Chapter XVI: Part 16

Monthault was equally unsuccessful with Constantia. In vain did he assure her that the awakening change in his soul had been expedited by his yearnings after her. She coldly told him, she hoped for his sake the reformation was real. He assured her he had disposed the Protector to befriend her relations. She thanked the Protector's justice, and relapsed into silence. He spoke of the identity of her uncle as being indisputable, and that he was likely soon to be removed from a prison to an earldom. She answered, that would be miraculous, but no irradiation of her countenance implied her belief that such an event was probable. He inquired if her cousin Isabel was still devoted to Sedley. Constantia could here speak with energy, and replied, "She is." Monthault reminded her, that whatever became of his father, he was necessarily proscribed; having violated the bond of private friendship, as well as of public trust, with the Protector. Constantia answered, that Isabel saw nothing infamous in banishment or poverty, but much in breaking her early vows to a man whose misfortunes were his praise. "But," replied Monthault, "your early vows have been dissolved by death; and celibacy is one of the popish snares of Satan. Marriage was divinely appointed, and it is sinful to neglect the godly ordinance." "To marry with an unconsenting heart is more so," replied Constantia; "I was betrothed to Eustace Evellin, and living or dead, to him will I ever be faithful. His genuine integrity, his frank affectionate disposition won all my heart; and since I have lost him, I live only to the claims of filial duty and sisterly affection. I have been long familiarized with fear and sorrow, but hope and joy can only visit me in his form."

Monthault told her, that this persevering regret was a mark of her being in an unsanctified rebellious state. He quoted many texts to prove that the saints would eventually inherit the earth; declaring that the wonderful success which attended Cromwell, first pointed him out as an instrument of Providence, designed for an especial purpose. Constantia expressed her belief that he was; but silenced Monthault's intended allusions to a millennial state of felicity under his government, by declaring her conviction that he was the sword of vengeance, rather than the renovating sun of mercy.

Monthault withdrew sullen and offended, planning schemes of vengeance, all pointed at Arthur de Vallance, whose retreat he determined to discover. He questioned the keeper of the prison, who had access to the Beaumonts, and was by him directed to Jobson. His talkative simplicity, and the danger that would result from his being sifted by Cromwell's spies, had obliged them to dispense with the services of the faithful trooper, who now earned his bread by manual labour, and only came occasionally to inquire after their health. Though care was taken to represent him as a porter occasionally employed, the jailor suspected he had been an old servant. Monthault immediately recollected him as attached to Eustace a little before their separation at Dartmoor, and recommended himself to the affectionate creature, by recognising him as one who leaped with him into the moat, and climbed the wall at his side, when Prince Rupert stormed Bristol. Taking him apart, he avowed himself to be a stanch royalist, watching every opportunity to serve a cause he still wore at his heart. He declared that he accepted the office of a judge at Dr. Beaumont's trial, with a resolution of saving him; he praised his firm demeanour, the beauty of Constantia, the goodness of Isabel, and the noble self-devotedness of Neville; assuring Jobson, that he was most sedulous in employing the interest he possessed with the Protector to the advantage of this family. But he lamented that there existed one obstacle to Neville's becoming Earl of Bellingham: the Protector's betrayed confidence required a victim, and Arthur de Vallance must be given up to his vengeance.

The honest countenance of Jobson fell at this information. "Ah, worthy sir," said he, "there is no washing the black-a-moor white; Old Noll will continue Old Noll, dress him up how you will. There's no putting a King's heart into a scoundrel's body; and a tailor never yet made more than the clothes of a gentleman. I say, the man that can't forgive a brave young gentleman, never ought to wear the crown of England. You had half persuaded me to forget the true King beyond sea, and to think, as this ruler would do justice, we might go on as we are, but when you talk about harping on old grievances, and taking vengeance for private fallings-out, I say, though Old Noll may do for a Lord-Protector, Kings must never have any enemies but the enemies of their country."

Monthault, seeming to enter into his feelings, uttered many encomiums on young De Vallance, whom he said he really thought one of the finest gentlemen in England. "Aye, in England _now_, I grant you," returned Jobson; "but there is another before him, Mr. Eustace Evellin; we used to call him the true Lord Sedley, for the other is but a make-believe. Very good-humoured and generous, and fair-spoken I allow; but the right lord, O! he has an eye like a hawk, and so open and daring, and spirited--I wish, noble Sir, you had seen him."

Monthault affected to brush a tear from his eye, lamenting that an interview was now impossible. Jobson had an inveterate antipathy to giving any one pain, except in the field of battle. He caught Monthault by his cloak, pressed him to be secret, and whispered he might have that pleasure before he died. "Mum," said he, "for your life; Mr. Eustace is alive and merry, and only waits for the King's coming over to be among us."

Monthault vowed secresy, and readily drew from Jobson all he knew respecting the preservation and subsequent history of the heir of Neville. Fortunately, he had never been intrusted with the place of their retreat, and could only say, that he and De Vallance were somewhere very safe, and ready to drub Old Noll into better manners than authorizing the shooting of men in cold blood.

