political viewpoints, becomes a valuable and self-
correcting source of information.

The limitations of the material, however, are
great. After one has recorded the obtainable
facts of the Leveller movement, he feels he has
told what we may know of it, rather than what
we should like to know. In the following chapters
John Lilburne is assigned a greater space than
probably his comparative importance in his party
would justify; but the surviving material naturally
groups itself around his robust and active personal-
ity. We can only conjecture who devised the
ideas, the manifestos, the machinery of the Level-
ler party; but we know that John Lilburne was
the Leveller incarnate. In his doings and his
martyrdoms for principle John Lilburne illustrated
and popularized the ideas of the Levellers.

The method of treatment may appear unduly
partial to the Levellers. In spirit the work is
frankly an appreciation, although a prepossession
in favor of the Levellers has not hindered the
fair statement of any evidence to their discredit
at all worthy of consideration. From the days
of the Levellers themselves down to the present
time hostile comments have been frequent. Im-
partial estimates of their part in the political
struggle of the English Revolution may be found
in modern historians. Here the attempt is to
show what is best in the men and in their ideals;
to indicate the contribution they made to the
world's political ideas.

-6-