cruelties of the Starchamber were excesses of lenity. He rose to power by the assistance of Williams, yet he was the agent who brought him to disgrace. He was the fawning sycophant of Buckingham, the projector and supporter of the Thorough system. He it was who brought about the rebellion of the Scots, by advising the king to establish prelacy in Scotland; in short he was one of those evil advisers through whom Charles was brought to the Scaffold. There is no other alternative for him but to be called either a fool or villain and therefore those who favour him or his cause, tell us, if not plainly, at least by implication, that he was weakbrained and weak hearted man. Answer 3rd.-The self denying ordinance was a measure brought into the parliament with the view of depriving the Presbyterians of all power whether in the field or cabinet, by making it a law that no member of the parliament should be capable of holding any office whether military or civil during the continuance of the civil war. This measure first proposed by Zouch Tate an obscure fanatic was a contrivance of Cromwell and his party (the independents) to take away all power from the hands of their rivals who had retained it with a firm grasp from the beginning of the civil war. Charles was playing a double game with regard to Ireland. Whilst he was protesting in England, his abhorrance of the Irish Catholics, he was secretly negociating a treaty with them, first through the agency of the Earl of Antrim and afterwards through that of the Earl of Glamorgan the son of the Marquis of Worcestor, the richest Catholic Nobleman in England. Some of these conditions were known to Ormond his Lord Lieutenant in Ireland and some were kept secret between Glamorgan and him. He promised the Irish, toleration of their Religion and the abrogation of the penal laws; if they would assist him with ten thousand men and money to recover the absolute authority in England. These he promised secretly and they were to be kept secret by the Irish also till he was in a position to fulfil them. Thus he was at liberty to disown the Irish whenever he liked, and thus it happened; when the treaty became public, Ormond immediately arrested Glamorgan and Charles disowned him but he was soon set at liberty to pursue his scheme. Thus Charles was playing a deep game. He was either false to England or to Ireland. Mr. Hallam decides that the latter was the case; but for all that his guilt was none the less. He had gone so far as to have concluded a cessation of arms on one occasion and it was notoriously known that he had many Irish Catholics in his ranks. Answer 4th.-The tenor of the proposals offered by parliament from the breaking out of the civil war, was always the same, they only differed in some minor particulars. He must give up the command of the sea and land forces (on this occasion it was proposed) for twenty years; must relinquish prelacy and consent to the establishment of presbyterianisms must put himself under the direction of parliament in selecting his minsters and councillors, must marry and educate his children according to the advice of parliament. Some of these are not mentioned by Guizot, and we are left to infer them from Mr, Hallam who says that many of these conditions were the same as those offered to him at Newmarket or York, of which he gives a distinct account. Charles was also called upon to annul all the patents of peerage which were granted after the breaking out of the civil war, and to recall all his proclamations against the parliament. Answer 5th. In revolutionary times, when men refuse to follow in the beaten path of their forefathers and are resolved to track out, one for themselves, men like the Independents must by the necessity of the case, gain the ascendant. When every thing is left to be decided by human reason, they must tolerate each other's opinions. Hence the Independents maintained that every congregation met for the adoring of God was in itself a church and every body was left at liberty, to preach, pray and expound the Scriptures in the best way he liked. It is no wonder therefore that when men had once thrown off the shackles of restraint, they would become wild Independents. When men once forsake the beaten way they diverge in different directions. And thus the sectaries had different denominations and principles. They were either levellers, anabaptists, fifth monarchy men, &c. and all the fanatics ranged themselves under one or other of these classes. That they did not sooner take possession of power is to be accounted for, only, by the prevalence of presbyterianism; but when they had once succeeded in carrying the selfdenying ordinance and the reorganization of the army, which they did by a fair pretext, they centred all real power in their owu hands, and to keep it was not difficult, since the army was altogether, of independent principles. Cromwell told the house that they incurred the jealousy of the nation by keeping all power into their own hands and induced them to forsake it. Fairfax was made general whom he could sway any way he liked and the army was purged as the parliament was sometime after, of every presbyterian element. Having got the army in their favour, they were masters of the nation and soon showed parliament that they were no longer its servants. Answer 6th.