Monthault then informed Jobson, that he possessed a large fortune, and secretly devoted ample remittances to the service of the King, and the most eminent Loyalists. As the state now liberally supported the prisoners, the exiles had the first claim on his purse. Unintentionally he feared, he had been of great disservice to Eustace, and therefore justice, as well as humanity and admiration, pointed him out as the first person whom he ought to assist. He would most willingly send Jobson with a sum of money to these illustrious friends, and he entreated him to discover where they had taken shelter, and say he was commissioned to supply their wants. But as he was ever attentive to the rule of doing good in secret, his own name was, on no account, to be divulged, nor would he press Jobson to inform him where the fugitives resided. The language of loyalty, unostentatious generosity, and warm attachment to Eustace, was, to Jobson, a sure pledge of the honour and sincerity of Monthault. He readily promised to get the whole secret out of Mrs. Isabel, and discover none of his intentions. "I see, noble sir," continued he, "you are a true gentleman, and know, that a gentleman like yourself hates to be thought poor, and had rather starve than have money given him; whereas we poor men never care how much we get from our betters. But trust me for managing the business cleverly."

Happily for the exiles, Jobson was equally deficient in finesse and secrecy. The first question he put to Isabel respecting the place of their retreat, discovered that he had a mysterious reason for wishing to be informed, and she soon drew from him that the benevolent unknown was a tall, solemn gentleman, who turned up the whites of his eyes, and was dressed like a round-head, though a stanch Loyalist in his heart. This description, so applicable to Monthault, excited her liveliest terrors. It was impossible to convince Jobson, that a man who talked so kindly could have any insidious design; and thinking it best not to combat this delusion, she thought it expedient to misdirect the wily traitor, and observed, that the inhabitants of the mountainous parts of Cumberland, where she and her father had so long lived, were well affected to the King, and disposed to shelter and protect her brother. From the manner in which Jobson communicated this intelligence, Monthault was convinced that Isabel had penetrated into his designs; and he resolved to suspend his machinations till he could extort, by terror, what intrigue had failed to procure.

When Isabel communicated this intelligence to her friends, their apprehensions of some fatal snare which might blast all their hopes, determined them to send the faithful and discreet Williams to the exiles, advising them of Cromwell's designs to get them into his power, and entreating them immediately to quit their present abode. But whither to point for a safe retreat was the difficulty, since at that time this extraordinary man seemed to extend the scorpion fangs of his tyranny over the continent, as well as the British dominions. He had, at every court, not only an accredited minister, but a subordinate host of spies liberally paid, who gave him an account of every stranger of distinction that sought a refuge from his cruelty, and contrived also, by false accusations or threats to the affrighted sovereigns, to have the victims he had marked for destruction delivered into his power. Cromwell had formerly made a close league with the Queen of Sweden, between whose successor and his neighbour the King of Denmark, a furious contest had commenced. As all hope of serving his native Prince was for the present suspended, Neville advised his son to draw his sword for the royal Dane, and Williams was charged with many affectionate remembrances. "Tell my son," said he, "never to disgrace the name, to which, at hazard of my life, I have proved his title." Constance whispered a tender assurance that the tidings of his preservation had reconciled her to life. "Yet tell my Eustace," said she, "that though time and sorrow have so changed the face he used to admire, that he would now hardly know his Constance, they have improved the heart, which neither calumny, nor suspence, nor despair, could alienate from its only love." Isabel, too, had a brief encouraging remembrance for her lover: "Tell my De Vallance," said she, "I live for him and for happier times. Bid him remember me in the hour of peril and the moment of temptation; assure him I count the years of our separation, and endure my present sorrows in the confidence that they will serve for sweet discourses in the time to come." The message of Dr. Beaumont was pious and prudential.--He rejoiced that an opportunity was afforded them of serving a Protestant King, and he advised them, if their successful services allowed them an honourable establishment in Denmark, to withdraw their views, though not their love or their prayers, from England.

Charged with these endearing recollections Williams departed, but on his arrival at Jersey found the fugitives had long left the island. Their protectress was dead, and her husband had removed to the South of France. Dr. Lloyd was well remembered for his medical skill, and his pupils for their correct manners and exemplary friendship. A lady, daughter of one of the first people in St. Helier, had formed a strong attachment to one of the gentlemen, and as she left the island about the time they did, it was supposed a marriage had been solemnized. Williams durst not be very minute in his inquiries; he gathered however that the place of their retreat could not be discovered, though the friends of the lady had taken every measure to regain her.

This intelligence greatly increased the dejection of Constantia, and almost clouded the sanguine mind of Isabel. "Has mutability," she would often say, "entirely usurped the earth? No. Inanimate nature is not changed; the sun-beams steal through these grated windows at the same hour this year as they did last. Summer and winter, day and night, return at stated periods; the animal organs present the same objects, and excite the usual sensations; nor are my moral feelings altered; truth and honour continue to delight me; vice and falsehood are as odious to my soul as if good men still triumphed, and guilt held its alliance with infamy. Yet are not subjects transformed into traitors and rebels; lovers forsworn; do not Christians renounce their baptism and abjure their faith; and is not friendship become a cloak to conceal the informer and assassin? Whom shall we acquit of inconstancy, if either Eustace or De Vallance are false? How shall we depicture fidelity and honour if they dwell not in the open front of heroic candour, or the mild suavity of undeviating rectitude? Away!--the report of Williams is a gossip's tale, forged to explain a mystery of their own forming. Constance, I shall live to arrange your jewels and fold your robe, when you walk at the coronation as Countess of Bellingham, and you shall be sponsor to my little Arthur. At least I will cherish these day-dreams, till I know Cromwell has done a disinterested generous action; I will then resign you to Monthault, and employ myself in clear-starching and crimping bands for the conventicle."

