"Oliver's proceedings here have been the theme of much loud criticism, sibylline execration, into which it is not our plan to enter at present. We shall give these fifteen letters of his in a mass, and without any commentary whatever. To those who think that a land overrun with sanguinary quacks can be healed by sprinkling it with rose-water, these letters must be very horrible. Terrible surgery this; but is it surgery and judgment, or atrocious murder merely? This is a question which should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in God's judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of surgery,—which, in fact, is this editor's case too! Every idle lie and piece of empty bluster this editor hears, he too, like Oliver, has to shudder at it; has to think, 'Thou, idle bluster, not true, thou also art shutting men's minds against God's fact; thou wilt issue as a cleft crown to some poor man some day; thou also wilt have to take shelter in bogs, whither cavalry cannot follow!' But in Oliver's time, as I say, there was still belief in the judgments of God; in Oliver's time, there was yet no distracted jargon of 'abolishing capital punishments,' of Jean-Jacques philanthropy, and universal rose-water in this world still so full of sin. Men's notion was, not for abolishing punishments, but for making laws just. God the Maker's laws, they considered, had not yet got the punishment abolished from them! Men had a notion that the difference between good and evil was still considerable—equal to the difference between heaven and hell. It was a true notion, which all men yet saw, and felt, in all fibres of their existence, to be true. Only in late decadent generations, fast hastening toward radical change or final perdition, can such indiscriminate mashing up of good and evil into one universal patent treacle, and most unmedical electuary, of Rousseau sentimentalism, universal pardon and benevolence, with dinner and drink and one cheer more, take effect in our earth. Electuary very poisonous, as sweet as it is, and very nauseous; of which Oliver, happier than we, had not yet heard the slightest intimation even in dreams.
* * *
"In fact, Oliver's dialect is rude and obsolete; the phrases of Oliver, to him solemn on the perilous battle field as voices of God, have become to us most mournful when spouted as frothy cant from Exeter Hall. The reader has, all along, to make steady allowance for that. And on the whole, clear recognition will be difficult for him. To a poor slumberous canting age, mumbling to itself every where, Peace, peace, when there is no peace,—such a phenomena as Oliver, in Ireland or elsewhere, is not the most recognizable in all its meanings. But it waits there for recognition, and can wait an age or two. The memory of Oliver Cromwell, as I count, has a good many centuries in it yet; and ages of very varied complexion to apply to, before all end. My reader, in this passage and others, shall make of it what he can.
"But certainly, at lowest, here is a set of military despatches of the most unexampled nature! Most rough, unkempt; shaggy as the Numidian lion. A style rugged as crags; coarse, drossy: yet with a meaning in it, an energy, a depth; pouring on like a fire torrent; perennial fire of it visible athwart all drosses and defacements; not uninteresting to see! This man has come into distracted Ireland with a God's truth in the heart of him, though an unexpected one; the first such man they have seen for a great while indeed. He carries acts of Parliament, laws of earth and heaven, in one hand; drawn sword in the other. He addresses the bewildered Irish populations, the black ravening coil of sanguinary blustering individuals at Tredah and elsewhere: 'Sanguinary, blustering individuals, whose word is grown worthless as the barking of dogs; whose very thought is false, representing no fact, but the contrary of fact—behold, I am come to speak and to do the truth among you. Here are acts in Parliament, methods of regulation and veracity, emblems the nearest we poor Puritans could make them of God's law-book, to which it is and shall be our perpetual effort to make them correspond nearer and nearer. Obey them, help us to perfect them, be peaceable and true under them, it shall be well with you. Refuse to obey them, I will not let you continue living! As articulate speaking veracious orderly men, not as a blustering, murderous kennel of dogs run rabid, shall you continue in this earth. Choose!' They chose to disbelieve him; could not understand that he, more than the others, meant any truth or justice to them. They rejected his summons and terms at Tredah; he stormed the place; and, according to his promise, put every man of the garrison to death. His own soldiers are forbidden to plunder, by paper proclamation; and in ropes of authentic hemp, they are hanged when they do it. To Wexford garrison, the like terms as at Tredah; and, failing these, the like storm. Here is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bluster this, and false jargon scattering itself to the winds; what this man speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with this man is accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first king's face poor Ireland ever saw; the first friend's face, little as it recognizes him—poor Ireland!"
