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"Who thought compaffion female weakness here, "And equity injuftice, would appear "In his own caufe; who falfely fear'd befide, "The folemn curfe on Jonathan did abide, 1085 "And, the infected limb not cut away, "Would like a gangrene o'er all Ifrael stray ;"Prepar'd this god-like facrifice to kill, "And his rafh vow more rafhly to fulfil. "What tongue can th' horror and amazement "tell 1090

"Which on all Ifrael that fad moment fell! "Tamer had been their grief, fewer their tears, "Had the Philiftian fate that day been theirs. "Not Saul's proud heart could master his swoln❘ " eye; 1094 "The Prince alone ftood mild and patient by; "So bright his sufferings, so triumphant, fhow'd, "Lefs to the best than worst of fates he ow'd. "A victory now he o'er himself might boast;

He conquer'd now, that conqueror of an host.

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DISCOURSE,

BY WAY OF VISION,

CONCERNING THE

GOVERNMENT OF OLIVER CROMWELL.

T was the funeral day of the late man who made himself to be called protector.
And thought I bore but little affection, either to the memory of hind,

trouble

or folly of all public pageantry, yet I was forced by the importunity of my company to go along with them and be a spectator of that folemnity, the expectation of which had been fo great, that it was faid to have brought fome very curious perfons (and no doubt fingular virtuofos) as far as from the Mount in Cornwall, and from the Orcades. I found there had been much more coft bestowed than either the dead man, or indeed death itself, could deferve. There was a mighty train of black aflistants, among which, too, divers princes in the perfons of their ambaffadors (being infinitely afficted for the lofs of their brother) were pleased to attend; the hearfe was magnificent, the idol crowned, and (not to mention all other ceremonies which are practised at royal interments, and therefore by no means could be omitted here) the vaft multitude of fpectators made up, as it uses to do, no fmall part of the fpectacle itself. But yet, I know not how, the whole was fo managed, that, methought, it fomewhat reprefented the life of him for whom it was made; much noife, much tumult, much expence, much magnificence, much vain-glory; briefly, a great fhow, and yet, after all this, but an ill fight. At laft (for it feemed long to me, and like his fhort reign too, very tedious) the whole fcene paffed by; and I retired back to my chamber, weary, and I think more melancholy than any of the mourners; where I began to reflect on the whole life of this prodigious man: and fometimes I was filled with horror and detestation of his actions, and fometimes I inclined a little to reverence and admiration of his courage, conduct, and fuccefs; till by thefe different motions ari agitations of mind, rocked as it were afleep, I fell at last into this vifion; or if you please to call it but a dream, I fhall not take it ill, because the father of poets tells us, even dreams, too, are from God.

But fure it was no dream; for I was fuddenly tranfported afar off (whether in the body, or out of the body, like St. Paul, I know not) and found myfelf on the top of that famous hill in the island of Mona, which has the profpect of three great, and notlong-fince moft happy kingdoms. As foon as ever I looked on them, the "not-longfince" ftruck upon my memory, and called forth the fad reprefentation of all the fins, and all the miferies, that had overwhelmed them thefe twenty years. And I wept. bitterly for two or three hours; and, when my prefent flock of moisture was all wafted, 1 fell a fighing for an hour more; and, as foon as I recovered from my paffion the use of fpeech and reafon, I broke forth, as I remember (looking upon England) into this complaint:

Ah, happy ifle, how art thou chang'd and curs'd,
Since I was born, and knew thee first!
When peace, which had forfook the world around
(Frighted with noife, and the thrill trumpet's found)
Thee for a private place of reit,

And a fecure retirement, chose
Wherein to build her halcyon neft;

No wind durft ftir abroad, the air to difcompofe:

When all the riches of the globe befide
Flow'd in to thee with every tide;
When all, that nature did thy foil deny,
The growth was of thy fruitful induftry;
When all the proud and dreadful sea,
And all his tributary streams,

A conftant tribute paid to thee;

When all the liquid world was one extended Thames :
When plenty in each village did appear,

And bounty was its steward there;
When gold walk'd free about in open view,
Ere it one conquering party's prifoner grew;
When the religion of our state

Had face and substance with her voice,
Ere fhe, by her foolish loves of late,

Like Echo (once a Nymph) turn'd only into noife;
When men to men, respect and friendship bore,
And God with reverence did adore ;

When upon earth no kingdom could have shown
A happier monarch to us, than our own:
And yet his subjects by him were
(Which is a truth will hardly be
Receiv'd by any vulgar ear,

A fecret known to few) made happier ev'n than he.
Thou doft a Chaos, and Confufion, now,
A Babel, and a Bedlam, grow,

And, like a frantic person, thou doft tear

The ornaments and cloaths which thou should'st wear,
And cut thy limbs; and, if we fee

(Juft as thy barbarous Britons did)

Thy body with hypocrify

Painted all o'er, thou think'st thy naked shame is hid.
The nations, which envied thee erewhile,

Now laugh (too little 'tis to fmile);

They laugh, and would have pitied thee, alas!
But that thy faults all pity do furpafs.