Thus rallying her own spirits, and endeavouring to animate the hopes of others, Isabel contrived to lighten the burden of voluntary captivity, as she had used to alleviate the hardships of poverty. Her mind, equally firm and innocent, feared nothing but the reproaches of her conscience and the despair of her father. Happy in the resources of an active disposition, she soon convinced Constantia that even confinement does not proscribe utility. While Dr. Beaumont administered to the spiritual wants of his fellow-prisoners, Isabel contrived to promote their comforts, often with the labours of her hand, always by the un-failing cordial of her hilarity, and sometimes with her slender purse, cheerfully abridging her own wants to supply the need of others. Nor was she wholly disinterested in this conduct; she found it the best method of diverting anxiety and suppressing doubt; of resisting that misanthropy which a long continuance of adversity is apt to engender in the tenderest hearts; and of preserving those social feelings of general good-will, which, to austere dispositions, render even prosperity distasteful.

[1] Many of these circumstances are copied from the death of
Cromwell.

CHAP. XXV.

"See Cromwell damn'd to everlasting fame."

Pope.

It was at this period that Cromwell underwent that memorable struggle between his ambition and his fears, which ultimately preserved the monarchy of England in the line of legitimate descent. He tampered with all parties, and found none hearty in his cause: the best-disposed to his interests were only passive; but his enemies were implacable. The popularity of a pamphlet recommending his assassination upon principle, and declaring that the perpetrator of the deed would deserve the favour of God and man, destroyed every vestige of his comfort. "He read it, and was never seen to smile more." With late repentance for his vanity, which prompted him to excite such furious opposition, he pushed from him the crown he had courted, when offered by his creatures; but he did it with an affectation of disdain and self-command, that ill accorded with his former intrigues to obtain it. All his anxiety was now directed to the preservation of his joyless life. He had long worn light armour under his clothes, and carried pistols in his pockets. He seldom lay twice in the same chamber, or informed any one which apartment he meant to select. He travelled with extreme rapidity, attended by numerous guards, and never returned by the way he went. Yet no sooner was one conspiracy detected, than another was formed; the fanatics were irreconcileable, and the most worthy and eminent among the dissenters determined on his overthrow. His old military comrades, Fairfax and Waller, were bent to destroy him. His treasury was drained by the rapacity of his numerous spies; and as fines and exactions had been strained to the utmost, he had no means of replenishing it but by a recourse to measures similar to those which had overthrown the monarchy; for his fanatical puppet-shows had brought the name of Parliament into contempt, and he durst not appeal to the free voice of the nation. I have already mentioned the disunion of his family, and the desertion of his kindred and near alliances. Such were the accumulated miseries, such the soul-harrowing and unremitting sufferings, of this man, whom Europe considered as the favourite of fortune, and whose extraordinary success has been urged as a plea against the divine government, and a proof that the kingdoms of this world are left to the disposal of Satan. Penetrate the recesses of the tyrant's palace, and it will be seen that enormous offences, after they have outstripped the power of human punishment, visit, on the oppressor, their own atrocity, and revenge the wrongs of a bleeding world by torments more insupportable than any which cruelty can inflict on others.

Distrusting even his most faithful informers, and jealous of his own creatures, Cromwell always endeavoured to see every thing with his own eyes. A little before his unlamented death, two strangers visited the prison where Neville and Dr. Beaumont were confined. One of them avowed himself to be the Lord Whitlock, the other passed as his secretary. They were both masked, and wore long cloaks to conceal their persons. The secretary was furnished with writing materials; he placed himself at a table, and affected only to take minutes of the conversation.

Whitlock began with upbraiding the national ingratitude, and acknowledging its general indisposition to the Protector's vigorous and successful administration. He insisted that His Highness wished to conciliate all parties by a mild and impartial government, though the ample means with which he was furnished, the tried fidelity of the army, and the respect he was held in by foreign Potentates, prevented him from needing the friendship of any. But being now past the meridian of life, he was desirous of leaving the nation whom he had rendered great and prosperous, in the possession of internal tranquillity. Though irreconcileable from principle, he regarded the royalists as the most respectable of his opponents, and "he had ever resisted the advice of the fanatics, to cut them off by a general massacre." Whitlock then expressed his hope, that the prisoners condemned the newly-broached opinion that assassination was allowable, and were disposed to be quiet, if not contented, under the present government, which would reward such submission by relaxing the penal statutes now in force against them. Dr. Beaumont spoke first, and declared that assassination was forbidden by the general tenor of Scripture. The particular instances now so much dwelt on, of Jael's killing Sisera, or Judith's Holofernes, could not be urged in vindication of similar attempts. Both acts were committed previous to the Christian dispensation, which prescribes submissive patience under injuries, and overcoming evil with good. Those deeds were performed under a Divine impetus, and though, by their performance, the will of God was fulfilled, it is not clear that the perpetrators were justified in His sight, any more than was Hazael, when (as had been divinely predicted) he acted as the chastiser of offending Israel.

