On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
Either appended to this passage , or in allusion to it in his masterly preface—masterly , that is , as far as it goes—the noble author ought to have reprobated the headlong folly which would provoke such horrors while a possibility of avoiding them remained ; Or , WITHOUT THE CERTAINTY THAT THE ENDURANCE OF THEM
WOULD BK IN THE END PRODUCTIVE OF PUBLIC BENEFIT . What horrors attended the great civil war between Charles L and a portion of his people , no reader of history needs to be told . And to what horrors did these pave the way ? To the iron , though
splendid tyranny of Cromwell ; to the blasphemous ravings of the fifth-monarchy-men ; to the more than bestial ignorance and servility of the Praise-god-barebone crew ; to the mere chance whether Monk should aid the restoration of the prince , or favour his country with a second edition of the protectorate of Cromwell ; and finally to the bestowing upon Charles II . more power over both purse and person than that which his father had been beheaded for endeavouring to obtain , and the sudden transition
from the extreme of Puritanism to such profligacy , public and private , as almost warranted the description of England as a country of' men without honour and women without shame . ' I think that the noble author , of whom I have already spoken , would have done good service to the cause of truth , if to his description of the horrors of civil war he had added a denunciation
of the monstrous folly of those who plunged their country into such horrors , to lead their fellow-countrymen to the despotism of the creatures whom Cromwell used to mask his power ; and , subsequently , to that of the no less hateful creatures who pandered to the voluptuous selfishness of Charles II ., and to the gloomythough I think conscientious—bigotry of his brother James .
It may be asked whether I would have the noble author in question impute blame to the political party with whose leading principles his own party of the present day is supposed to sympathize ? I reply—YES !—if that party acted either unwisely or unjustly , I would have its honest and able historians to censure it ; albeit I could sympathize with them did they pen their censure ' more in sorrow than in anger / But in point of fact I do not charge the Puritan party alone of an unwise willingness to resort to physical force . That willingness I fear was the prevailing folly , the besetting sin , of but too large
a majority of both parties . Had it not been so , the Parliamentary party would have asked more moderately , and the Royalists would have conceded at once more wisely and more liberally . The noble author to whom I have so often referred is at once zealous and just in vindicating the motives of Hampden ; but he should remember that in political movements wisdom of action is no less important than purity of motives ; and when we ponder the bloodshed , the brutal ignorance , the fierce fanaticism , the savage exultation over the fallen monarch , and the base , the un-
Untitled Article
764 Hints on the Errors of Party .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1834, page 764, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2639/page/18/
-