Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

SECTION 1.

[ocr errors]

66

66

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

"yersation, he had expressed none certainly in that "House on the justice of bringing Kings to trial: revenge being unjustifiable, and punishment useless, "where it could not operate either by way of prevention or example; he did not view with less detestation the injustice and inhumanity, that had been committed to"wards that unhappy monarch. Not only were the "rules of criminal justice, rules that, more than any other, ought to be strictly observed, violated with respect to him; not only was he tried and condemned without any existing law, to which he was personally "amenable, and even contrary to laws that did actually exist; but the degrading circumstances of his imprisonment, the unnecessary and insulting asperity, with "which he had been treated, the total want of repub"lican magnanimity in the whole transaction, (for 66 even in that House it could be no offence to say that "there might be such a thing as magnanimity in a republic) added every aggravation to the inhumanity and in"justice."

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

་་

[ocr errors]

10

Having by these extracts assisted the memory of Mr. Rose, will he say that he does not recollect the uttering of any of the expressions or sentiments contained in them? Will he now ask how Mr. Fox would have found language sufficiently complimentary to express his admiration of the magnanimity of those who brought Lewis the Sixteenth to an open trial, when, in Mr. Rose's presence, he

1

C

[ocr errors]

had repeatedly declared their conduct to be unjust, inhuman, and detestable, and to be totally wanting in magnanimity? Mr. Fox complained, that the most cruel' misrepresentations of the language he had used in debate, had been circulated, but for them might be urged the heat of the moment, and the cry of a party; Mr. Rose has no such excuse to make: he writes coolly seventeen years after the event alluded to happened, when both his patron, and his political opponent are resting undisturbed in the silent grave; and all personal animosity between their former adherents might reasonably be expected to be laid aside and forgotten. It may be thought too severe to impute to Mr. Rose a wish to revive, against the memory of Mr. Fox, calumnies which he had satisfactorily answered at the time they were spread abroad, and which had for many years lost their currency. But if Mr. Rose should be brought to the remembrance that Mr. Fox did, with great anxiety and feeling, declare his abhorrence, more than once, of the proceedings against Lewis the Sixteenth, will he think it is a sufficient apology for having made such a groundless attack, that he wrote his observations carelessly, and in haste, and that he did not recollect the circumstance? And what then becomes of his boasted claim to accuracy? Such a charge should not have been insinuated, without previous consideration and inquiry, and a full persuasion founded thereon, of its truth.

[ocr errors]

L

SECTION

I.

SECTION
I.

Examples of de

sed princes.

Mr. Fox having, in the passages before cited, remarked, that among the modes of destroying deposed stroying depo- monarchs, that adopted by Cromwell and his adherents was the least dishonourable, and produced as examples of the more dishonourable, the deaths of the deposed princes, Edward the Second, Richard the Second, Henry the Sixth, and Edward the Fifth, Mr. Rose sagaciously remarks that, they "are of a "kind too savage to be quoted as precedents of any

Rose, p. II.

Mr. Fox's second period of

ry.

Rose, p. 12.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

proceeding, which can pretend to be of a legal or judicial character." Here the reader will observe, that Mr. Fox agrees with Mr. Rose, and accordingly classes all these cases among the more dishonourable ones; and that Mr. Rose himself is pleased to describe the proceedings against Charles as pretending to be of a legal or judicial character.

Mr. Rose is not content with the second period English histo- marked out in the historical work, because, instead of ending in 1640, it might have included the reign of Charles the Second, or been extended to the Restoration; because the measures in the reign of James the First, and the early part of Charles the First, led to the consequences which ensued in the latter part of Charles the First, and the reign of Charles the Second. Hence we learn that a period, to meet Mr. Rose's approbation, should include not only the

[ocr errors]

consequences, but the remotest cause of them; in
short, the history of the most ancient nation now
existing should consist of only one period, or rather,
every history must begin with the creation of the
world, for that measure certainly produced the state
of things existing at the present day. Mr. Fox's
po-
sition at the outset of his work is, that in reading
"the history of every country, there are certain pe-
"riods at which the mind naturally pauses to medi-
"tate upon, and consider them with reference, not
only to their immediate effects, but to their more
"remote circumstances;" and Mr. Rose, who had
previously declared his agreement with him, now
raises an objection, which militates against any division
at all. The only question is, whether from the altera-
tion, which actually took place in the government of
this country in 1640, that was not a proper time to
pause and meditate. With all due deference to the
opinion of Mr. Rose, it may be thought that a more
proper moment for the purpose can hardly be pointed
out in our history. And even upon Mr. Rose's prin-
ciple, it may be defended, for the measures he alludes
to occasioned the devolution of more than ordinary
powers upon the Commons in 1640; and the conse-
quence of their putting them into use was, the over-
throwing of the monarchy, and after its restoration a
reign disturbed by acts of turbulence and violence, lit-
tle less mischievous and destructive than
an open

[ocr errors]

E

SECTION 1.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[ocr errors]

283/AC13.3 8.07 .:

*

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

civil war would have been. The termination of this period (the third) with the reign of Charles the Second, Mr. Rose also thinks was not well considered, because the reign of his brother was surely not less "remarkable for religious dispute and political contest than his own." Mr. Fox probably fixed the end of the third period, from the consideration that at that æra his regular history was to begin; moreover the reign of James the Second being more remarkable for the religious contest he raised or inflamed, might have been a sufficient reason in his mind for separating it from his brother's. But the argument we have just used, will apply equally here, and the reader is desired to recollect for what purpose this division into periods was made at all, and then to consider whether the accession of the misguided monarch, whose whole reign was employed in hastening his own destruction by the folly and rashness of his conduct, was not a fit time, from which to trace the immediate causes of his ruin..

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

1.5.

It remains to be noticed, that Mr. Rose is not correct, when he says that " Mr. Fox points out a "particular year within that period," i. e. between

1640 and 1684," when the constitution had attained
"its greatest perfection," for he has left out the
word "
theoretical," before the word "perfection,"
and also omitted to observe, that the opinion did not

*

« ПредишнаНапред »