Neville then took up the argument. He retorted on Whitlock the expressions used by St. John to procure the condemnation of Lord Strafford, and asked how they had the effrontery to object to that rule when employed against themselves. "You have cut off our nobles, our prelates, and our King," said he, "by that formal and public assassination, an illegal trial; but we alike abjure your principles and practice. If I hunt a usurper and tyrant to death, it shall be by honourable means. If his character deserves no respect, I know what is due to my own. I hold no tenets in common with regicides. Man cannot commit a crime that can so far deface the image of his Maker impressed upon him as to reduce him to the level of a beast of prey. Would that this unnerved arm had strength, and that this sinking frame were again erect with youthful vigour, then, if the awakened feelings of the nation allowed me opportunity to meet, in the field of battle, the brave, great, wicked man you serve, I would single him out from every opponent; but were he unarmed, and in my power, I would give him a sword before I assailed him."

Whitlock walked to the table; but it was evident that he received, rather than gave, directions. The soul-searching eye of Cromwell peered through his visor, and turned alternately on Neville and Beaumont. Though a stranger to the feelings of magnanimity, he honoured its expressions. He walked towards the captives, removed the shade from his sickly, care-worn features, and asked how he could make them his friends.

Neville shrunk aghast, petrified at the aspect of his Sovereign's murderer. The feelings of a father repressed his maledictions, while he gazed on him with stern silence as he would on a portentous meteor. Dr. Beaumont sooner recollected himself. Bowing to Cromwell as to one of those powers that are ordained by God, he answered that forgiveness and obedience were duties; but that the feelings of friendship were a voluntary engagement, and arose from very different motives.

"Your frankness," replied Cromwell, "proves that you well understand my plain nature and abhorrence of flattery, and my condescension in visiting you shows I take you to be open, fair enemies, not likely to engage in conspiracies, or desirous of renewing the times of confusion. But I would ask, What hope have you left, or what portion, even in its best days, did your thriftless loyalty acquire you? Eusebius Beaumont it found an obscure rector, and so it left you; for you could only boast simplicity of life and doctrine; but court-chaplains, drivellers in learning, and lewd knaves in manners, were rewarded with stalls and mitres. You, Allan Neville, were stripped of your patrimony, and slandered in your reputation, by the injustice of the King for whom you bled."

Neville started from his indignant reverie. "Were you," said he, "invested with tenfold terrors, I would not hear this aspersion cast upon my Sovereign's memory. Injustice consists in knowing what is wrong, and persisting in doing it. My King was misled, deceived, like myself, by the viper we both cherished; even by one of those recreants to whom you owe your exaltation. With double perfidy, you overthrew the King by attributing to him the crimes of his favourites, and then converted them into state-engines, first to elevate you to greatness, and afterwards to convey away the offscourings of the dignity you had soiled. My King was open to conviction. He knew the fidelity of his soldier, and purposed to make him ample reparation."

"I have the power," returned Cromwell, "to accomplish those purposes." "Impossible!" was Neville's reply; "my lands were alienated by a King of England, and by his lawful successor only can they be restored."

"Are you," returned the Usurper, "aware that you are the only man in Europe who dares question my power. I visited you with friendly dispositions, and you receive me with insults."

"When, veiling your dignity with disguises," answered Neville; "you borrow the occupation of your myrmidons, and steal on the privacies of those you oppress, can you wonder to hear their imprecations sound in unison with the clanking of their fetters?"

"I have a will," replied Cromwell, "as stubborn as yours. We will try for the mastery. What hinders me from laying that head of yours on the block?"

"--The insufferable goadings of your afflicted conscience, perpetually whispering that you have shed too much blood already.--Every wrinkle which care has imprinted on your brow, every tremulous infirmity which constant watchfulness has introduced into your frame, acting as mementos that the day of account cannot be far distant.--The iron you wear on your bosom, that by its stern pressure tells you what you deserve.--The public clamour, which will not now permit you to immolate the confined victims whom your own lips have pronounced innocent of recent provocations, and against whom you dare not revive the charge of acknowledged resistance, which, by long impunity, you seem to have pardoned. All these reasons are pledges for our safety. You cannot further tempt the sufferance of Englishmen. Your declining health makes you fear to add to the long indictment which your crimes have prepared against you.

The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds,
Upon Death's purple altar now,
See where the victor-victim bleeds:
All heads must come to the cold tomb;
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust."[1]

As Neville uttered this bold appeal to the feelings of an alarmed and conscious villain, a cold shivering ran through the Protector's frame, and his eye expressed a vain supplication, that it were possible to exchange his garlands and his glories for those ever-fragrant actions which blossom on the grave of the just. He strove to rally his air of moody dignity, to recover the austere deliberate tone of his expressions; but his manner was embarrassed, and his voice inarticulate. A groan, such as only tortured guilt can utter, partially relieved his swollen bosom. "Neville," said he, "I will not expect you to be my friend; but will you cease to be my enemy?"

