THE MONTHLY REVIEW, For JANUARY, 1772. ART. I. The Hiftory of England, from the earliest Accounts to the Revo lution in 1688. By William Smith, M. D. 8vo. 2 Vols. bound. Owen. 1771. 12 S. T is pleasant to remark the acrimonious cenfure with which this hiftorian, in the introduction to his work, has mentioned those learned and ingenious men, who have gone before him in delineating the hiftory of this ifland. We are curfed, he obferves, with a variety of hiftorical authors, who have defcribed, in different and contradictory colours, the most eminent perfonages, and who have reprefented the most momentous tranfactions, with a train of falfe and inconfiftent circumftances. He accounts, it seems, as nothing the penetration of Brady, the laborious researches of Tyrrel, the industry and knowledge of Carte, the eloquence, the dignity, and the precifion of Hume*. He fancies, that he has greater capacity, and has had better opportunities of information, than thefe Having taken occafion to differ from Dr. Robertfon in relation to the origin of the Scots, our Author expreffes his opinion of that historian in the following modeft and polite terms: Indeed, our modern Scottish hiftorian, Dr. Robertson, is no romancer; I wish I could likewife fay no ftory-teller, for he gives himself no trouble about the ancient Scots: It did not answer his purpofe to dive into the antiquity of the Scottish nation: no matter to him from whence, or at what time they came to this island; his readers may believe, they came from the moon in the days of Noah for what he cares. His intention certainly was to ingratiate himself with the English; and, like a mercenary writer, to prefent the public with an account of a few modern reigns, in which he advances many well-dreffed falfehoods. Indeed his fpurious brats are fet off with all the fuperb trappings of elegance of ftyle and purity of diction; but these will not excufe him in the eyes of his difcerning readers, when he attempts to impofe upon their underfrandings, falfe, fcandalous, and malicious reports.' B celebrated VOL. XLVI. celebrated writers; and he does not fcruple to infinuate that his performance will correct and fupply their defects and omiffions, and explain, with a perfpicuity hitherto unknown, the nature and form of our conftitution, with the controverted and problematical parts of our hiftory. But notwithstanding the lofty exordium with which our Author has introduced his performance, we fcruple not to pronounce, that it poffeffes no kind of merit. Unaided by records, or ability, and even without the affiftance of prior compofitions, which he has ventured to condemn, he has haftily thrown together a compilation of English affairs; in which, to extreme vanity, and grofs ignorance, he has joined the most unmanly and illiberal prejudices. As an advocate for the divine and indefeafible right of kings, he inculcates the most flavifh principles. A fovereign he confiders as the vicegerent of the Deity, and he imagines, that no acts of oppreffion, however atrocious, can invalidate his authority. The fubject muft yield to him, in every inftance, the moft fubmiffive obedience. In confequence of thefe bafe and exploded maxims, he afferts, that the liberties we enjoy were extorted from our monarchs. The ancient and incontestable privileges of the people he represents as groundless and vifionary. The transfer of the crown to the duke of Normandy he treats as a conqueft. The Magna Charta and the Charta de Forefla were, in his opinion, the fruits of impiety and rebellion. The revival of the reprefentation of the Commons under Henry III. he mentions as an ufurpation. The foundation of our excellent conftitution, he afcribes to conceffions exacted by force, or purchased by fraud. While his narrow prepoffeffions have feduced him to run counter to the whole tenor of our hiftory, he has not been able to give any value to his work, by elegance of manner, or the charms of compofition. Under every afpe&t in which it can be viewed, it exhibits the moft glaring marks of incapacity and weaknets. As a fpecimen of its execution, we fhall prefent to our readers the account which it gives of the trial and death of Charles I. The Independents being mafters of all, a committee was appointed, 234 December, to draw up a falfe and treasonable charge against the king. Now the height of all iniquity and fanatical extravagance draws on. But the narration of such daring impiety, fuch fhocking barbarity, as the public trial and execution of fo pious, ío. just, so merciful, fo brave a prince, by the hands of his own fubjects, is too grievous and infupportable a fubject to dwell long upon it. · After After the charge, colonel Harrison, the son of a butcher, a most furious enthufiaft of the army, was fent with a strong guard to conduct the king to London. In the mean time an ordinance had paffed in the Lower Houfe, for a High Court of Juftice fo called, to try the king for high treafon, though he himself was the only perfon against whom high treafon could be committed. But the Lords, then remaining to fit in the houfe, few and weak as they were, unanimously rejected it. However, the Rump of the Commons proceeded without them, and locked up their door against them; who, by this time, through their many other weak and wicked compliances, had rendered themselves ufelefs, as their fellow-rebels in the Lower House voted them. And now, with unparalleled unprecedented impudence, a pack of deteftable mifcreants, with Bradshaw their prefident, presume to fit in judgment upon their fovereign, and to condemn him to death for high treafon, who, by our law, can. perfonally do no wrong, and is, exempt from any earthly punishment. 