-The instrument of government was the great charter of Cromwell's government, it enacted that the legislative power should be lodged in one man to be called the Protector and the representatives of the people in parliament assembled; that all writs should be issued in the Protector's name. The executive power was lodged in the same hands, with this proviso that in the absence of parliament, all affairs should be transacted by the Protector and the majority of the Council. It gave no negative voice however to the Protector over the resolutions of parliament. The Protector was also to be the arbitrator of peace or war. The parliament was to consist of 400 four hundred members returned according the population of the counties, and some of the great cities which had hitherto no franchise were allowed to return members. The small boroughs were disfranchised. It was on this model that the representation was reformed in the present (nineteenth) century. It also limited the number of the soldiers to twenty thousand cavalry and ten thousand infantry. The name of the Instrument was changed into Petition and Advice by the parliament of 1657, which also made so many other essential changes in it that Mr. Hallam decides that the short interval which elapsed between the passing of the petion and advice and Cromwell's death is to be ranked under monarchy and not republic although the title of the head of the government was still Protector and not king. The whole petition and advice was framed with reference to that article of it which conferred the name of king to Cromwell. Although Cromwell was forced to refuse the title yet no alteration was made in the rest of the document. The power of the Protector was also very much increased. MOHENDRO LAUL SHOME, Hindu College, First College Class, Second Year. Literature Proper. Morning Paper. Answer to the First Question.-This is the soliloquy which Lady Macbeth utters, when she had first perused the letter of Macbeth, in which he speaks of his interview with the witches, of their prophecies to him and of the partial accomplishment of these, by his being promoted to the thaneship of Cawder, and she bursts out, in an enthusiastic exclamation, expressive of her hopes and her resolution. She says, Well, thou art already become thane of Glamis and Cawder; and I am fully resolved that thou shall be, every thing, that thou art promised or foretold, by the witches, (i. e.) that thou shalt be king in addition to what thou already art. Yet I do fear, that the goodness of thy nature, will prove an obstacle to the attainment of our wishes (and therefore she is afraid of it.) It has too much of that milk like quality (compassion) which belongs to human nature, to take hold of the nearest (easiest) way, to arrive at the accomplishment of thy wishes. Thou hast the ambition to become great, but thou art without that wickedness which ought to be the concomitant of ambition. Even those things which thou desirest most ardently, thou wouldst not attempt to gain, by any unhallowed or wicked means. Although you may desire that which does not belong to you, yet thou wouldst not make use of any foul means, to obtain it, it means that although your passive wishes may extend to things which thou hast no right to claim, yet thou wouldst not, take any active hand, to snatch that which does not belong to you. Thou art desirous of having that (the crown) which tells thee thus must thou do, &c. The meaning of this is, that, thou art desirous of having the crown, but it is as plain as if the crown itself spoke, that thou must act, in this manner (murder the king) (i. e.) it is plain, in what manner thou must act, if thou wilt come to the throne. And this act thou art afraid of doing thyself, but thou art yet not desirous that it should not be done. Haste thee hither, that by my courageous words, I may infuse my own spirit, into your heart (through your ears) and beat away, by my valourous words, all the obstacles that your timidity presents in the way, of your possessing the crown, which fate and the assistances of supernatural beings, are resolved to place on your head, as it plainly appears by their prophecy. MOHENDRO LAUL SHOME, First Class, Hindu College. Answer to the Second Question.-In the mind of Lady Macbeth ambition is represented as the ruling motive, an intense-overmastering passion, which is gratified at the expense of every just and generous principle, and every feminine feeling. In the pursuit of her object she is cruel, treacherous and daring. She is at once inspired with masculine courage; and disregards every thing. Self interest and family aggrandisement are the marked features of her character. She is doubly, trebly dyed in guilt and blood, for the murder she commits, is rendered more frightful by ingratitude and disloyalty, and by the violation of all the most sacred claims of kindred and hospitality. When her husband's more kindly nature shrinks from the perpetration of the deed of horror, she like an evil genius, whispers him on to his damnation. The full measure of her guilt is never extenuated; she is a great bad woman. Macbeth, on the contrary, is sometimes determined to do the deed of horror; at other times, his heart misgives him. He is sometimes determined "to bend each corporal agent to the terrible feat"; at other times he says, we will proceed no further in this business." He is like a drunken man reeling to and fro; he is urged on by his fate, like a vessel drifting in a storm. But Lady Macbeth is ever pre-eminent in her guilt. Her inexorable determination of her purpose, her superhuman strength of nerve, render her as fearful as her deeds are hateful. Yet for all this, she is not a mere monster of depravity, with whom we have nothing in common, nor a destroying meteor, whose path we watch in ignorant fright and amaze. She is a terrible impersonation of all evil passions, and mighty powers; and the woman