bition seems to have been to be
"knit to God by a personal union," to have "the {271} dayspring in his
own heart," and to be taught in "the heavenly Academy--the High School of
Experience."[16]

II

The story of Sir Harry Vane's life, adequately told, would involve the
entire history of the great epoch of the Commonwealth. Next to Cromwell,
he was the most influential shaper of events from the time of the meeting
of the Long Parliament in 1640 until his "retirement" on the occasion of
the expulsion of the members of Parliament in 1653. In his views of
constitutional government and of human liberty he was one of the most
original and one of the most modern men of the seventeenth century.
Richard Baxter, who had no love for Vane, is only stating an actual fact
when he says: "To most of our changes he was that within the House that
Cromwell was without."[17] Clarendon, who loved him still less, said of
him: "He was indeed a man of extraordinary parts, a pleasant wit, a great
understanding which pierced into and discerned the purposes of men with
wonderful sagacity."[18] What Milton thought of him he has told in one
of the noblest sonnets that a poet ever wrote on a great statesman:

Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old,
Than whom a better senator ne'er held
The helm of Rome, when gowns not arms repelled
The fierce Epirot and the African bold:
Whether to settle peace, or to unfold
The drift of hollow states hard to be spelled,
Then to advise how war may best upheld
Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold,
In all her equipage; besides to know
Both spiritual power and civil, what each means,
What severs each, thou hast learned, which few have done:
The bounds of either sword to thee we owe;
Therefore on thy firm hand religion leans
In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.[19]

{272}

Vane was quite naturally selected at the Restoration as one of the actors
in the historical drama who could not be allowed to live any longer. The
day after Vane's trial began, Charles II. wrote to Clarendon: "He is too
dangerous a man to let live, if we can honestly put him out of the
way."[20] His death brought out the loftiest traits of his character,
and gave him a touch of beauty and glory of character which for posterity
has done much to cover the flaws and defects which were not lacking in
him. "In all things," writes Pepys, who saw everything in those days,
"he appeared the