which he was threatened. The council was alarmed. A dep utation was sert to know his will with regard to his successor His senses were gone, and he could not now express his intentions. They asked him whether he did not mean that his eldest son, Richard, should succeed him in the protectorship. A simple affirmative was, or seemed to be, extorted from him. Soon after, on the third of September, that very day which he had always considered as the most fortunate for him, he expired. A violent tempest, which immediately succeeded his death, served as a subject of discourse to the vulgar. His partisans, as well as his enemies, were fond of remarking this event; and each of them endeavored, by forced inferences, to interpret it as a confirmation of their particular prejudices.

The writers attached to the memory of this wonderful person, make his character, with regard to abilities, bear the air of the most extravagant panegyric: his enemies form such a representation of his moral qualities as resembles the most virulent invective. Both of them, it must be confessed, are supported by such striking circumstances in his conduct and fortune, as bestow on their representation a great air of probability. "What can be more extraordinary," it is said,* "than that a person of private birth and education, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which have sometimes, nor shining talents of mind, which have often, raised men to the highest dignities, should have the courage to attempt, and the abilities to execute, so great a design as the subverting one of the most ancient and best established monarchies in the world? That he should have the power and boldness to put his prince and master to an open and infamous death? Should banish that numerous and strongly allied family? Cover all these temerities under a seeming obedience to a parliament, in whose service he pretended to be retained? Trample, too, upon that parliament in their turn, and scornfully expel them as soon as they gave him ground of dissatisfaction? Erect in their place the dominion of the saints, and give reality to the most visionary idea which the heated imagination of any fanatic was ever able to entertain? Suppress again that monster in its infancy, and openly set up himself above all chings that ever were called sovereign in England? Overcome first all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice? Serve all parties patiently for a while, and

Cowley's Discourses. This passage is altered in some particulars from the original.

command them victoriously at last? Overrun each corner of .he three nations, and subdue, with equal facility, both the riches of the south and the poverty of the north? Be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and be adopted a orother to the gods of the earth? Call together parliaments with a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of his mouth? Reduce to subjection a warlike and discontented nation, by means of a mutinous army? Command a mutinous army by means of seditious and factious officers ? Be humbly and daily petitioned, that he would be pleased, at the rate of millions a year, to be hired as master of those who had hired him before to be their servant? Have the estates and lives of three nations as much at his disposal as was once the little inheritance of his father, and be as noble and liberal in the spending of them? And lastly, (for there is no end of enumerating everg particular of his glory,) with one word bequeath all this power and splendor to his posterity? Die possessed of peace at home and triumph abroad?

Be buried

among kings, and with more than regal solemnity; and leave a name behind him not to be extinguished but with the whole world; which as it was too little for his praise, so might it have been for his conquests, if the short line of his mortal life could have stretched out to the extent of his immortal designs?"

My intention is not to disfigure this picture, drawn by so masterly a hand: I shall only endeavor to remove from it somewhat of the marvellous; a circumstance which, on all occasions, gives much ground for doubt and suspicion. It seems to me, that the circumstance of Cromwell's life in which his abilities are principally discovered, is his rising from a private station, in opposition to so many rivals, so much advanced before him, to a high command and authority in the army. His great courage, his signal military talents, his eminent dexterity and address, were all requisite for this important acquisition. Yet will not this promotion appear the effect of supernatural abilities, when we consider, that Fairfax himself. a private gentleman, who had not the advantage of a seat in parliament, had, through the same steps, attained even a supe rior rank, and, if endued with common capacity and penetration, had been able to retain it. To incite such an army to rebellion against the parliament, required no uncommon art or industry to have kept them in obedience had been the more difficult enterprise. When the breach was once formed

between the military and civil powers, a supreme and absclute authority, from that moment, is devo.ved on the general; and if he be afterwards pleased to employ artifice or policy, it may be regarded, on most occasions, as great condescension, if not as superfluous caution. That Cromwell was ever able really to blind or overreach either the king or the republicans, does not appear: as they possessed no means of resisting the force under his command, they were glad to temporize with him, and, by seeming to be deceived, wait for opportunities of freeing themselves from his dominion. If he seduced the military fanatics, it is to be considered, that their interests and his evidently concurred; that their ignorance and low education exposed them to the grossest imposition; and that he himself was at bottom as frantic an enthusiast as the worst of them; and, in order to obtain their confidence, needed but to display those vulgar and ridiculous habits which he had early acquired, and on which he set so high a value. An army is so forcible, and at the same time so coarse a weapon, that any hand which wields it, may, without much dexterity, perform any operation, and attain any ascendant, in human society.

The domestic administration of Cromwell, though it als covers great abilities, was conducted without any plan either of liberty or arbitrary power: perhaps his difficult situation admitted of neither. His foreign enterprises, though full of intrepidity, were pernicicus to national interest, and seem more the result of impetuous fury or narrow prejudices, than of cool foresight and deliberation. An eminent personage, however, he was in many respects, and even a superior genius; but unequal and irregular in his operations. And though not defective in any talent, except that of elocution, the abilities which in him were most admirable, and which most contribted to his marvellous success, were the magnanimous resolution of his enterprises, and his peculiar dexterity in discovering the characters, and practising on the weaknesses, of mankind. If we survey the moral character of Cromwell with that indulgence which is due to the blindness and infirmities of the human species, we shall not be inclined to load his memory with such violent reproaches as those which his enemies usually throw upon it. Amidst the passions and prejudices of that period, that he should prefer the parliamentary to the royal cause, will not appear extraordinary; since, even at present, some men of sense and knowledge are disposed to think, that the question, with regard to the justice of the quar

rel, may be regarded as doubtful and uncertain. The murder of the king, the most atrocious of all his actions, was to him covered under a mighty cloud of republican and fanatical illusions; and it is not impossible, but he might believe it, as many others did, the most meritorious action that he could per form. His subsequent usurpation was the effect of necessity, as well as of ambition; nor is it easy to see how the various factions could at that time have been restrained, without a mixture of military and arbitrary authority. The private de portment of Cromwell, as a son, a husband, a father, a friend, is exposed to no considerable censure, if it does not rather merit praise. And, upon the whole, his character does not appear more extraordinary and unusual by the mixture of so much absurdity with so much penetration, than by his tempering such violent ambition and such enraged fanaticism with so much regard to justice and humanity.

Cromwell was in the fifty-ninth year of his age when he died. He was of a robust frame of body, and of a manly, though not of an agreeable aspect. He left only two sons, Richard and Henry; and three daughters; one married to General Fleetwood, another to Lord Fauconberg, a third to Lord Rich. His father died when he was very young. His mother lived till after he was protector; and, contrary to her orders, he buried her with great pomp in Westminster Abbey She could not be persuaded that his power or person was ever in safety. At every noise which she heard, she exclaimed that her son was murdered; and was never satisfied that he was alive, if she did not receive frequent visits from him. She was a decent woman; and by her frugality and industry had raised and educated a numerous family upon a small fortune. She had even been obliged to set up a brewery a1 Huntingdon, which she managed to good advantage. Hence Cromwel!, in the invectives of that age, is often stigmatized with the name of the brewer. Ludlow, by way of insu't, mentions the great accession which he would receive to his royal revenues upon his mother's death, who possessed a Outure of sixty pounds a year upon his estate She was of good family, of the name of Stuart; remotely allied, as s by some supposed, to the royal family.

CHAPTER LXII

THE COMMONWEALTH.

[1658] ALL the arts of Cromwell's policy had been so often practised, that they began to lose their effect; and his power, instead of being confirmed by time and success, seemed every day to become more uncertain and precarious. His friends the most closely connected with him, and his counsellors the most trusted, were entering into cabals against his authority; and with all his penetration into the characters of men, he could not find any ministers on whom he could rely. Men of probity and honor, he knew, would not submit to be the instruments of a usurpation violent and illegal : those who were free from the restraint of principle, might betray, from interest, that cause in which, from no better motives, they had enlisted themselves. Even those on whom he conferred any favor, never deemed the recompense an equiv alent for the sacrifices which they made to obtain it: whoever was refused any demand, justified his anger by the specious colors of conscience and of duty. Such difficulties surrounded the protector, that his dying at so critical a time is esteemed by many the most fortunate circumstance that ever attended him; and it was thought, that ail his courage and dexterity could not much longer have extended his usurped administration.

But when that potent hand was removed which conducted the government, every one expected a sudden dissolution of the unwieldy and ill-jointed fabric. Richard, a young man of experience, educated in the country, accustomed to a retired life, unacquainted with the officers, and unknown to them, recommended by no military exploits, endeared by no familiarities, could not long, it was thought, maintain that authority which his father had acquired by so many valorous achievements and such signal successes. And when it was ouserved, that he possessed only the virtues of private life, which in his situation were so many vices; that indolence, incapacity, irresolution, attended his fac lity and good rature