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Mr. Orme supposes, without any direct evidence, that Dr. Owen was the author of the petition of Colonel Mason, pre sented in the House of Commons, against the assumption of the royal titles and prerogatives on the part of Cromwell; and ascribes to this patriotic act the diminution of his influence at Court. There is a degree of mystery connected with this part of the Dean's biography which it is not easy to remove; and, perhaps, the step which he took in co-operation with Desborough and Fleetwood in opposing the ambitious projects of the Lord Protector, was the effect rather than the cause of his cold reception at Whitehall. There is some ground for imagining that the presbyterian interest was again on the increase among the leading men of the council, as well as for concluding that had Cromwell once got himself securely seated on the throne, he would have strengthened his administration by establishing a church on a more regular footing than Independency admits of. This hypothesis likewise enables us to account for the fact that most of the preferments in the University of Oxford, whilst Cromwell was chancellor, were bestowed upon Presbyterians; a line of policy which has been viewed by the enemies of Owen as a proof that, though he had found it expedient to join the Independents, he was in reality a Presbyterian at heart; and which, with as little reason, has been represented by his friends as an evidence of uncommon liberality. At all events, in the course of the same year in which Cromwell displayed so strikingly the towering nature, of his ambition and the pliant character of his profound hypocrisy, in dé clining to accept a crown for which he sighed in secret, and to obtain which had been the main object of his open aets and his hidden counsels, he actually resigned the chancellorship of Oxford in favour of Richard his eldest son. In six weeks, the new chancellor dismissed Dr. Owen from the vicarious duty which he held in the university, and appointed Dr. John Conant, a presbyterian and Rector of Exeter College in his room.

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Mr. Orme favours his readers with a long chapter on the state of the university when Owen became vice-chancellor, as, well as on the improvement which took place in it during his official superintendence; containing at the same time a catalogue of the learned men who flourished in the several colleges, in consequence of his wise and liberal administration. We are not disposed to deny that Dr. Owen was both himself a scholar and an encourager of learning in others, and that the general condition of things was much improved whilst he directed the concerns of that dis

tinguished seat of literature, loyalty, and orthodoxy. But in regard to most of the names which figure in the list now before us, their eminence in science and philology had no closer a relation to the measures of the vice-chancellor than to the policy of the grand vizier at the Court of Constantinople. The polyglot of Walton, for example, the proudest monument of English erudition, sprung from the persecution rather than from the patronage of the times in which it was brought forward; for it was whilst the learned churchmen connected with it were excluded from the official duties of their order that they devoted their leisure to that celebrated work. It may seem paradoxical to assert, that the distinguished proficiency in oriental learning to which many of the English Clergy had attained about that period was owing to the countenance bestowed by James the First on that description of philology, and even to the example which he was so eager to supply in his own person. To him, however, who reads the literary history of that age with' due attention, many facts will present themselves to fortify! the opinion which we have now ventured give.

S The biographer of Dr. Owen labours sedulously to acquit him of having had any share in the strange scene which, on the authority of Burnet, is said to have passed immediately after the death of the Protector.

"Tillotson told me," says the Bishop of Salisbury, "that a week after Cromwell's death, he by accident being at Whitehall, and hearing that there was to be a fast that day in the household, out of curiosity, went into the presence chamber where it was held. On one side of a table, Richard with the rest of Cromwell's family was placed, and six of the preachers were on the other side. Thomas Goodwin, Owen, Caryl and Sterry were of the number. There he heard a great deal of strange stuff, enough to disgust a man for ever of that enthusiastic boldness. God was, as it were, reproached with Cromwell's services, and challenged for taking him away so soon. Goodwin, who had pretended to assure them in a prayer that he was not to die, which was but a very few minutes before he expired, had now the impudence to say Thou hast deceived us and we were deceived.' Sterry praying for Richard, used these indecent words. Make him the brightness of his father's glory and the express image of his person'."

3

The authenticity of the anecdote is called in question by our> author, who is willing to ascribe its original circulation to the credulity and gossiping turn of Bishop Burnet. He is besides perfectly satisfied that Owen was not present, from the circumstance that "nothing is put into his mouth;" a reason for septicism which, if it be admissible at all, will

prove that neither Caryl nor Richard nor any other individual was there but the two whose ravings are recorded.

Among the first acts of Richard's government was the summoning of a parliament, which met on the 27th of January 1659; and on the 4th of February following we find Owen preaching before it at a private fast. From the dedication to the House (he omits the name of Richard) it appears that some false reports had been circulated about the sentiments of the discourse, respecting forms of civil government; and the events which followed give some countenance to the suspicion that the Dean of Christ Church had not forgotten his dismission from the office of Vice-chancellor. It has been said again and again that Dr. Owen was one of the principal instruments by whom the son of Cromwell was compelled to relinquish the reins of government, and that he had previously to this event united his interest with those of the Wallingford-House party who wished to perpetuate the form of a Commonwealth. Fleetwood and Desborough, who were the heads of that party, are said to have invited Dr. Owen and Dr. Manton to share in their consultations. Before they entered on business Dr. Owen went to prayer, but Manton, who was too late, in going heard a loud voice from within saying, He must down, and he shall down. Manton knew the voice to be Owen's and understood him to mean the deposing of Richard, and therefore would not enter the apartment.

