Passing by the "Telemachus" of Fenelon, we come to the political romance
of Harrington, written in the time of Cromwell. "Oceana" is the name by
which the author represents England; and the republican plan of
government which he describes with much minuteness is such as he would
have recommended for adoption in case a free commonwealth had been
established. It deals somewhat severely with Cromwell's usurpation; yet
the author did not hesitate to dedicate it to that remarkable man, who,
after carefully reading it, gave it back to his daughter, Lady Claypole,
with the remark, full of characteristic bluntness, that "the gentleman
need not think to cheat him of his power and authority; for what he had
won with the sword he would never suffer himself to be scribbled out of."

Notwithstanding the liberality and freedom of his speculations upon
government and religion in his Utopia, it must be confessed that Sir
Thomas More, in after life, fell into the very practices of intolerance
and bigotry which he condemned. When in the possession of the great seal
under that scandal of kingship, Henry VIII., he gave his countenance to
the persecution of heretics. Bishop Burnet says of him, that he caused a
gentleman of the Temple to be whipped and put to the rack in his
presence, in order to compel him to discover those who favored heretical
opinions. In his Utopia he assailed the profession of the law with
merciless satire; yet the satirist himself finally sat upon the
chancellor's woolsack; and, as has been well remarked by Horace Smith,
"if, from this elevated seat, he ever cast his eyes back upon his past
life, he must have smiled at the fond conceit which could imagine a
permanent Utopia, when he himself, certainly more learned, honest, and
conscientious than the mass of men has ever been, could in the course of
one short life fall into such glaring and frightful rebellion against his
own doctrines."

Harrington, on the other hand, as became the friend of Milton and Marvel,
held fast, through good and evil report, his republican faith. He
published his work after the Restoration, and defended it boldly and ably
from the numerous attacks made upon it. Regarded as too dangerous an
enthusiast to be left at liberty, he was imprisoned at the instance of
Lord Chancellor Hyde, first in the Tower, and afterwards on the Island of
St. Nicholas, where disease and imprudent remedies brought on a partial
derangement, from which he neve