9* S. VII. MARCH 16, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
219
session of the other. Desiring in his heart to defend
the Protectorate by laws and not by arms, Cromwell
still found military despotism thrust upon him.
Cromwell. Dr. Gardiner says, was, in truth, "the heir
and successor of Strafford like Strafford, throwing
himself open to the charge of apostasy, and, like
Strafford, shifting his instruments and his political
combinations for the sake of the people, whom he
aimed at governing for their best advantage." A
second parallel, which has often previously been
instituted, between Charles I. and Cromwell, when
each of them contended against the same antagonist,
" a Parliament resolved to subject all other institu-
tions in the State to its sole will and pleasure," com-
mends itself to him. " The difference between the
two men lay, in the first place, in the support given
by Charles to a system of external obedience and
conformity, whereas Oliver strove for a system of
the utmost practical liberty in thought and belief;
and, in the second place, in Charles's habit of
clinging to formal legality, whilst Oliver, having an
army at his back, preferred to break openly through
the meshes of the law when they entangled his
feet. Charles, when necessity arose or appeared
to arise, fumbled over the knot of his destiny in
his effort to unloose it ; Oliver hacked at it with
his sword." The saddest chapter in the book is,
naturally, that on the Cromwellian settlement of
Ireland. It is shown, however, that this was in its
conception due to the Long Parliament, and was
sketched out before Cromwell was in a position to
make his might felt. Parliament it was which, in
1642. decreed the confiscation of the estates of the
rebels, "setting aside from the forfeited land
2,500,000 acres for the Adventurers who advanced
money for the reconquest of Ireland." It was at
Cromwell's instigation that the Act for the satis-
faction of Adventurers and soldiers was passed,
but Cromwell "had not sufficient acquaintance
with the Irish problem to treat it as a whole, even
from the English point of view." A general trans-
plantation, the effect of which would have been to
crowd a very large majority of the Irish nation into
a rocky and inhospitable district, in which it would
be impossible for it to find adequate sustenance,
was feared. After long hesitation the good sense
of Cromwell perceived that the scheme was im-
practicable. It is pleasant, however, to turn away
from a record of folly and ineptitude. How recur-
rent are conditions is more than once sho\vn.
Speaking of the time when courts - martial were
established for the purpose of trying the Irish
rebels, Dr. Gardiner says : " So the renewed struggle
was carried on in all its horror. As in the days
when Bruce was holding out against the officers of
Edward I., the men who were thieves and mur-
derers to the one side were heroes and patriots to
the other." How much alteration, it may be asked,
is necessary to fit these words to to-day ? In regard
to the small measure of success which attended
Cromwell's interference on behalf of the Vaudois, it
is shown to be due to special circumstances in
Cromwell's diplomatic relations with France, which
were unlikely to recur. The last words in the text
deal with the refusal of Cromwell to renounce his
assumed right to take up the cause of the Huguenot,
dpropos of which Dr. Gardiner says : "The seeds
which were ultimately to come to an evil fruitage
in the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes were
being unwittingly sown by the self - constituted
Protector of the Protestant world." Dr. Gardiner's
latest contribution to history maintains the high
level to which he has accustomed us. The maps
include England and Wales, showing the districts
assigned to the Major-Generals ; Ireland as divided
by the Act of Satisfaction ; the Vaudois valley ;
and the lands surrounding the Baltic. There are
also plans of the attack on San Domingo and Tunis
and Porto Farina.
London Memories, Social, Historical, and Topo- graphical. By Charles William Heckethorn. (Chatto & Windus.)
MR. HECKETHORN'S work is a companion volume to his ' London Souvenirs,' on the merit of which we have already spoken. It gossips pleasantly con- cerning features of old London now obliterated, on wells and springs, priories and religious houses generally, conflagrations, frosts, tempests and floods, and kindred subjects, and is always read- able and sometimes instructive. All that we can urge against it is that political bias is too apparent, and that the language of condemnation employed is continually too violent. When Mr. Heckethorn asks, " What sort of women and girls were they who placidly listened to Shakespeare's plays in their coarse originality?" we dissent entirely from the conclusion he would have us draw, and answer, "Every whit as pure-minded and good as those who listen to the problem plays of to-day." The arraignment of our ancestors is ferocious : " In planners they [our ancestors] were barbarians, and in morals reprobates. In science they were not worthy to tie our shoe-strings. The periods in our history which are considered the brightest in our national intellectuality, what did they produce? Chiefly plays and poems which, instead of adding to human progress, demoralized the Court, and through that the whole nation, down to its very dregs. Nothing will elevate man but science. The italics are our own. Neither religion nor culture, according to Mr. Heckethorn, will ele- vate a nation. Only the steam-hammer and hygiene ! All through the same intemperance of language prevails. When describing the penance undergone for witchcraft in 1440 by the Duchess of Gloucester, Mr. Heckethorn says of the [Lord] Mayor, Sheriffs, and Companies of London, " Fools all of them for taking a part in a farcical punish- ment for an impossible crime." We sympathize with some of Mr. Heckethorn's views, out we dislike his method of advocacy.
The Mind of the Century. Reprinted from the
Daily Chronicle. (Fisher Unwin.) How far these articles, reprinted from the Daily Chronicle, represent the mind of the century we will not presume to declare. As a rule the canvas is too small for the picture to take a permanent place in a gallery, lake the question of poetry, the subject of which comes first in the volume, Mr. Lionel Johnson, who discusses it, seeks in less than eight pages to deal with the poetry of Eng- land, France, Germany, Italy, and to some extent with that of America and Scandinavia. So far as a newspaper article is concerned, this may be well enough, though even then it can have no special significance. When it is sought to make of the whole a permanent record, its inadequacy becomes obvious. A few phrases such as "the sombre negations of Leopardi," " the bright impieties of Heine," "that magnificent anomaly, Walt Whit' man," and " Byron, the least perfect of great poets " do little to vivify a summary in which Keats is a
