endeavour to do the same with the party opposed to it. Of
course an anti-popular party varies exceedingly at different
times; when it is in the ascendant, its vilest elements are
sure to be uppermost: fair and moderate,--just men, wise men,
noble-minded men,--then refuse to take part with it. But when
it is humbled, and the opposite side begins to imitate its
practices, then again many of the best and noblest spirits
return to it, and share its defeat though they abhorred its
victory. We must distinguish, therefore, very widely, between
the anti-popular party in 1640, before the Long Parliament met,
and the same party a few years, or even a few months,
afterwards. Now, taking the best specimens of this party in its
best state, we can scarcely admire them too highly. A man who
leaves the popular cause when it is triumphant, and joins the
party opposed to it, without really changing his principles and
becoming a renegade, is one of the noblest characters in
history. He may not have the clearest judgment, or the firmest
wisdom; he may have been mistaken, but, as far as he is
concerned personally, we cannot but admire him. But such a man
changes his party not to conquer but to die. He does not allow
the caresses of his new friends to make him forget that he is a
sojourner with them, and not a citizen: his old friends may
have used him ill, they may be dealing unjustly and cruelly:
still their faults, though they may have driven him into exile,
cannot banish from his mind the consciousness that with them is
his true home: that their cause is habitually just and
habitually the weaker, although now bewildered and led astray
by an unwonted gleam of success. He protests so strongly
against their evil that he chooses to die by their hands rather
than in their company; but die he must, for there is no place