'The king's behaviour, during the laft period of his life, does great honour to his memory. In all his appearances before thofe infamous villains, and moft execrable of all created be. ings, who called themfelves his judges, (for three times was he produced before them, and as often he declined their jurifdiction, and pleaded his own caufe,) he never forgot his part, either as a prince or as a man. Firm and intrepid, he maintained, in each reply, the utmost perfpicuity and juftness, both of thought and expreffion. Mild and equitable he rofe into no paffion at that unufual authority, which was affumed over him. His foul, without effort or affectation, feemed only to. remain in a fituation familiar to it, and to look down with contempt on all the efforts of human malice and iniquity. The moft fhocking inftances of rudeness and familiarity he bore with meeknefs and ferenity. The foldiers, inftigated by their fuperiors, and being inceffantly plied with prayers, fermons, and exhortations, were brought, though with difficulty, to cry out for juftice. Poor fouls! faid the king to one of his attendants, for a little money they would do as much against their commanders. Some of them were permitted to go to the utmost length of brutal infolence, and to spit in his face as he was conveyed along the passage to the court. To the indelible feandal of this nation, and amazement of all the world, that fo much virtue, in a civilized country, could ever meet with fo fatal a catastrophe, the royal martyr, of whom the world was not worthy, was condemned to fuffer death, and the unparalleled murder and patricide was commit B 2 ted, ted, 30th January, 1649, O. S. Wonder, O heavens! and be aftonifhed, O earth! Yet it must be remembered, that fome of the most eminent of the nobility, namely the Earl of Southampton, the Duke of Richmond, the Marquis of Hertford, and the Earl of Lindsay, to their immortal honour, did not only offer themselves as hoftages, but even to fuffer in his ftead. Amidst all the convulfions of this kingdom, we find nothing to be equalled, to be mentioned with the trouble, rebuke and blafphemy of this day. There has been a weakness and a tyranny of princes; there have been murmurs and a madness of the people. Tumultuous times, infurrections, civil wars, and dreadful battles; plots, affaffinations, poifons, and the graves of princes made in prifons; but no court of law, no palacegate, no scaffold, axe, and noon-day fun : these were the accomplishments of wickedness, that were referved to blacken this epoch. The crime of this day was beyond all example of ancient or modern times, and was, as the voice of the nation in parliament declared it, a moft impious and execrable murder. We do renounce, abominate, and proteft against that impious fact, the execrable murder, and moft unparalleled treason, committed against the facred perfon and life of our fovereign; and as a lasting monument of our inexpreffible detestation and abhorrence of this villainous and abominable fact, we meet on this anniversary day of fafting and humiliation, to implore the mercy of God, that neither the guilt of that facred and innocent blood, nor thofe other fins by which God was provoked to deliver up both us and our king into the hands of cruel and unreasonable men, may at any time hereafter be vifited upon us or our pofterity. Murder, where it is fimple, and of the meanest of our fellow-creatures, is the most unnatural and most inhuman offence. To fhed innocent blood, was what the law of Nature and reafon of mankind did ever abominate and reftrain: no nation, ever fo barbarous, looked upon murder with indifference. Among our Saxon ancestors, there were, indeed, pecuniary compofitions for fhedding of blood, a cuftomary Weregild or Blodewite, a mulet and forfeiture of goods or money, in proportion to the quality or value of the dead perfon. Luitur etiam homicidium certo armentorum aut pecorum numero; recipitque fatisfactionem totus domus. Tacitus de Mor. German. But the true caufe of accepting fuch a flight compenfation for life, was grounded on the mean ftate of villains and bondmen, whose blood was not thought to deferve the blood of the lord or the * Tacitus fays univerfa domus. free free tenant. And when the blodewite did afterwards extend to making fine for the death of freemen, and even of thanes or nobles, yet then it was for the cafual misfortune, and the manflaughter, not the deliberate malice of plotting to take away a life. Qui volens hominem occiderit morte multatur Leg. Aloredi regis. Cades manifeftæ funt jure humano inexpiabilia. Canuti Leges, num. 61. c. 6. By our prefent conftitution, the life of every fubject is a public truft, and the party himself cannot difpofe of it. So tender are our laws in cafes of blood, that for a private person of the greatest dignity to kill, except in felf-defence, the vileft beggar, the most notorious malefactor, the very condemned criminal, is murder in the eye of the law. In cafes of murder, there is no mitigation in being only acceffary, they all become principles in it; and left there fhould be any connivance by the relations of the murdered perfon with the murderers, the profecution lies in the name of the common parent. And left by fome default in the first procefs, the guilty fhould happen to be acquitted, there lies a remedy of appeal, by the wife or heirmale, to fecure the execution of juftice on the notorious offender, not to be obftructed by a pardon, pending the appeal. Such a fafeguard to the lives of men, are the laws of England, above any other conftitution in the world. And when the meaneft fubject is fo defended and preferved, what greater regard must needs be had to the life of the fupreme magiftrate? The first act upon our rolls, declarative of treasonable offences, makes it undoubted treafon to compafs or imagine the death of our Lord the king. So nicely tender are our laws of the fovereign prince's life, above all other confiderations in the world, that the very thought or imagination of fo doing would be liable to all the penalties of treafon. But thofe horrid mifereants, in ridicule of our laws, pretended to try and condemn their royal mafter, by forms of law, and executed their fentence in the face of the fun, as a fpectacle to the whole world, and in defiance of Heaven. 'No prince's character is more variously defcribed, according to the different principles on the one fide, and prejudices on the other. But it is no wonder that those, who brandished rebellious arms in the field, and afterwards dipped their hands in the blood of the Lord's anointed, did endeavour to blacken his reputation, in excufe of their own actions against him. Nor is it strange, if men of the fame diabolical fpirit do ftill load his memory with the most odious calumnies of popery and arbitrary power; and impudently ridicule his fufferings, becaufe he lived the ornament, and died the martyr of the English church and monarchy. B 3 • God |