Sir Harry Vane 163 



tending to the forcible dissolution of the Rump 

 Parliament in 1653, Mr. Hosmer treats under the 

 rubric of American England. For the moment, 

 the spirit of Independency, which reigned supreme 

 in Massachusetts, asserted itself in England in the 

 temporary overthrow of the crown and the aristo- 

 cracy. In this period Sir Harry appears as the 

 opponent of the extreme measures of his party. 

 He heartily disapproves of such irregular proceed- 

 ings as Pride's Purge and the execution of the 

 King. Here is shown the strong conservatism of 

 temperament of this law-abiding American-English- 

 man. He had all the ingrained reverence of our 

 sturdy practical race for constitutional methods, 

 and withal a far-sighted intelligence that could 

 discern ways of settling the difficulty which were 

 for the moment impracticable, because his contem- 

 poraries had not grown up to them. In his mind 

 were the rudiments of the idea of a written consti- 

 tution, upon which a new government for England 

 might be built, with powers neatly defined and 

 limited. One fancies that in some respects he 

 would have felt himself more at home if he could 

 have been suddenly translated from the Rump 

 Parliament of 1653 to the Federal Convention 

 of 1787, in which immortal assembly there sat 

 perhaps no man of loftier spirit than his. It 



