words, telling the people, 'We are your slaves and blackamoors.'[1] Under the Tudors we had been an absolute despotism. The Stewarts wanted to be kings, but under them, before and after the great Rebellion, it was nothing but anarchy and sedition. I have often thought that Cromwell's speeches give a very faithful picture of his time, and am confirmed in it by Lord Hardwicke.
"In the seventeenth century, France was, on the whole, systematically and wisely governed with some slight interruptions. Louis XIV. was a King in every sense of the word. He identified himself as few Kings do with the publick, with whom he was one and the same. Monsieur de Montyon sent me several original letters which passed between Louis and Colbert and his other Ministers, which evidently prove his great economy and that he never let go his authority—a great point. He had great qualities if not great talents. Over-devotion and religious prejudice are to be excused in an old man, and are to be attributed more to the monarchy than to the man, at least more to the combination of both than to the man alone. England, on the other hand, was left in great measure to nature, for the feebleness, the prejudices, and the total incapacity of the Stewarts, did not deserve to be called an administration, and only served to give the popular party time to form itself. Cromwell has never had justice done him. Hume and almost all the historians have seized upon some prominent circumstances of his character, as painters and actors lay hold of the caricature to ensure a likeness. He was not always a hypocrite. Mr. Hume does not do justice to Cromwell's character in supposing him incapable of truth and simplicity on every occasion. His speeches
- ↑ "When the excitement of this great event (the Revolution of 1688) had a little subsided, when the rights and liberties of the nation had been secured by its Parliament, the leaders of the Whigs, including many of the most powerful and ancient families ot the kingdom, commenced a favourite scheme of that party, which was to reduce the King of England to the situation of a Venetian Doge."—Vindication of the English Constitution in a Letter to a noble Lord, by Disraeli the Younger, p. 168. "Kings, Lords, and Commons, the Venetian Constitution," exclaimed Sir Joseph. "But they were phrases," said Coningsby, "not facts. The King was a Doge; the Cabinet the Council of Ten. Your Parliament, that you call Lords and Commons, was nothing more than the great council of nobles." "The resemblance was complete," said Millbank, "and no wonder, for it was not accidental: the Venetian Constitution was intentionally copied."—Disraeli, Coningsby, bk. vii. ch. iv. 506, ed. 1895.
