and he, we suppose, could comprehend as little as we can the
reasoning of such a passage as the following, especially when it
proceeds from the pen of so wise and venerable a writer as Mr.
Hallam.

'A government administered with so frequent violations, not only of
the chartered privileges of Englishmen, but of those still more
sacred rights which natural law has established, must have been
regarded, one would imagine, with just abhorrence and earnest
longings for a change. Yet contemporary authorities by no means
answer this expectation. Some mention Henry after his death in
language of eulogy;' (not only Elizabeth, be it remembered, but
Cromwell also, always spoke of him with deepest respect; and their
language always found an echo in the English heart;) 'and if we
except those whom attachment to the ancient religion had inspired
with hatred to his memory, few seem to have been aware that his name
would descend to posterity among those of the many tyrants and
oppressors of innocence whom the wrath of Heaven has raised up, and
the servility of man endured.'

The names of even those few we should be glad to have; for it seems
to us that, with the exception of a few ultra-Protestants, who could
not forgive that persecution of the Reformers which he certainly
permitted, if not encouraged, during one period of his reign, no one
adopted the modern view of his character till more than a hundred
years after his death, when belief in all nobleness and faith had
died out among an ignoble and faithless generation, and the
scandalous gossip of such a light rogue as Osborne was taken into the
place of honest and respectful history.