restoration to misrepresent both. As an illustration of what I mean I
refer to the common edition of Hudibras by Dr. Grey: for the proof I might
refer to some thousands of books. Dr. Grey's is a disgusting case: for he
swallowed with the most anile credulity every story, the most extravagant
that the malice of those times could invent against either the
Presbyterians or the Independents: and for this I suppose amongst other
deformities his notes were deservedly ridiculed by Warburton. But, amongst
hundreds of illustrations more respectable than Dr. Grey's I will refer
the reader to a work of our own days, the Ecclesiastical Biography [in
part a republication of Walton's Lives] edited by the present master of
Trinity College, Cambridge, who is held in the highest esteem wherever he
is known, and is I am persuaded perfectly conscientious and as impartial
as in such a case it is possible for a high churchman to be. Yet so it is
that there is scarcely one of the notes having any political reference to
the period of 1640-1660, which is not disfigured by unjust prejudices: and
the amount of the moral which the learned editor grounds upon the
documents before him--is this, that the young student is to cherish the
deepest abhorrence and contempt of all who had any share on the
parliamentary side in the 'confusions' of the period from 1640 to 1660:
that is to say of men to whose immortal exertions it was owing that the
very revolution of 1688, which Dr. W. will be the first to applaud, found
us with any such stock of political principles or feelings as could make a
beneficial revolution possible. Where, let me ask, would have been the
willingness of some Tories to construe the flight of James II. into a
virtual act of abdication, or to consider even the most formal act of
abdication binding against the king,-had not the great struggle of
Charles's days gradually substituted in the minds of all parties a
rational veneration of the king's _office_ for the old superstition
in behalf of the king's _person_, which would have protected him from
the effects of any acts however solemnly performed which affected