Yes, Cromwell had force and sagacity to get that done which he had resolved to get done; and this is the whole truth about your admiration, Mr. Carlyle. Accordingly, at Drogheda quoth Cromwell,—
"I believe we put to sword the whole number of the defendants. * * Indeed, being in the heat of action, I forbade them to spare any that were in arms in the town; and I think that night they put to the sword about two thousand men, divers of the officers and soldiers being fled over the bridge into the other part of the town; and where about one hundred of them possessed St. Peter's Church, steeple, &c. These, being summoned to yield to mercy, refused. Whereupon I ordered the steeple of St. Peter's Church to be fired; when one of them was heard to say, in the midst of the flames, 'God confound me! I burn, I burn!'
"I am persuaded that this is a righteous judgment of God upon these barbarous wretches who have imbrued their hands in so much innocent blood; and that it will tend to prevent the effusion of blood for the future. Which are the satisfactory grounds to such actions, which otherwise cannot but work remorse and regret. * * This hath been an exceeding great mercy."
Certainly one not of the rose-water or treacle kind. Mr. Carlyle says such measures "cut to the heart of the war," and brought peace. Was there then no crying of Peace, Peace, when there was no peace? Ask the Irish peasantry why they mark that period with the solemn phrase of "Cromwell's Curse!"
For ourselves, though aware of the mistakes and errors in particulars that must occur, we believe the summing up of a man's character in the verdict of his time, is likely to be correct. We believe that Cromwell was "a curse," as much as a blessing, in these acts of his. We believe him ruthless, ambitious, half a hypocrite, (few men have courage or want of soul to bear being wholly so,) and we think it is rather too bad to rave at us in our time for canting, and then hold up the prince of canters for our reverence in his "dimly seen nobleness." Dimly, indeed, despite the rhetoric and satire of Mr. Carlyle!
In previous instances where Mr. Carlyle has acted out his predeterminations as to the study of a character, we have seen circumstances favor him, at least sometimes. There were fine moments, fine lights upon the character that he would seize upon. But here the facts look just as they always have. He indeed ascertains that the Cromwell family were not mere brewers or plebeians, but "substantial gentry," and that there is not the least ground for the common notion that Cromwell lived at any time a dissolute life. But with the exception of these emendations, still the history looks as of old. We see a man of strong and wise mind, educated by the pressure of great occasions to station of command; we see him wearing the religious garb which was the custom of the times, and even preaching to himself as well as to others—for well can we imagine that his courage and his pride would have fallen without keeping up the illusion; but we never see Heaven answering his invocations in any way that can interfere with the rise of his fortunes or the accomplishment of his plans. To ourselves, the tone of these religious holdings-forth is sufficiently expressive; they all ring hollow; we have never read any thing of the sort more repulsive to us than the letter to Mr. Hammond, which Mr. Carlyle thinks such a noble contrast to the impiety of the present time. Indeed, we cannot recover from our surprise at Mr. Carlyle's liking these letters; his predetermination must have been strong indeed. Again, we see Cromwell ruling with the strong arm, and carrying the spirit of monarchy to an excess which no Stuart could surpass. Cromwell, indeed, is wise, and the king he had punished with death is foolish; Charles is faithless, and Cromwell crafty; we see no other difference. Cromwell does not, in power, abide by the principles that led him to it; and we can't help—so rose-water imbecile are we!—admiring those who do: one Lafayette, for instance—poor chevalier so despised by Mr. Carlyle—for abiding by his principles, though impracticable, more than Louis Philippe, who laid them aside, so far as necessary, "to secure peace to the kingdom;" and to us it looks black for one who kills kings to grow to be more kingly than a king.