"Miserable victim of ambition," said Neville to himself; "how much happier is my lot than thine!" Cromwell persisted in asking if there was any favour he would receive at his hand. Neville paused, and answered, "Yes; liberty."

"And what pledge," said Cromwell, "can you give me that you will not use freedom to my prejudice?"

"My own honour," returned Neville, "which will never allow me to use the instrument you put in my hand to destroy you."

"No equivocation!" said Whitlock; "in receiving freedom from His Highness you acknowledge his authority."

"No," returned Neville, "I simply own he has a power to confine me. The question of right is undetermined. If a Usurper restores me to the free use of light and air, I need not examine his title before I resume the enjoyment of those common blessings."

Cromwell addressed Dr. Beaumont: "You belong to a church whose doctrine is passive obedience. You are not bewildered by this madman's chimeras, but can prudently estimate the value of our free grace and promised favour."

"My religion," replied the Doctor, "teaches me to submit to the dispensations of Providence; but it will not allow me to divide the spoil with those who have grown mighty on the ruins of my friends."

"Are there no points," again inquired Cromwell, "in which we may agree to join our common wishes? What if I beseech the Lord to give you the spirit of wisdom?"

"May he afford you that of consolation," was the emphatical wish of Dr. Beaumont. Neville waved his hand in silence. "Oh! my friend," said he, as soon as the Protector and Whitlock had retired, "I have suffered more than the rack. I have seen the fiend-like face which looked, without compunction, on the sufferings of the Royal Martyr, and I felt too weak to revenge his wrongs. Have I not gone too far in saying I would accept of freedom from his hands?"

"Vengeance for such a crime," replied Dr. Beaumont, "is too vast and comprehensive to be entrusted to mortal agency. Let us leave it to Him who claims it as his own prerogative. Murder, perfidy, and treason, will be remembered when the avenging angel shall visit the sins of man."

Cromwell returned from his insidious visit, disappointed and dejected. He had failed of the end which he proposed to himself by his condescension. A reconciliation with two such distinguished Loyalists, founded on the mutual benefits of submission and restitution, would have strengthened his government; but he found abstinence from treacherous hostility was all that his blandishments could obtain, and this he would owe rather to their own principles of honour and religion than to his threats or his promises. Though stung to the heart by the bold taunts of Neville, he could not punish him. The very aspect and figure of the two venerable sufferers were so fitted to excite sympathy and indignation, that he durst not expose them on a scaffold, nor could he privately cut them off. The fate of Syndercome, a daring Anabaptist, who had several times attempted his life, and, on his trial, persevered in expressing his determination, if possible, to kill him, alike deterred Cromwell from bringing his private enemies to the bar of a court of justice, or resorting to private measures of revenge. He had with difficulty procured this man's condemnation; but the night previous to his intended execution he escaped, by suicide, the Protector's power; and so prejudiced were the populace against their Ruler, that they accused him of having poisoned the victim he feared to bring to a public death. If the prosecution of a notorious and avowed ruffian brought him into this dilemma, what odium would the death of two respectable and aged Loyalists excite, especially as their story was become public, and the wrongs of Neville, and the generous friendship of Beaumont, had awakened a powerful sympathy. Yet his narrow soul could not accede to the generous alternative of giving them freedom. Pretending that the state had a claim to the Bellingham-property, he prevented Monthault from taking any measures to establish the will of the guilty Countess, and contented himself with keeping the lawful claimant in prison, hoping that confinement would accelerate the decays of nature, and thus give a safe quietus to his own fears.

But ere that event happened the Usurper was called to the dreadful tribunal for which few among the descendants of Adam were apparently less prepared. His restless, intriguing ambition; the dissimulation and hypocrisy by which he rose to supreme power; the ability with which he wielded it; his splendid wretchedness; the terror he excited and felt; his cruelty and fanaticism, his determined spirit, and occasionally timid vacillation, read a most impressive lesson to aspiring minds infatuated by success, and regardless of moral or religious restraints. O that, in this age of insubordination, selfishness, and enterprise, a poet would arise, animated with Shakespeare's "Muse of fire," embody the events of those seventeen years of wo, and invest the detestable Regicide with the same terrible immortality which marks the murderous Thane in his progress from obedience and honour to supreme power and consummate misery!

Nor does the death-bed of Cromwell afford a less useful warning to the pen of instruction, when she aims at distinguishing true piety from hypocrisy or fanaticism. It is still doubtful under which of those counterfeits of religion we must rank this great but wicked man. Yet, whether he deceived his own soul, or attempted to deceive others; whether he really believed himself an elected instrument of Providence; or, having long worn devotion as the mask of ambition, retained it to the last,--his almost unexampled crimes (so plainly forbidden by that scripture he had ever on his lips), and the security and confidence of his last moments, furnish stronger arguments than a thousand volumes of controversy, to prove the fallacy and danger of those speculative notions which he patronized, propagated, and exemplified.