ever remains a woman to the last, still linked with her sex and humanity. We must bear in mind, that the thought of murder is not instigated by her to her husband; it springs within his mind. Yet it may be said that on the reception of the letter the thought spontaneously rises in his mind. But then the guilt is thus more equally divided between her and him; than we should suppose "the noble nature of Macbeth" goaded on to crimes, solely or chiefly by her instigation. It is true, she afterwards appears the more active agent of the two; but it is less through her preminence in wickedness, than through her superiority of intellect. The eloquence, the fierce fervid eloquence, with which she bears down all opposition, the sophistry which she employs in conquering all to the scruples of Macbeth; the sarcastic manner in which she lets fall the word coward, a word which no man can bear from another, still less from a woman, and least of all from a woman he loves, make us shrink before the commanding intellect of the woman. She is cruel only in the attainment of her object; and that done, she stops there. But Macbeth is goaded on from crime to crime; and he says, "I am in blood stept in so far that should I wade no more. One crime prepares for another; the death of Duncan, makes him meditate, and afterwards commit the death of Banquo, and that also prepares him for the butchering of Macduff's family. On the contrary Lady Macbeth, being satisfied with attaining her object, never commits any crime afterwards. It is evident then that in a mind constituted like that of Lady Macbeth, which is not hardened by the habit of crime, conscience must wake sometime or other. By a judgment the most sublime ever imagined, yet the most unforced, natural and inevitable, the sleep of her who murdered sleep is no longer repose; it is a condensation of those resistless terrors, which the prostrate heart, and the powerless will cannot baffle and repel. We do not exult over the ruin, but rather sigh over it; and we dismiss the helpless, conscience-stricken, murdress with a heaviness of heart, which Lady Macbeth in her waking state, could never have excited in us. RADHA GOBIND Doss, Second College Class, Hindu College. Answer to the Second Question.-The authoress of the characterestics of women, has drawn, the character of Lady Macbeth in very favourable colours and denies that Lady Macbeth was more cruel and ferocious than her husband; but Lady Macbeth being a woman who having lived in seclusion and irritated her powers of imagination by constant indulgence, is enthusiastically bent on realising her dreams. This is so far true that we find that her courage supports her only, so long as is necessary to the accomplishment of her designs and a little longer, and then she sinks, beneath the weight of her guilty conscience very soon after her dreams were realized. But she retains enough of energy and self-controul, to refrain from giving utteranee to her griefs, whilst she is awake. Others have described her, as a fiend in human shape, the very incarnation of the evil one, as a woman in whom all the softer feelings were swallowed up in one ruling passion, one who far from feeling any emotion of tenderness when her husband returns from the wars; endeavours to plunge him into an abyss of guilt. Maebeth in whom the softer feelings were not yet extinct salutes her by the name of "my dearest love," but she has no such epithets at her command and she salutes him by "Great Glamis worthy Cawder, greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter." This is the opinion of Mr. Coleridge. For my own part, I do not believe that she was so fiendish as Mr. Coleridge says nor so good as Mrs. Jamieson, that all the softer feelings were not extinct in her heart, but only suspended for a temporary period when her imagination was heated, by the perusal of Macbeth's letter. Macbeth was like her ambitious of the regal chair, but was not so lost to all the nobler feelings of the human heart, to adopt her proposal (of murdering his benefacter,) without a mental struggle. But he was naturally a courageous man (whatever might be said in disparagement of his courage in comparison to Richard) and he does not sink after the deed is done. He dies like a brave man and shows his inherent valour even when all hope is lost, "Lay on Macduff and damned be he who first cries enough." With Lady Macbeth we have no sympathy, she died a death which she deserved. But we look upon Macbeth as a victim and pity him, even in his guilt. MOHENDRO LAUL SHOME, First Class, Hindu College. Answer to the Third Question.-If the murder of the king were immediately succeeded by my exaltation to royalty and if the train of the attendent dangers were at once intercepted, then it would have been desirable to put it speedily into execution; if by assassinating Duncan, I could stop the course of evils which should follow the perpetration of the deed and at once secure to myself the possession of the crown; if in this life, this narrow bank on the ocean of eternity, this shallow ford in the great sea of time, I could preserve myself from every thing dangerous to my happiness and security, then I would have been ready to set at nought the punishments of a future life and would have willingly accepted the earliest opportunity of accomplishing my purpose. But in these cases we are subjected to the punishment of earthly tribunals; that by murdering others we but teach others to murder ourself. This impartial justice, that which says, "blood will have blood" serves to present to our own lips the same poisoned cup which we prepare for |