country. These writers belonged to a party that had a powerful voice in framing the political institutions of the American people. They lived and flourished but a little more than a hundred years before the war of independence and the formation of the American constitution. The din of the great English rebellion and the rejoicings at its close had scarcely ceased to ring in men's ears, when our greater and more successful rebellion was inaugurated by men who had studied the writings of these great English radicals and had fully imbibed their spirit. Our statesmen knew the thoughts of Harrington and Hobbes and Milton, as we to-day know those of Washington, Adams, Hamilton, and Jefferson. John Adams was perfectly familiar with Harrington's Oceana and much influenced by its teachings, as his writings show us.

It has been supposed by many that the framers of our early political papers struck out some quite original thoughts — startling by their novelty as well as profound in their wisdom. The contrary is believed to have been the case. Instead of being originators, they were for the most part judicious copyists. Our own immortal constitution, when considered as to its specific provisions, is largely indebted to a judicious use of the scissors. Are its framers defining treason? They copy verbatim the words of an old English statute. Are they anxious to secure individual liberty? They copy from the English bill of rights. Are they concerned with the regulation of impeachments? They compliment the New York constitution of 1777 by incorporating its provisions with some special phrases of their own. In fact, they borrowed right and left, and so made up the splendid mosaic, called the United States constitution, emblazoned with all the insignia of liberty, and ornamented with the timehonored inscriptions of victory won from absolute power on many a hotly contested field, while all its parts are fitted together with an exquisite precision and with regard to its general effect. In one point it is defective, where it could gain little advantage from the lessons of an earlier political philosophy. That philosophy, as will be seen hereafter, affirmed that all political power resided with the people, but suggested no

adequate means of ascertaining its will in the supreme act of choosing an executive. A monarchy knows no means of settling a disputed succession but war. The great problem hitherto insoluble is, when the sovereign power rests with the people, and political parties are nearly balanced, to find out what machinery can be trusted to register correctly the votes for the executive head of the nation. The man who can invent and successfully introduce machinery of this kind, will certainly win the applause of his own generation, and may with reasonable expectation look forward to a political immortality.

The great political thinkers of the English commonwealth have had little or no recognition in England itself. When Charles II came to the throne, there was such a revulsion of feeling that liberal political thought was absolutely arrested. Cromwell's memory was execrated; Harrington's views were derided as those of an impracticable visionary; Milton hid himself in obscurity from a Parliament that would have imprisoned him if he had been visible. All the legislation of Cromwell and his associates ceased to have force. His name was omitted from the list of English rulers. To an English lawyer, Cromwell has no legal existence, Charles II having succeeded his father as king at the very moment of his execution. Cromwell was henceforward but a political nightmare. His was a name to conjure with and "fright the isle from its propriety." All over England he was "Noll" and "old Noll" in every variety of flunkey witticism which the scatter-brained courtiers of the time could invent. The head of the dead hero was placed on a pole over the very sanctuary of the law, Westminster Hall, in open derision of him who, more than any other Englishman of his time, had upheld the majesty of the law.

Americans, however, must learn to do justice to the great men to whom they owe so much. There is, doubtless, much rubbish in their writings. All this can readily be rejected, while the solid parts of their works richly merit attention. He who carefully studies them will be amply rewarded for his labor. Without further preface I shall bring forward some notes upon the life and political philosophy of Harrington. For

information concerning his life I am largely indebted to his enthusiastic biographer, John Toland.

James Harrington, who was born in January, 1611, was descended from an ancient and noble family. His great-grandfather, Sir James Harrington, was the ancestor of many noblemen, including dukes, marquises, earls, and barons. James was in early life a member of Oxford University, and a pupil of the great Dr. Chillingworth, whose works are in logic invincible and in style unreadable. Harrington was inclined to travel, and learned some of the principles of liberty in Holland, and gained culture by journeys in France and Italy. He very early exhibited a spirit of independence. He was present on one occasion when the pope of Rome was consecrating wax lights. Though he desired one greatly, on finding that he must kiss the pope's toe as a preliminary to receiving it, he declined it, saying that as he had kissed the king of England's hand, he thought it beneath him to kiss any other prince's foot. On his return from his travels, we find him quietly settled in England, the comfort of his friends and the charm of the domestic circle. We get some very pleasing glimpses of his character. He was eager to improve the education of his sisters, discoursing to them at large on the best mode of promoting their intellectual development as well as their religious sentiments and grace in manners. He was of a very liberal and compassionate nature, and could not endure to see a friend want anything that he might spare; and when the relief that was necessary exceeded the bounds of his estate, he persuaded his sisters not only to contribute themselves, but likewise to go about to the rest of their relatives to complete what was wanting. And if at any time they alleged that this bounty had been thrown away on ungrateful persons, he would answer with a smile that he saw they were mercenary, since they expected so great a return as gratitude.

