hold of that man’s sincerity, of whose abilities, wonderful as they were, the most remarkable, and perhaps the most serviceable to his fortunes, was his hypocrisy; so much so, that South—­a most acute observer of mankind, and who had been educated under the Commonwealth and Protectorate—­in his sermon on “Worldly Wisdom,” adduces Cromwell as an instance of “habitual dissimulation and imposture.”  Oliver, Mr. Macaulay tells us, modelled his army on the principle of composing it of men fearing God, and zealous for public liberty, and in the very next page he is forced to confess that

  thirteen years followed in which for the first and the last time the
  civil power of our country was subjected to military dictation.—­i.
  120.

Again,

  Oliver had made his choice.  He had kept the hearts of his soldiers,
  but he had broken with every other class of his fellow citizens.—­i.
  129.

That is, he had broken through all the promises, pledges, and specious pretences by which he had deceived and enslaved the nation, which Mr. Macaulay calls with such opportune naivete, his fellow citizens!  Then follows, not a censure of this faithless usurpation, but many laboured apologies, and even defences of it, and a long series of laudatory epithets, some of which are worth collecting as a rare contrast to Mr. Macaulay’s usual style, and particularly to the abuse of Charles, which we have just exhibited.

  His genius and resolution made him more absolute master of his
  country than any of her legitimate Kings had been.—­i. 129.

He having cut off the legitimate King’s head on a pretence that Charles had wished to make himself absolutely master of the country.

  Everything yielded to the vigour and ability of Cromwell.—­i. 130.

  The Government, though in the form of a Republic, was in truth a
  despotism, moderated only by the wisdom, the sober-mindedness, and
  the magnanimity of the despot.—­i. 137.

With a vast deal more of the same tone.

But Mr. Macaulay particularly expatiates on the influence that Cromwell exercised over foreign states:  and there is hardly any topic to which he recurs with more pleasure, or, as we think, with less sagacity, than the terror with which Cromwell and the contempt with which the Stuarts inspired the nations of Europe.  He somewhat exaggerates the extent of this feeling, and greatly misstates or mistakes the cause; and as this subject is in the present state of the world of more importance than any others in the work, we hope we may be excused for some observations tending to a sounder opinion on that subject.