~ 
578 
a period of almost uninterrupted tran- 
quillity and peace. “The third period, 
being that. which immediately precedes 
the commencement of the history, re- 
eeives a more detailed examination. ** Be- 
tween the year sixteen hundred and forty, 
(says Mr. Fox), and the death of Charles 
the Second, we have the opportunity of 
contemplating the state in almost every 
variety of circumstances. Religious dis- 
pute, political €ontest in all its forms and 
degrees, from the honest exertions of 
party, and the corrupt intrigues of fac- 
fon, to violence and civil war; despo- 
tism, first in the person of an usurper, and 
afterwards in that of an hereditary king; 
the most memorable and salutary im- 
provements in the laws, the most aban- 
doned adininistration of them; in fine, 
whatever can happen to a nation, whe- 
ther glorious or calamitous, makes a 
part of this astonishing and instructive 
picture.” , 
On the execution of King Charles the 
First, on the power and character of 
Cromwell, on the character of Monk, 
and on the restoration of Charles the Se- 
cond, Mr. Fox’s observations are full. 
- The character of Monk we shall tran- 
scribe. 
“ The short interval between Crom- 
well’s death and the restoration, exhibits 
the picture of a nation either so wearied 
with changes as not to feel, or so subdued 
by military power as not to dare tu show 
any care or even preference with regard 
to the form of their government... All was 
in the army; and that army, by sucha 
concurrence of fortuitous circumstances 
as history teaches @ not to be surprised 
at, had fallen into the hands of one, than 
whom a baser could not be found in its 
lowest ranks. Personal courage appears 
to have been Monk’s only virtue ; reserve 
and dissimulation made up the whole 
stock of his wisdom. But to this man did th 
nation look up, ready to receive from his 
orders the form of government he should 
ehoose to prescribe. ‘There is reason to 
believe, that, from the general bias of the 
Presbyteriaus, as well as of the cavaiiers, 
monarchy was the prevalent wish; but 16 
is observable, that although the parha- 
ment was, coutrary to the principle upon 
which it was pretended to be called, 
composed of many avéwed royalists, yet 
none dared to hint at the restoration of 
the king, till they had Mork’s permission, 
or rather cominand, fo receive and con- 
sider his letters, [ft is impossible, in 
reviewing the whole of this transaction, 
‘not to reinark that a general who ‘had 
r 
Retrospect of Domestic Literature—History. 
gained his rank, reputation, and station 
in the service ofa republick, aud of what - 
he, as well as others, called, however 
falsely, the cause of liberty, made to 
scruple to lay the nation prostrate at the 
feet of a monarch, without a single pro- 
vision in favour of that cause; and if 
the promise of indemnity may seem to 
argue that there was some attention, at 
least, paid to the safety of his associates 
in arms, his subsequent conduct gives 
reasun to suppose, that even this pro- 
vision was.owing to any other cause, ra~ 
ther than to any genercus feeling of his 
breast. For he afterwards not.only ac- 
quiesced-in the insults so meanly put upon 
the illustrious corpse of Blake, under 
whose auspices and command he had 
performed the most creditable services of 
his life, but in the trial of Argyle pro- 
duced’ letters of friendship and conf- 
dence to take away. the life of a noble- 
man*, the zeal and cordiality of whose 
co-operation with him, proved by such 
documents, was the chief ground of his 
execution; thus gratuitously surpassing 
ia lufamy those miserable wretches, who, . 
to save their own lives, are sometimes 
persuaded to impeach, and swear away, 
the lives of their accomplices,” : 
Yo enter into a-minute analysis of the 
whole work would occupy a larger por- 
tion of our itetrospect thai can be spared, 
The space of time which the history, in 
its present form, embraces, is short; ex- 
tending only from the accession of James 
the Second to the death of Monmouth; 
including little more than a period of five 
months. During this period, however, 
such ability and discrimination.are shewa 
in the narrative as induce us to regret 
that no more of Mr. Fox’s time was 
bestowed upon the production of his his- 
tory. The principal novelty of represen- 
tation is, that absolute power and inde- 
pendence of his parliament, not the estab- 
lishment of popery in England, was the 
primary object of James’s reign. A cor- 
respondence with the French munister, 
Barillon, given.in the Appendix, which 
had not been made, public in Hame’s 
tine, furnisnes the principal vouchers for 
the facts. James, Mr. Fox observes, did 
not take his more decided steps in favour - 
of the Popish religion and its professors, 
till the deaths of Monmouth, and Argyle, 
seeming to end all prospect of resistance 
to his absolute power, had made hina 
sufficiently conscious of the increased 
strength of his situation, 
* Burnet. Baillie’s Letters, i1,.431. 
When 