Neal, Baxter, and Calamy, unite in holding the opinion that Manton's conjecture was founded on fact, and that Owen was at that moment urging the necessity of setting Richard aside, and of restoring the regime of the Long Parliament. Owen afterwards indirectly denied that he had any hand in deposing Richard, and for want of proper evidence the guilt or the merit of that proceeding cannot be positively affixed to the name of the ex-vice-chancellor, as Mr. Orme calls him. The event, however, appears to corroborate the testimony of those who maintain that the downfall of Richard had been determined in the consultations held at Wallingford-House. The following day, the Protector's parliament was dissolved, and his power brought to a close. The remains of the Rump were collected to re-establish the vigour of republicanism; but the sense of the nation at large was opposed to the continuance of a state of things which combined tyranny with licentiousness, and placed the lives, the liberty, and the fortunes of this great country at the hazard of democratical cupidity.

VOL. XXI. FEB. 1824.

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Owen, it is clear, was very active in restoring the Long Parliament. Richard was known to favour the Presbyterians: the Independents took the alarm for the safety of religion and religious liberty and the only hope they had was in the resuscitation of the old spirit which apostrophized the God of Naseby and of Marston-moor. It was alleged among the republicans that there was not a sufficient number of members still surviving to make or form a parliament. "Upon this," says Ludlow, "Dr. Owen having desired me to give him a list of their names, I gave him one, wherein I had marked those who had sat in the house since the year 1648, and were yet alive, amounting to the number of about 160. The Doctor having perused it carried it to those of Wallingford-House."

Dr. Owen preached before parliament for the last time on the 8th of May 1659, being the second day after it had met. In the month of August following the congregational churches in London desired leave to raise three regiments for the parliament, and obtained its consent to do so; they had, says Mr. Orme become exceedingly alarmed for their liberties. Monk had been for some time playing a part; he had formerly acted with the Independents, and now seemed disposed to support the Presbyterians. Owen wrote to this general who was at this time in Scotland, and dispatched Caryl and Barker to wait on him at the palace of HolyroodHouse. The commissioners however could make nothing of Monk. He had been bred in the same school with themselves, and could play off upon them their own artillery of deceit and hypocritical profession. He sent them back with a letter full of compliment and specious promise, whilst he prosecuted his own ends and promoted a separate interest. He commenced his march southward; upon which the Independents offered once more to stand by their friends in parliament, and to force back Monk into Scotland. Owen and Nye had frequent interviews with Whitelock and St. John; aud at a private treaty with the officers at Wallingford-House, offered to raise one hundred thousand pounds for the use of the army, provided it would protect them in their religious liberties, now threatened by Monk and the Presbyterians. But the hour of deliberation was already past. The northern army advanced, and the cause for which the General had undertaken his march was placed beyond the risk of failure.

The first moment of success was one of triumph for the Presbyterians. The deanery of Christ Church was restored to Dr. Reynolds, whilst Owen and Goodwin were no longer

allowed to occupy the pulpit of St. Mary's. The tide ran hard against the Independents; and Dr. Owen their leader after having attempted to plunge the nation into a second civil war, retired to reflect on the incidents of his past life, and to pursue the peaceful studies which, in an evil day, he had been induced to relinquish.

"Thus," says Mr. Orme, "terminated Dr. Owen's connexions with the Commonwealth, and with the public politics of his time. That they never proved a snare to him or involved him in conduct and discussions foreign from the business of the christian ministry, I am unable to affirm. If he could not keep himself entirely unspotted from the world, or at all times justly avoid its censure, we have only to remember what he himself would have been the first to confess, that he was a sinful fallible creature who made no claim to perfection."

One half of Mr. Orme's book is occupied with tedious commentaries on the numerous and very unreadable books written from time to time by Dr. Owen. His work on the Hebrews still maintains a certain degree of reputation among biblical students; and some of his fanatical treatises are still used by the pious of all communions to warm their devotion or to revive in their minds the proper objects of worship. But his polemical and controversial tracts are no longer of any value in the eye of the theological student, as being for the most part carelessly or clumsily composed, and filled with topics of a personal or transient interest, which at this day are neither instructive nor altogether intelligible.

Dr. Owen lived twenty-three years after the Restoration, maintaining a good name in his own connexion, and occasionally edifying the world at large with his learning and seriousness. His friends chuse to assert that he would have been received into the bosom of the Establishment, had he made the smallest concessions in point of doctrine and ecclesiastical order. If Dr. Owen declined preferment from the government of Charles the Second, he consulted wisely for his reputation; for no man could twice run with impunity the course of apostasy and fickleness through which he had already passed. He lived in evil times; but as his object from the outset appears to have been personal influence and aggrandizement, no man knew better than he how to avail himself of the confusion into which the public mind was thrown, and to place himself in the current which flowed towards political power, wealth, and consideration. refused nothing that was ever offered to him, and relinquished nothing as long as he could hold it: like all the adventurers of his age he talked about the other world

He