The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1844-07-26


bers Of the feathered Kingdom. What
rights had the illegitimate among the lin.
Gals of the English throne? None but
the right wich belongs to the superior
soul endorsed by the will of the governed.
This right, it is true, is considered utter
| ly insignificant to that belonging to the
mere accident of birth, by the advocates
Of monarchy, but it is right which, in
the estimation of that stern republican
judgement which decides agreeably to
merit, appeals to the human heart by the
most Irresistible argument.
We think great injustice has been done
to the character of Cromwell. English
historians have exhausted all the viluper-
alive epllhets in the language in their in
decent fervor to render his memory igno-
minious. TO say that the mere hypo-
critic and buAoon, which he is said to
have been by the lovers of monarchy,
usurped the rens of government at a Pc
riod in English history remarkable for the
Number OF superior minds which graced
it, is not only to utter libel on human
nature, but to assert gross calumny on
the men of the time. The truth is, the
baubles of legitimacy were alloat on the
perlous tides Of revolution, and the
throne became the prize Of the strongest
arm and stoutest heart. Cromwell was
victor in that Olympic game of ambition,
and when the laurel of triumph was pla-
ced on his brow, it shaded a body of
thought inferior III vgor and in majesty
to none that had previously been known
in the courts Of christendom.
But Cromwell, it is said, was can.
ting hypocrie. How stands this charge
in the view of truth? The conduct and
writings Of the Protector are referred to
in vindication Of the charge. In Judging
of man you must give him the advan-
tage of all the circumstances in which he
is placed. Now, cant was the language
of the Cromwellian epoch. 1t was a pc
rod OF great religious excitement. Fa-
natics, with their long hair and sulen
brows, were to be met with in the lofiiest
and lowest places. Cromwell was one
OF these men in whom the lervor of gen
ulne religion, becoming blended with mere
human passion, produces that strange
combination of dirt and deity, which, fan
cying itself accomplished in holiness, JUS
titles itself in It's heIlshness by assuming
that 1t has the sanctions of divinity on It's
sld&-Alter ages perceive the errors and
tie vices of such character, but to the
men Of its own period, it seems all it pro.
iesses to be.-ln Judging of the character
OF man by the criterion his writings af-
ford, the fact that all ages have their pc
cuIlaritics must not be overlooked. The
student of that philosophy which history
enIorccs, knows very well that mutations
IN styles of thought are as great as the
changes which fashion prescribes to dress.
DR.. Johnson's literary labors, particular.
! y his essays, are not tolerated now, by
the many, because of their style, and yet
at the period Of their production, criii-
clsm, by the most rigid application to her
rules and compasses, could discover no
defects in them. The literature of the
present period is more akin to that of the
age of Anna than any other. 1t has abrid-
ged the chasm of a cenuay, and allies it,
self by its ailinities, with style that was
regarded quite obsolete by our literary
grandlathers Of fifty years ago. This is
true, however, only of our prose ltera-
ture. The present race of poets are un-
like those of the period referred to in their
style.
The style of the age of Cromwell was
a canning one. All the writers of the pc
Rod were infected by it, ,and hence,
Cromwell is not to be adjudged 10 be a
canting hypocrite because his writings
wear the garb of the time. Such wri-
tings, produced now, would very proper
y stlgmat!ze their author as hypocrite
We do not think the charge of eXtraordi-
nary hypocracy, which has been so gem
orally urged against him, can be sustain
ed. He was a sinner against his own
convictions of right and duty, and at
times, he dlssembed when he thought
the exactions Of state policy required it,
as every other monarch does. Shadows
struck as much terror to his soul as
they did to the soul of Richard. The
Tact that he shvered in the presence of
his own conscience prover, not only the
vitality, but the sensiiiveness of his NOR
al sense. Had he been as bad man as
his sIanderers represent him, his con-
science would have been scared, his in
ward eye would have been blinded to the
terrors of an outraged moral sense, and he
would have died like hardened villain
game to the last
Although we do not think that hypoc-