[1] The Usurper's terrors at hearing this fine song of Shirley's
is an historical fact. Some of the speeches attributed to him in
this interview, he really used to persons he had confined, and
wished to win over. In the close of his life he grew timid; and,
conscious of being hated, bore insults calmly. Bishop Wren
rejected his offered favours in as strong language as that
attributed to Neville.

CHAP. XXVI.

A good man should not be very willing, when his Lord comes, to be
found beating his fellow-servants; and all controversy, as it is
usually managed, is little better. A good man would be loth to be
taken out of the world reeking hot from a sharp contention with a
perverse adversary; and not a little out of countenance to find
himself, in this temper, translated into the calm and peaceable
regions of the blessed, where nothing but perfect charity and
good-will reign for ever.

Tillotson.

During the turbulent era that immediately followed the death of Cromwell, obscurity was the only asylum for integrity and innocence. The respective demagogues contended for mastery; and the nation gazed on their contests as on so many prize-fighters, whose uninteresting warfare regarded only themselves. Weary of confusion and discord; aware that faction had broken every promise and frustrated every hope; that the visions of freedom had been the harbingers of despotism; and that pretensions to moderation, disinterestedness, and purity, were but the disguise of rapacity, pride, and selfishness, the nation longed for the restoration of a lineal Sovereign, a regular government, and determinate laws. Even those who first signalized themselves by opposition to the late King, acknowledged that his government was preferable to the oligarchy and military tyranny that followed; and the Presbyterians felt their horror of Episcopacy abate while contrasting the temperance of established supremacy with the violence of the numerous sects who strove for superiority as soon as the hierarchy was overthrown. The easy good humour and affable manners of the exiled King were enlarged upon, and perhaps honoured with too much celebrity. Offenders in general anticipated forgiveness; and those who were adroit and dexterous anticipated rewards. To assist in restoring the regal power was deemed not merely a rasure of past crimes, but a qualification for trust and employment; and those who now sought the shelter of royalty as a protection from their late co-partners in rebellion, seemed, by the high value which they put on their present services, to overlook, with equal contempt and injustice, the claims and the wrongs of the Loyalists, who having never changed their principles, had much to be repaid, and nothing to be forgiven.

In the struggles which immediately preceded the Restoration, while Monk's designs were wrapped in mystery, the cruelty of the regicides increased with their ambition, and the jails were successively crowded with every party, as the unsettled government alternately vibrated from the rump to the fanatical faction. Within the walls of the same prison, suffering the same restraint, and, like himself, the victim of a conscience which would not temporize, Dr. Beaumont met his worthy friend Barton. They congratulated each other on having thus far weathered the political tempest without deserting their principles, or impugning their honour. The Doctor learned from Barton the particulars of Lady Bellingham's death, and the claims of Monthault on her fortune, which, by the turbulence of the times, were still kept in abeyance. Lord Bellingham was yet alive, poor and wretched, courting every faction, trusted by none, and so universally despised as to endure the odium of more crimes than he had even dared to commit. He was allowed a small stipend out of his vast possessions, the income of the remainder being still paid into the public treasury; while Morgan, now become a man of consequence, and a commissioner for compounding forfeited property, was enabled amply to glut his rapacity, and resided at Bellingham-Castle in a style of the grossest sensual indulgence. Monthault had joined the army of Lambert, against whom General Monk was now marching from Scotland; and as the King had given reiterated commands to all his friends to remain passive, and wait the event, it seemed as if he had some private intelligence with Monk's party, to whom, therefore, each honest Englishman wished success.

Barton believed this effervescence would terminate in a happy calm--a mild but energetic government; and he looked forward to prosperous times, when the remembrance of past misfortunes should correct national manners, and produce a general improvement in the minds and feelings of men. Neville was always sanguine; and Dr. Beaumont confessed that all things seemed to tend to the restoration of monarchy; yet, with the prescience of a man long accustomed to calamity, he doubted whether even that desired event would speedily repair the deep wound which England had sustained.

"We shall," said he, "receive with our Prince the inestimable blessings of our old laws and form of government; but as our troubles have served rather to show us the necessity, than to prevent the abuse, of the prerogative, its limits continue undefined, and we shall still too much depend on the personal character of the King. It were well if the situation in which we now stand would allow us to propose such conditions as would make the duties of King and subject plain and easy, before we invite our Prince to resume the sceptre of his ancestors, as it would prevent the mistakes into which his father fell, from a misconception of the bounds of sovereign power, derived from the arbitrary precedent set by the House of Tudor. But our divisions prevent us from claiming those advantages which would result from wisdom, moderation, and unanimity. We fly to the King as to a healer of our dissensions. A keen feeling of our sorrows and offences has raised the sensibility of the nation to such a pitch, that it will sooner make concessions than propose restraints, and rather throw its liberties before the throne than suggest an abridgement of its splendour. We shall therefore depend, I fear, upon his mercy for the existence of the sacred inheritance whose very shadow was so pertinaciously defended from the approaches of his father. I trust his personal virtues are what his friends report. He has been educated in adversity, a good school; but are not his advisers men who have endured too much to be dispassionate and liberal? They have suffered in a good cause: if, when restored to power, they abstain from indulging any vindictive propensity, they will be saints as well as confessors; but, considering their long and grievous provocations, is not this requiring too much of human frailty?