It was such a man as this, having such engaging and lovable qualities, perhaps tinged with a slight melancholy, fond of study and not seeking after public employment, who was overtaken in his library and in the presence of his loving sisters and com

panions with the horrors of civil war. We first hear of him as involved in the troubles of 1646, when the Parliament commissioners, having the king in their custody, desired Harrington to wait upon his Majesty as a person known to him and connected with no party or faction. He made himself highly agreeable by his elegant and instructive conversation, except that when they happened to talk of a commonwealth, the king "seemed not to endure it"-as one well might suppose. Harrington never concealed his republican principles; but, republican as he was, he accompanied the king on the scaffold. He was evidently one of those good and noble men, found in every revolution, who at one and the same time are on the left of the party of the Right, and on the right of the party of the Left, without compromise of dignity or sacrifice of principle.

After the king's death, Harrington went to his library and in solitude worked upon his Oceana. It was his great and cardinal thought, that political institutions are not accidental or arbitrary, but rather of historic growth; and that there are natural causes in society which produce necessary effects in moulding and shaping institutions. He reasoned, accordingly, that the troubles of the time were not to be wholly attributed to wilfulness or faction, nor altogether to the mismanagement of the king, but rather to a silent change which had been going on in England for centuries in what he termed the balance of property, "which was daily falling into the scale of the commons from that of the king, until the scale of the latter had well-nigh kicked the beam." The king endeavored to govern, according to the methods of his predecessors, by levying arbitrary taxes and compulsory assessments, while the people were sure to struggle for preserving the property whereof they were in possession, never failing in every contest to obtain more privileges and to enlarge the basis of their liberty. This great proposition, that empire follows the balance of property, Harrington is said to have been the first to make out. His biographer, Toland, in enthusiastic strain, pronounces it a noble discovery, equal to that of the circulation of the blood, or of printing, or of the mariner's compass. His great purpose, and

the object of his book, was to find out a mode of restoring the equilibrium, and to establish such orders and regulations in the state as "to make wicked men virtuous and fools to act wisely” — kind and benevolent enthusiast! While the printers were at work at his book, Cromwell's superserviceable adherents, thinking there might be something in it opposed to the Lord Protector's interest, had it seized, and conveyed it to the residence at Whitehall. Harrington invoked the good offices of Lady Claypole, Cromwell's favorite daughter, and by her interposition the book was speedily restored to him. In fact, Cromwell's friends had no reason for their suspicion. The work was dedicated to him with large-voiced praise. When he read it, he said, perhaps with a civil smile of contempt, that the gentleman would like to trepan him out of his power, but that what he got by the sword he would not quit for a little paper shot; and that while he disliked one-man power himself, he was only acting as a high constable to preserve the peace of the nation among the several parties.

He

After the restoration of Charles II, Harrington lived in a retired manner, as a person bound to no party or faction. occupied himself in setting forth his political principles in other forms of expression, and particularly in reducing them to aphorisms. It was, however, a sin at this time to have been a republican. He was committed to the Tower of London, December 28, 1661, as having been engaged in treasonable practices. He begged delay for a few moments, that he might stick together the sheets of his Aphorisms; and then, without time to take leave of his inconsolable sisters, he was hurried to his place of confinement. Here he was long imprisoned without apparent cause, subjected to inquisitorial examinations without his tormentors finding anything against him except the theories in his writings. His health suffered under his confinement. He was finally released by a warrant from the king, but not until his faculties had become disordered. About the same time his fellow-republican Milton was suffering extreme sorrow on account of his blindness, and sung the solemn words, fitted also to the case of Harrington: