ant prince; while the so-called Protestant statesmen were in league with Rome. He raised his banner against the Vatican, declared his side and his convictions, and made the tyrants and the diplomatists of Europe quail and shrink before the shadow of his power and the terror of his name. In the history of Protestantism, he occupies the distinguished place in the very foreground. That we are entitled to say thus much of him, is proved by a reference to his own words, as well as to the better evidence of his deeds. | But where the space is so brief, we must yet give a few swift glances into the inner life of this great heart-the domestic life. He has been assailed here too. We love to look at Cromwell after the hard, scarred face and the strong-mailed hand have revealed themselves. We love to think of him as husband, father, grandfather, and master of a family. His letters reveal all," says Elliot Waberton, when he mentions the discovery of the letters of Charles I., after Naseby, and the perfidy they revealed, transforming ever after the phrase, "On the word of a king," into the synonym of a lie. Says that lively but prejudiced writer: "If all the letters of the dark Cromwell could have been opened, what would they have revealed?" Well, they all have been discovered, all have been opened; and we suppose never in the history of man has there been presented such a transparent wholeness. It is one mirror of simple nobleness; every little note, and every family epistle, and every letter to the State officers, all reveal the same man. "A single eye, and a whole body full of light." Of course, in his letters as in his speeches, he says no more than he has to say; he never labors for any expression. He is not a man who can use a flowing, imaginative diction. His words are strong, stiff, unbendable beings, but they convey a meaning, and speak out a full determined heart. Nor must we fail to glance at the sea. During the time of Charles, pirates infested our own coast, scoured Devonshire and the Channel. Beneath the Protectorate things were speedily amended. The guns of the enemy rolled no more round the British Coast till Cromwell was dead and Charles Stuart came back; and then, indeed, even London herself heard them thundering up the Medway and the Thames. Turks, pirates, and corsairs, these were swept away, of course; but in those days Spain itself was but a kingdom of robbers and buccaneers. Waves of old golden romance-what imagination does not kindle over the stories of the Spanish main? The power of Spain was there; Spain, the bloodiest power of Europe; Spain, the land of the Inquisition; Spain, the disgraced, degraded; land of every superstition against her Cromwell declared war. Alliance with France, hostil- The great crime you have with Cromity to Spain, and we know how the im- well in his household is that it is too Purimortal Blake and his fire-ships scoured tanical; that is, that it is a consistent, rethose distant seas. That great Sea-king! ligious home. Say what you will, he knew Do we not remember the action of the nothing of those temporizing policies by Port of Santa Cruz, beneath the Peak of which in the present day we argue that Teneriffe? the thundering whirlwinds of great place must accommodate itself to fire and flying iron hail? sixteen war-ships, the world and to the world's ways. We full of silver, all safely moored, as it have pictures given to us of his household. seemed, in that grand castellated and un- Upon the occasion of the signing of the assailable bay; the whole eight castles, a treaty of peace with Holland, the ambasvery Sebastopol there. See Blake enter- sador gives an account of his reception at ing beneath that living thunder, all starting the Protector's Court. How calm, and from its sleep; see him with his ships quiet, and dignified the account of that silencing the castles, sinking the mighty reception! Music, indeed, was playing gun-ships, and sailing quietly forth from while they were dining; but after that the Santa Cruz Bay again. Those were the Protector gave out a hymn; and as he days, too, in which Oliver possessed Eng-handed the book to the ambassador, he land of Jamaica, and asserted the right of England, too, in those seas. It was thus that his Highness grappled with the Spanish Antichrist; and it must be admitted that Spanish Antichrist has never been, from the day of Cromwell to this hour, what it was before. told him "that was the best paper that had passed between them as yet." Dignified and beautiful is the account of the gentle behavior of the Protector to the wife and daughter of the ambassador. Then, after a walk on the banks of the river for half an hour, the prayers in the family; and so the evening closed; very much, indeed, such a simple evening as we might spend together. Cromwell well knew what of ceremony to abate and to retain. "Ceremony keeps up all things," said John Selden. We can see through it. True; so you can see through the glass, "the penny glass which holds some rich essence or refined water; but without the frail glass, the essence, the real value, would be lost." We may have too little ceremony as well as too much It does not matter much, but we do rather like our servant to tap at our study-door before coming in. We do not care about her handing our letters on a silver salver. When ambassadors crowded Cromwell's Court from all the States of Europe, some of them, in deference to the usualities of royalty, desired to kiss his hand; but, with manly dignity, he retired back two or three steps higher to his throne, bowed to the deputation, and so closed the audience. A man, we see, who will not bate an inch of his nation's dignity, nor wear more than his manhood for his own. Shall we say how he defended learning and scholarship? He had a wonderfully omniscient eye for the discovery of great men; not merely great generals or great statesmen, but for every kind of learning and scholarship. We know that his two secretaries were John Milton and Andrew Marvell. We know that he sought the friendship of Baxter. When he first met with Dr. Owen he said, "Sir, you are the person I must be acquainted with," and took him by the hand, and led him into the garden. And Howe held a long conversation with him. How graciously and kindly he listened to George Fox when he spoke, too, desiring to see and to talk with him again. He surrounded his house and table with the holiest and most scholarly men of his time. He committed the University of Oxford to Owen. We know what it was when he went there. We know that scholarship was expelled; that it was the haunt of Comus and his crew; and we know what he made it. It is known to you that the Biblia Polyglotta Waltoni is the most valuable and important biblical book ever issued from the British press. It was a most precious compendium of Scriptural criticism and interpretation. Every thing of that kind previously attempted had been performed for the Catholic Church, and at the expense of Catholic princes. No Protestant prince had ever been able to undertake such a work. Dr. Owen at first opposed it, looked upon it with suspicion. It is very characteristic that Cromwell, respecting Owen as he did, encouraged it, assisted in defraying the expense of publishing it, admitted five thousand reams of paper free of duty. It was published during the Protectorate, dedicated to Cromwell. But its mean and dastardly compiler, upon the return of Charles Stuart, erased the dedication to the man who had so substantially aided him, and inserted that of the King, who cared neither for the project, its scholarship, nor the Bible. A Death threw his shadow over Oliver's palace before he broke in. The following of Thurloe is touching: "My Lord Protector's mother, of ninety-four years old, died last night. A little before her death she gave my lord her blessing in these words: The Lord cause his face to shine upon you, and comfort you in all your adversities, and enable you to do great things for the glory of your most high God, and to be a relief unto his people. My dear son, I leave my heart with thee. good night.'" "Taken from the evil to come.' One is glad she went first, before the great change. Then his heart was shaken by the death of the Lady Elizabeth, his beloved daughter, Mrs. Claypole. This broke down his heart. Her long illness; his tenderness as father so extreme; his constant watching by her side, the spectator of her violent convulsive fits: the strong soldier, who had ridden his war-charger conquering over so many fields, bowed before the blow when her death came. And, therefore, only a few days after, when he was seized with illness at Hamp ton Court, he felt that it was for death; and that death-bed is one of the most profoundly memorable, even as that life was one of the most illustrious and glorious. But it was more than the death-bed of a hero; it was the death-bed of a Christian. In that death-chamber prayers- deep, powerful, long-went up, and men sought to lay hold on God that he might spare him; but, says one, "We could not be more desirous he should abide than he was content and willing to be gone." He called for his Bible, and desired an honorable and godly person there, with others present, to read unto him that passage in Phil. 4: 11: "Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, there with to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.' Which read, said he, to use his own words as near as we can remember them: "This Scripture did once save my life, when my eldest son, poor Oliver, died, which went as a dagger to my heart, indeed it did." And then, repeating the words of the text himself, and reading the tenth and eleventh verses, of Paul's contentment, and submission to the will of God in all conditions, said he "It's true, Paul, you have learned this, and attained to this measure of grace; but what shall I do? Ah! poor creature, it is a hard lesson for me to take out! find it so." But reading on to the thirteenth verse, where Paul saith, "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me," then faith began to work, and his heart to find support and comfort, and he said thus to himself, "He that was Paul's Christ is my Christ too;" and so drew water out of the wells of salvation. 6 foundations of this world, earlier than they, and more lasting than they! "Look also at the following; dark hues and bright; immortal light beams strug gling amid the black vapors of death. Look, and conceive a great sacred scene, the sacredest this world sees-and think of it; do not speak of it in these mean days which have no sacred word. 'Is there none that says, Who will deliver me from the peril ?' moaned he once. Many hearts are praying, O wearied one! Man can do nothing,' rejoins he; 'God can do what he will.' Another time, again thinking of the covenant: Is there none that will come and praise God, whose mercies endure forever?' "Here also are ejaculations caught up at intervals, undated, in those final days: I'Lord, thou knowest, if I do desire to live, it is to show forth thy praise and declare thy works!' Once he was heard saying: 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! This was spoken three times,' says Maidston, his repetitions usually being very weighty, and with great vehemency of spirit." Thrice over he said this, looking into the eternal kingdoms. But again: 'All the promises of God are in HIM yea, and in him amen; to the glory of God by us, by us in Jesus Christ.' "The Lord hath filled me with as much assurance of his pardon and his love as my soul can hold.' 'I think I am the poorest wretch that lives; but I love God, or rather am beloved of God.' 'I am a conqueror, and more than conqueror, through Christ that a strengtheneth me!" "Oliver, we find," says Carlyle, "spoke much of the covenants, which, indeed, are the grand axis of all, in that Puritan universe of his. Two covenants; one of works, with fearful judgment for our shortcomings therein, one of grace, with unspeakable mercy; gracious engagements, covenants which the eternal God has vouchsafed to make with his feeble creature man. Two-and by Christ's death they have become one-there for Oliver is the Divine solution of this our mystery of life. They were two,' he was heard ejaculating-two, but put into one before the foundation of the world!' And again: It is holy and true, it is holy and true, it is holy and true! Who made it holy and true? The Mediator of the covenant.' And again: The covenant is but one. Faith in the covenant is my only support, and, if I believe not, he abides faithful.' When his children and wife stood weeping round him, he said: 'Love "Lord, although I am a wretched and not this world.' 'I say unto you, it is miserable creature, I am in covenant with not good that you should love this world!' thee through grace, and I may, I will, No. 'Children, live like Christians; I come unto thee for my people. Thou hast leave you the covenant to feed upon!' made me a mean instrument to do them Yes, my brave one, even so. The covesome good, and thee service; and many nant, and eternal soul of covenants, remains of them have set too high a value upon sure to all the faithful; deeper than theme, though others wish and would be VOL. LVII.-NO. 4 On the thirtieth of August, however, (having in the interim been removed from Hampton Court to Whitehall,) he had so far changed his sentiments as to think it necessary to declare his eldest son, Richard, his successor in the Protectorate. And, on the evening before his departure, in the same doubtful temper of mind, though still greatly supported by his enthusiasm, he uttered the following prayer: 31 glad of my death. But, Lord, however thou dost dispose of me, continue to go on and do good for them. Give them consistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual love; and go on to deliver them, and with the work of reformation, and make the name of Christ glorious in the world. Teach those who look too much upon thy instruments, to depend more upon thyself. Pardon such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are thy people too and pardon the folly of this short prayer for Jesus Christ his sake, and give us a good night if it be thy pleasure." It was the third of September, 1658, the anniversary of his famous battles of Dunbar and Worcester; a day always celebrated by rejoicings in honor of these important victories. When the sun rose Oliver was speechless, and between three and four o'clock in the afternoon he expired. God shattered all his strength on this festival of his glory and his triumphs. The sorrow of the Protector's friends and of the majority of the nation can not be described. "The consternation and astonishment of all people," wrote Fauconberg to Henry Cromwell, " are inexpressible their hearts seem as if sunk within them. And if it was thus abroad, your lordship may imagine what it was in the family of his Highness and other near relations. My poor wife, [Mary, Oliver's third daughter, I know not what in the earth to do with her. When seemingly quieted she bursts out again into passion that tears her very heart in. pieces; nor can I blame her, considering what she has lost. It fares little better with others. God, I trust, will sanctify this bitter cup to us all." "I am not able to speak or write," said Thurloe. "This stroke is so sore, so unexpected, the providence of God in it so stupendous, considering the person that has fallen, the time and season wherein God took him away, with other circumstances, I can do nothing but put my mouth in the dust and say, It is the Lord. It is not to be said what affliction the army and people show to his late Highness his name is already precious. Never was there any man so prayed for." "Hush! poor weeping Mary," says Carlyle, after reading the foregoing ex"Here is a life-battle right nobly done. Seest thou not"The storm is changed into a calm At his command and will; tract. So that the waves which raged before, "Then are they glad, because at rest, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." Blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord. "Amen, saith the Spirit"-Amen! They "rest from their labors, and their works do follow them." And what is the verdict upon all these amazing faculties of mind? Mr. Forster says: "They failed in their mission upon earth." Failed! then Gustavus at Lutzen failed; then every martyr in every age has failed. No! we will not call that life a failure. It was success; it was success in itself, and in what followed it. Cromwell has been called the armed soldier of democracy. No, he was not that; he was the armed soldier of Puritanism. His knighthood was religious; and if you judge him accurately, he bears just the same relation to the consolidation and settlement of our Constitution that William the Conqueror bears to the consolidation and settlement of feudalism. Oliver, the Conqueror in himself, and what he marks; that is, an epoch in development of English law. Cromwell was the greatest and most illustrions instance of reaction, in the great and rising middle-class, against feudal tyranny. The contest was carried on between the King and his people alone. In other and not less deserving agitations, the cause of tyranny had received aid from neighboring monarchs: in this case the battle was fought by the representatives of the soil alone. The struggles of the Netherlands, beneath leaders whose power, and eloquence, and sagacity, have been the subjects of romance and poetry, from that time to this hour, were unsuccessful; but not unsuccessful were we. It is mournful that every chapter of constitutional law has been inaugurated by the sword. The sword of Cromwell alone gave victory to the people over the King in the first days of the contest. Had not those victories been obtained, this land would have been at the feet of a cold and cruel tyrant. The King's nature was so well known, that his friends dreaded a victory upon his side. The country would have been one wide-spread scene of decimation and attainder. Victory on the banners of Charles would have sealed | ushering in a new race of English kings. the enslavement of our land for long ages. True, as Rufus or Henry Beauclerc seemWhen the will of the King became the ed to carry England no further in the tyrannizer of the country, and over the career of progress than before the Norman whole population of the land there seem- accession, so in the mad cruelty of the ed to be no hope for enfranchisement or succeeding kings to Cromwell, all seemed escape, then Cromwell arose; as Prince lost. But no! He was the breakwater Arthur by the side of the enchanted lake of tyranny. By his Parliament we have beheld suddenly arise the hand bearing seen he amended English representation. the sword, the good sword Excalibur. So He held aloft in his hand the charter to law was beaten down. When, in Church guide, he knew he could not give. Show and State, spread one wide waste-wave us almost any act of legislative greatness, of desolation, then, out of the ranks of the and we will show it you as anticipated by people, arose Cromwell. You may re- Cromwell. Of course, there was a wild fuse his monument a niche in the House outbreak and outcry when Charles came of Lords; you may allow his name to be from Dover to London, and blazing bonfires, cast out: it matters not; he marks an era and maypoles, and fire-works, and garlands, in the history of English law. In the next inaugurating a new despotism; not the desgeneration the tide of tyranny rose again, potism of God and goodness, not the desand beat in storms upon the people: it potism of power and majesty, but the desmatters not. William I. does not more potism of lust and licentiousness, of cruelsurely mark an epoch in the history of ty and cowardice, of fraud and intolerEngland than Cromwell does; his memory ance, of Nell Gwynne, and Castlemaine, and his name tower aloft over the ages. and Portsmouth; and good men gave up Read his deeds, and you will find that, all for lost. But that royal monarch while he conquered, he defined the new whose bones had been insulted, and whose and enlarged limits of English representa- memory had been cursed, he was not tion. He conquered Great Britain and dead. Even Clarendon was compelled to Ireland, and united both in one peaceful contrast his royal master with that ungargovernment. He indicated the destiny of nished throne; and men who, like Baxthe West-Indies. A born child of justice ter, had only irritated, and annoyed, and and of rectitude, he glanced along all the weakened, by their bilious maundering, headlands of unrighteousness, and declared his government, threw back glances of sadtheir corruption and their ruin. He shiv-ness to those days, and thought and spoke ered absolutism, while making himself the most absolute prince. He broke the wand of feudalism, and cast it into the deep sea. We will leave him now. They gave him a magnificent funeral in the old abbey, where they had buried Blake and the Protector's mother. But when Charles Stuart returned, the bodies were taken up and buried at Tyburn, the head of Cromwell exposed over Westminster Hall. The dastards and the fools! But, after all, it is not certain that the body buried in the abbey was his body. In a rare old volume we have, one hundred and sixty years old, it is confidently asserted, on the au thority of the nurse of Cromwell, that he was privately buried by night in the Thames, in order to avert the indignities it was foreseen would be wreaked on his body; and this by his own direction. Other rumors assign another spot to his burial. Ah! well, it matters little. We know where his work is, and how far that is buried. We see him standing there, of their lost happiness with a sigh. But the shadow of the great Protector was over the land still. Tear him limb from limbbehead him-affix his head to any gibbet you can not get rid of his work so. Fail! "They never fail who die in a great cause. The block may soak their gore, Their head be strung to city gates or castlewalls, But still their spirit walks abroad." As the mad voluptuary rode down to the House, did he never gaze up to that head he believed to be his powerful conqueror's, and see in the scowl of the skeleton-scull the avenging genius of the country, whose holy altars he had profaned, and whose rights he had outraged? The mind of Cromwell was abroad, and the genius of freedom, as represented by him, conquered once more. But now, for the present, we leave him to our imagination, calm in his uncrowned royalty and majesty; surrounded by his |