these are the men who dwindle into insignificance the common rabble of kings, and statesmen, and popular favourites; these are the men who prove that there is a divinity at work in man, throwing up, ever and anon, such Alps of humanity even as the plastic power of nature piles up its far-seen pinnacles and blazing volcanoes, its Etnas and its Mount Everests; and these are the men who, as pledges and prophetic specimens of a better era, when man shall emphatically become man, excite in our breasts the most ardent trust in the future prospects of the human family.

CHAPTER II.

OLIVER CROMWELL-PART I.

EFORE coming to Cromwell, a glance must be permit

BEFORE

ted us at the circumstances which preceded and served to develop the Puritanic type of hero. After much difficulty, although with the shedding of very little blood, with the exception of course of Queen Mary's Smithfield martyrs, the Reformation was at last established in England. With the accession of Queen Elizabeth, Popery in its ranker forms and more arrogant pretensions was abolished. But although externally Popery was no more, yet internally there remained. much of its spirit. The Queen, instead of the Pope, became the Head of the English Church; but her power was as arbitrary, and was often as cruelly used, as his had been. The bishops were her creatures-made by her, supported by her, and compelled to obey and almost worship her. Episcopacy itself was felt by many to be a heavy yoke. The principles of Presbyterianism had been learned by some of the exiles, who had been driven to Geneva by persecution, and they did not forget them when they returned home. The English service was not so simple as that of Geneva had been. A good deal of the Popish pomp and ceremony remained. Kneeling at the Lord's Supper and the use of the ring at marriage were some of the relics of Popery which were suffered to exist, and which greatly scandalised many

C

devout Protestants.

Civil freedom, too, even in its republican shape, was much prized by many who had been abroad, and who, when they came back to England, found themselves the vassals of a diluted despotism, not the less disagreeable that it was connected with the government of a woman however able and distinguished. The seeds, in short, of Puritanism were sown in Queen Elizabeth's reign, although the energy of her character, the wisdom of her counsellors, and the fear into which the whole country was plunged by the machinations of Papists and the Spanish Armada, and which served to unite it into one, prevented them from growing fully till the reign of James and especially of Charles I. In the reign, indeed, of the former, the great Puritanic contest began, and the peculiarity of James's reign lay in the struggle between royal prerogative and popular freedom. The proceedings of Parliament were characterised by a spirit of boldness and pertinacious resistance never before manifested, while the speeches and acts of the King were marked by an obstinate and stupid attachment to those privileges which absolute kings extorted from their subjects in former ages of darkness and despotism. The boldness of the Commons and the bigotry of the King led to incessant disagreement and discontent, and finally, under Charles I., to open rupture, revolution, and bloodshed. Charles I. tried to rule without a Parliament, because Parliament disliked his favourites as sycophants, distrusted him as a crafty despot, hated his Queen as a foreigner and as a Papist, and refused to grant him supplies of money. He was at last compelled to call one-to raise a devil he was unable to lay; and on the 13th of April there met what was

called the Long Parliament, which did not dissolve till it made the most thorough-going changes in the government. impeached and beheaded King Charles's favourite statesman and archbishop, Strafford and Laud, abolished the Star Chamber-the instrument of his oppression-overturned Prelacy and, in fine, waged war against the king himself—a war which terminated in the death of Charles upon the block at Whitehall.

Let us look next with equal brevity at the parties and the leading men who were involved in that great civil war, which made the middle of the seventeenth century illustrious. The Cavaliers or King's friends were by no means a despicable class. There were, indeed, many of them not a little debauched; others were fond of showy dress, long curling locks, gilded rapiers, and so forth; and some of them were fierce to cruelty, loyal to superstition, and religious to bigotry. But they were, on the whole, brave and high-bred men, of a good station in life, and full of the spirit of ancient chivalry; burning, according to their light, with zeal for their country and devoted attachment to their King, although their light was too often discoloured by the mists of semi-Popish dogmas in religion, and they themselves weakened by the paralysing absurdities of passive obedience and non-resistance in politics. They were not a despicable class who, under Prince Rupert, fought so bravely at Marston Moor, Naseby, and many another field of severe contest, whose charge, indeed, in its fiery energy and speed, formed the model for that of the French cavalry in after days, and whose roll-call of worthies contains such names as Rupert himself, the gallant general; Lord Falkland, the blameless

and amiable character; Lord Clarendon, the astute politician and picturesque and sagacious historian; Archbishop Usher, that great luminary of the Irish Church; and Strafford, or Wentworth, a man whose crimes may and ought to be condemned, but who was admitted even by his enemies to have possessed ability as great as his ambition, and a courage so unflinching, that Milton might have had him in his eye when describing Satan, the Sultan of Pandemonium, bearing the pains unshrinkingly for the sake of the pre-eminence of his burning throne!

But ah! the Puritans, with all their faults, were a far nobler race of men than the Cavaliers. The latter read the words, "Fear the King and God;" the former, "Fear God, and know no other fear." The Cavaliers were rapid in their charges, but their fire and fury soon expended themselves and expired. The Puritans were firm and patient as the old rocks: they knew how to die, but they did not know how to be defeated. The Cavaliers were, on the whole, sprightly but shallow thinkers,-they looked only at the outside of things; the Puritans had gazed, or sought to gaze, into the deepest and darkest secrets of God. The Cavaliers were Jews outwardly-loving the pomp of Jewish service and the beauty of external holiness, the sound of organs, and the smell of incense and of oil; but of the rugged inspiration of the Jewish mind, and the austere consecration of the Jewish morals, they had little conception. The Puritans still seemed worshipping before the Mount that burned; and in singing the Song of Moses and the Lamb, it was the former burden which they sung with most sympathy and power. They preferred the Joshua of the Old to the Jesus of the