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TO ATTEND TO THE NEGLECTED, AND TO REMEMBER the FORGOTTEN.

VOLUME THE FOURTH.

OLIVER, LORD PROTECTOR.

BURKE.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.

PRINTED BY RICHARD TAYLOR, red lION COURT, FLEET STREET.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE history of the reign of Cromwel is a difficult theme, and has not been treated by any writer who has endeavoured to develop its intricacies, and trace effects to their causes. He abruptly dissolved the parliaments of 1654 and 1656, contrary to the earnest remonstrances of Whitlocke. He is affirmed tyrannically to have dismissed from their offices three of the judges of the land; and he sent three eminent counsel to the Tower, merely, as it should seem, for doing justice to the cause of their client. He imposed taxes and made laws, solely by his own authority and that of his council. He arbitrarily deprived of their seats one hundred members of his last parliament, and instituted another house, or house of lords, composed, it is said, of the dregs of the people. All these appear to be the acts of a madman. Yet few have questioned the superlative ta

lents of Cromwel as a statesman, which indeed are sufficiently evinced by the countless difficulties he struggled with and conquered. The favourable side of the picture has fixed the attention of mankind; and the parts which most shock propriety, have been left unharmonised and unexplained. How far what was so apparently wanted to give sense and consistency to the narrative, has been supplied in the following pages, every reader will judge for himself. It has also been said, that Cromwel's life and all his arts were exhausted togethera, and that, if he had lived a short time longer, he must have lost the ascendancy he so surprisingly acquired. This assertion is here controverted.

The contents of the present volume will probably to the majority of readers be more interesting than those of its immediate predecessor. The object of the preceding was to describe the unavailing efforts of virtuous and magnanimous men in the perhaps visionary attempt to establish a republic in England. The business of this is to delineate the reign of a usurper, who seems also to

a Burnet. Hume, Beginning of Chapter LXII.

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