"Consider too, my dear friends, (and let the reflection allay your sanguine expectations of another golden age,) that the King to whom we look forward has been bred a foreigner. From his own country he has hitherto met with nothing but severe injuries. The impression he has received of the character of his future subjects is repulsive and disgusting; and the heart of a King of England, as well as his manners, should be completely English. He will return loaded with debts of gratitude, which he never can discharge, to those who supported his father, as well as those who restore him; to the surviving friends of all that have bled in unsuccessful conflicts, and to those who will ride by his side in triumph; to those who spent their fortunes in his quarrel, and to those who hope to gain or preserve fortunes by voting for his return. What course are men apt to pursue when they find themselves in a state of inextricable insolvency? Do they not endeavour to forget their creditors in general, and think only of taking care of themselves and their personal friends. Royalty does not extinguish human feelings. Let us consider its difficulties, and palliate while we anticipate its errors.

"Are these all the remaining evils which the crimes of the last twenty years have entailed upon us and our posterity? Call me not a prophet of evil if I foresee general laxity of principle arising out of these sad vicissitudes and deplorable contests. You, my good Barton, will not deny, that the extravagance, absurdity, and hypocrisy of many low fanatics, who sheltered themselves under that unbounded liberty of conscience which you Dissenters (I think unwisely, as well, as erroneously) claim, have made every extraordinary pretension to piety suspicious. The nation has been whirled in the vortex of enthusiasm, perplexed with the discordant pretensions and controversial clamour of various sects, till it has begun to consider indifference to religion as a philosophical repose; and its contempt for hypocrites is increased till it has generated a toleration, if not a partiality of licentiousness and immorality. Infidelity (a sin unknown to our forefathers) has lately appeared among us, not like a solitary, restless sceptic, affecting a wish for conviction, nor in the bashful form of an untried novelty, cautiously stealing upon public favour--but under the licence long allowed to opinions however blasphemous or immoral, a party has arisen, calling themselves free-thinkers, who not only deride every ecclesiastical institution, and publicly insult religion in its ministers, but even make the word of God an object of profane travesty and licentious allusion. This never could have happened, the manly feeling and good sense of Englishmen would never have permitted such audacity, had not trifling, malicious, ignorant, and ridiculous misapplications of the sacred writings, sunk, in too many minds, the veneration in which they were formerly held; and thus benumbed what ought to have been the natural sentiments of indignation at the blasphemies of deism.

"We must admit that the return of the King is likely to introduce an influx of foreign manners, and that the long-suspended festivities of a court will foster an exultation bordering on extravagance. How will those who seek advancement, approach a Prince who has been long groaning under the injustice of mean and cruel hypocrites? Is it not likely that ridicule will aim at the gross, distorted features of preaching mechanics, and praying cut-throats, till the ministers, who are consecrated to serve at the altar, will find some of the missile shafts fall on their vestments? The perversions of Scripture I have just mentioned will be so scrupulously avoided, that an apposite and pious quotation will be termed puritanical; and we shall seldom hear the sacred volume referred to but to point a jest. Elegant literature, the fine arts, and dramatic amusements, have been long reprobated as Pagan devices. But so natural is our desire for innocent enjoyments, that, remove the interdict, and the public inclination will rush to these delights with the avidity resulting from constrained abstinence, which will give to pleasure an undue preponderance: Wit has been too much discountenanced. I simply argue on the tendency of the human mind to extremes, when I suspect that it will be indulged till it degenerates into indecorous levity. May the evils I foresee exist only in my fears; but if they are realized, much of the guilt, much of the blame must be laid on those who deluged us with spiritual pride, cant, austerity, and oppression; who bent the necks of Englishmen to the yoke of slavery, did their utmost to exterminate the Christian sentiments of moderation and charity, wrought the nation into a ferment, and then expected good to result from the chaos of virulent passions."

Mr. Barton admitted all the evils which had resulted from overstrained rigidity, but expressed the hopes his party entertained that Episcopacy would not be considered as a necessary adjunct to monarchy; or, in case of its revival, that it might be re-instated in its primitive form, and that the objectionable parts of the Liturgy, the articles, and the canons, might be so modified as to satisfy all parties. He spoke of the obligations which the King would owe to the Dissenters; who he trusted would be rewarded by being placed on an equality with the Church.

