the
side of the King, and on the side of the Parliament.
Devoted as we are by all our political principles to
the cause represented in the stalwart form of our im-
mortal Cromwell, called, and with truth, by the most
eloquent of historians, "the noblest prince that ever
ruled the destinies of England," we behold in the
policy of Charles only a series of execrable duplicities
and prevarications. We believe him to have been a
man with many noble qualities, but with a tyrannical
temperament, so paramount among all the peculiarities
of his great nature, and so indulged in from the earliest
period of his childhood, as to have ultimately warped
his judgment and distorted his conscience. That he
played false with the nation, all history proclaims in
characters as indelible as the bloody record of his death
afterwards inscribed by the hand of popular passion
upon the stones of Whitehall. For inasmuch as he
compelled the people by these detestable proceedings
' to fly to the last resource of a deceived multitude, the
desperate resource of insurrection, we abhor the me-
mory of that monarch who, by his mistaken worship-
pers, has been transfigured into a hero unblemished
and incomparable. Entertaining these sentiments,
nevertheless, in reference to the policy of the King,
we recognize in the ICing himself personally
qualities such as command our most earnest
and unconditional admiration. We behold in
him a prince worthy, even in his weaknesses,
of the title, a prince stubborn to force, but placable
to persuasion, a prince brave in the midst of innu-
merable dangers, and resolute to the last even in the
avenging face of the Nemesis of our national liberties.
Who can read unmoved the touching narrative of his
decapitation as penned by his present biographer ?
" Addressing the headsman, the King said, When I
put out my hands this way, then!' As soon as he had
laid his head on the block, the executioner thrust his
hair under his cap; and Charles, thinking that he had
been going to strike, commanded him to stay for the
sign!' On the uttermost verge of life, men could dis-
cover in the King no indecent haste, no flurry of spirits,
no trembling of limbs, no disorder of speech, no start in
horror—his eyes were observed by an eminent physician
to be as lively and quick as ever, as his head lay on the
block. The blow was struck—an universal groan, as it
were a supernatural voice, the like never before heard,
broke forth from the dense and countless multitude. All
near the scaffold pressed forwards to gratify their oppo-
site feeling, by some memorial of his blood—the blood
of a tyrant or a martyr. The troops immediately dis-
ersed on all sides the mournful, or the agitated
people."
There is a solemnity in all this that one would think
might have touched the lerge and sensitive heart of
Milton ; yet Milton it was who, blinded by his poli-
tical prejudices, beheld in the serene demise of his
sovereign only the mimic valour of a hero shod for a
while in the sock and the buskin ! Affecting inci-
dents are not wanting, however, in the life of King
Charles long before the period of his execution, and
Isaac Disraeli has availed himself of all these with the
adroitness of a master in biography. Take the fol-
lowing by way of illustration :
" Often the King rode hard through the night, and
saw the break of day, which only recalled the wearied
fugitive to the anxious cares of a retreat, or a pursuit.
Once, late in the evening, the King summoned several
gentlemen together, and after their conference he dis-
missed them to their beds with this pathetic address—
' Gentlemen! go you and take your rest, for you have
houses and homes, and beds to lodge in, and families to
love and live with—but I have none! My horse is wait-
ing for me to travel all this night, and return to the
place when I came.' The King had long been like a
hunted partridge, flitting from one ground to another—
this is an affecting image given of his erratic and
anxious courses. In his strange condition, destitute, not
merely of the household wants of men, but of those still
more poignant, the bereavement of his wife—his chil-
tisther
yre
vnpe—dal sn
As
efe,r isGeonodhdsa—bt
haettnthobhde
eeghnigsavt
iuvsevf fene enrmimnege a Fai
to c t
patience
nor
cne
eshtt
000bne
ee x
se e
rr
coib s
my
afflictions.' e-
flictions: "
abneden cfroeugnuseenlltolyrs r
esimilar
!Ao nmgoanngi m iht s seem dependents
apparent. It was thus that Strafford died the death
inappalled, almost we had said unmoved, by the hor-
rors of dissolution—as white a soul, said Archbishop
Usher, as ever returned to its maker ! Through every
stage of this remarkable history of the rapid progress
from tyranny to republicanism, the biographer pur-
sues his way with a facile and abounding eloquence,
lighting up his path by the luminous track of his
erudition. Having hastily recounted the birth and
boyhood of Charles, and given a secret history of the
Spanish match, he advances with great speed into the
narrative of the stirring events which followed
immediate upon the accession of the future
victim of popular vengeance. One
after another, he
he tells how the Parliaments in that reign were con-
voked and dissolved, until the assembling of those
valorous and unflirichiug representatives of the men of
Eannlgylantod
dwrahwo
bcoismpswelolerdd, tbhuet dseusbpsoetq
uaet n tlength
fl noting
away the scabbard. In tracing the events of the civil
war and the vicissitudes of the Sovereign during the
time when he stood at bay against the nation he had
outraged by his depotism—Mr. Disraeli has of course
given a colouring to his composition which suf-
ficiently indicates the proportion in which his sympa-
thies are divided among the belligerents. Neverthe-
less, while devoted heart and soul to the cause of the
Cavaliers, the author has manifestly striven most as-
siduously to,vvrite in a, loftier spirit than that of a
mere partizan. Nor in this endeavour has he proved
entirely unsuccessful. Hence the value of the work
in our consideration. Several new lights are
of course thrown upon such parts of the
annals of Charles as have been hitherto
somewhat obscure, and among the most curious
sources from which the biographer has drawn
his information we may allude more particularly to
the Illercure Francois, a journal previously over-
looked or depreciated, but containing a large mass of
valuable, and even in some instances, inestimable in-
telligence, having been contributed to not unfre-
quently by Louis XIII. and Cardinal Richelieu. A
vigorous and laborious composition upon a subject
ever interesting to the majority of Englishmen, these
"Commentaries of the Life and Reign of Charles the
First," by Isaac Disraeli, must always be regarded as
an important addition to our historical literature.
The present, moreover, we doubt not, will henceforth