Dr. Beaumont argued, that if these late services cancelled their former transgressions, the Dissenters would have no just cause of complaint at being replaced in the situation which they held previously to the rebellion. He much feared that the vindictive feelings of those who had been despoiled, ridiculed, plundered, imprisoned, and deprived of every earthly blessing, would produce some measures, which, though they might be supported by the pretence of preventing further mischief, he should lament and blame, but never justify. As to jointly establishing Episcopacy and Presbytery, or simply tolerating both, he could never consent to either plan politically, because he conceived one established religion was necessary to preserve national piety; and the Church had too many claims on the King's gratitude, and was too intimately connected with the laws and manners of the people to be laid aside, or reduced to the level of her opponents; and, considered as a point of conscience, he was so firmly convinced of her conformity, in doctrine and discipline, to apostolical institutions, ancient customs, and, above all, to Scripture, that, though he would be the last man in the kingdom to consent to persecute those who, through conscience, refused to conform, he would be the first to defend her pre-eminence. As to giving the Church a more primitive dress, by which he supposed was meant, depriving her of her endowments, it must be remembered, that when the ministers of the Gospel lost miraculous gifts, they became dependant on temporal support. Though the apostles appeared as mendicants, yet while they could heal diseases with a touch, they inspired reverence. But in the present times men showed more observance to those who could bestow alms than to those who required support. It should likewise be remembered that an injunction was given to the bishops of the first century "to use hospitality," a proof that the primitive church was not in all respects clad in sackcloth.

Dr. Beaumont farther declared his doubts of the good effects of a conference between the Episcopalian and Presbyterian clergy. He was willing to sacrifice non-essentials to peace; but personal disputations were more apt to confirm than to remove prejudices. One party would be too querulous, the other too tenacious. Personal considerations would mix in the dispute; difficulties would be started; objections raised, when none, in fact, existed; and, in the heat of debate, real improvements would be rejected, which, in the calm seclusion of the closet, would be allowed to be important. Declaimers, conscious of their own powers, would seek distinction rather by acuteness and fastidiousness than by candour and placability. The enemies of the Church would argue rather with a view to her destruction than to her purification; and, on the other hand, her friends would gloss over her imperfections through fear that her opponents had some latent hostility, which the least concession on their part would bring to maturity.

He reminded Barton that as a body the Dissenters could not complain at their being expelled from the situations in which they were placed by an unlawful and usurped authority. He trusted that wise and moderate men would, by conformity, avoid this evil, and prefer the true praise of sacrificing their scruples at the shrine of peace and unity, to the false glory of courting reputation, by first exciting and then enduring persecution. He spoke of schism as an evil the most afflictive; the most opposite to the spirit of the Gospel, and to the commands of its Divine Founder, and as the greatest impediment to its universal promulgation. He exhorted Barton to use his influence with his friends, persuading them to acquire the only triumph over the church in their power, by renouncing their own prejudices, when they could not make their opponents subdue theirs, and thus prove themselves to be the truest disciples of the Prince of Peace. "Let the contest," said he, "be only which shall serve our common master best, by leading a life of unpretending holiness. Schism does infinitely more harm by the enmity it engenders, than it does good by the zeal it kindles. Controversial ardour is rather the death than the life of piety."

Mr. Barton replied, that he was become much more sensible of the evils attendant on a separating humour, on the gathering of parties and forming sects from the church; their effects had proved them to be mischiefs. He confessed that until he had imbibed prejudices against the Liturgy, he had joined in it with as hearty fervency, as he afterwards did in other prayers, and felt, from its imperfections, no hinderance in his devotions. He said, that he had lost his relish for controversy, and now took most delight in what was fundamental, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, furnishing him with matter for meditation equally acceptable and abundant. That he less admired gifts of utterance, and bare professions of religion, than he once did, and no longer thought that all those who could pray movingly and fluently, and talk well of religion, were of course saints. That he was convinced most controversies had more need of right stating than of debating, and that many contenders actually differed less than they supposed[1]. But still if the conditions of conformity should require him to acknowledge the invalidity of his present ordination, he could not consent to admit that he had hitherto been an Uzzah, touching the ark with unhallowed hands. In that case he would submit to the rod of chastisement, instead of receiving the staff of pastoral cure, and if he were forbidden to instruct others, he would discipline himself. For the sake of peace he would attend the services of the church, in which, though he saw much that might be improved, he discerned nothing absolutely sinful. To preserve a Christian spirit in himself and others, he would avoid dwelling on the restraints he suffered; but instead of repining, be thankful for the liberty he enjoyed. And he thought such behaviour would be the best way of enlarging that liberty, or, if that could not be done, of healing, in the next generation, those breaches which furious animosity had made in the present[2].

He concluded by saying, that whoever had seen the ill-will engendered by controversy, and the miseries incident to civil war, must think peace cheaply purchased by any sacrifice short of conscience; and that, for his own part, no private injuries, disappointments, or harsh treatment, should make him obtrude his wrongs upon the public, so as to excite clamour against the government. He had seen how soon clamour brings on insurrection, and how partial commotion leads to universal confusion. During such scenes, inconsiderate, daring, and worthless men, acquire an ascendancy, and bring, by their extravagance, disgrace upon their party. Yet, proudly ascribing their influence to a superiority of desert, they reject the counsels of prudence, while their inordinate passions lead them to subdue the restraints of conscience. To preserve the nation from such misrule, he protested that he ardently wished to see the reins of government again in the hands of prescriptive authority.

[1] See Baxter's reflections on his early religious opinions.

[2] The behaviour of Barton is copied from the conduct of Philip
Henry, a non-conformist divine.

CHAP. XXVII.

Tho' with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick,
Yet with my nobler reason 'gainst my fury
Do I take part; the rarer action is
In virtue than in vengeance.

Shakspeare.