Art thou the country, which didft hate

And mock the French inconftancy?

And have we, have we feen of late

Lefs change of habits there, than governments in thee?
Unhappy ifle! no fhip of thine at fea,

Was ever toft and torn like thee.

Thy naked hulk loose on the waves does beat,
The rocks and banks around her ruin threat;
What did thy foolish pilots ail,

To lay the compass quite afide?
Without a law or rule to fail,

And rather take the winds, than heavens, to be their guide!

Yet, mighty God! yet, yet, we humbly crave,

This floating ifle from fhipwreck fave;

And though, to wash that blood which does it stain,

It well deserve to fink into the main ;

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Yet, for the royal martyr's prayer
(The royal martyr prays, we know)
This guilty, perishing vessel fpare;

Hear but his foul above, and not his blood below!

I think I fhould have gone on, but that I was interrupted by a ftrange and terrible apparition; for there appeared to me (arifing out of the earth, as I conceived) the figure of a man, taller than a giant, or indeed than the fhadow of any giant in the evening. His body was naked; but that nakedness adorned, or rather deformed, all over, with feveral figures, after the manner of the ancient Britons, painted upon it: and I perceived that molt of them were the reprefentation of the late battles in our civil wars, and (if I be not much mistaken) it was the battle of Naseby that was drawn upon his breast. His eyes were like burning brass; and there were three crowns of the fame metal (as I gueffed), and that looked as red-hot too, upon his head. He held in his right-hand a fword, that was yet bloudy, and nevertheless the motto of it was, " Pax quæritur bello;" and in his left hand a thick book, upon the back of which was written in letters of gold, Ats, Ordinances, Proteftations, Covenants, Engagements, Declarations, Remontrances, &c.

Though this fudden, unufual, and dreadful object might have quelled a greater courage than mine; yet fo it pleafed God (for there is nothing bolder than a man in a vilion) that I was not at all daunted, but asked him refolutely and briefly, “What art thou?" And he faid, "I am called the north-weft principality, his highness, the protector of the commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dominions belonging thereto; for I am that angel, to whom the Almighty has committed the government of thofe three kingdoms, which thou feeft from this place." And I answered and faid, "If it be fo, Sir, it seems to me that for almoft thefe twenty years past, your highnefs has been abfent from your charge: for not only if any angel, but if any wife and honeft man, had fince that time been our governor, we should not have wandered thus long in thefe laborious and endless labyrinths of confusion, but either not have entered at all into them, or at least have returned back ere we had abfolutely loft our way; but, instead of your highnefs, we have had fince fuch a protector, as was his predeceffor Richard the Third to the king his nephew; for he prefently flew the commonwealth, which he pretended to protect, and fet up himfelf in the place of it: a little lefs guilty indeed in one refpect, because the other flew an innocent, and this man did but murder a murderer. Such a protector we have had, as we would have been glad to have changed for an enemy, and rather received a conftant Turk, than this every month's apostate; fuch a protector, as man is to his flocks which he fheers, and fells, or devours himfelf, and I would fain know, what the wolf, which he protects him from, could do more. Such a protector-" and as I was proceeding, methoughts, his highness began to put on a difpleafed and threatening countenance, as men ufe to do when their dearest friends happen to be traduced in their company; which gave me the first rise of jealousy against him, for I did not believe that Cromwell among all foreign correfpondences had ever held any with angels. However I was not hardened enough yet to venture a quarrel with him then: and therefore (as if I had spoken to the protector himself in Whitehall) I defired him " that his highnefs would please to pardon me, if I had unwittingly fpoken any thing to the difparagement of a perfon, whofe relations to his highnefs 1 had not the honour to know."

At which he told me" that he had no other concernment for his late highness, than as he took him to be the greatest man that ever was of the English nation, if not (faid he) of the whole world: which gives me a juft title to the defence of his reputation, fince I now account myself, as it were, a naturalized English angel, by having had fo long the management of the affairs of that country. And pray, countryman (faid he, very kindly and very flatteringly) for I would not have you fall into the general error of the world, that detests and decries fo extraordinary a virtue, What can be more extraordiary, than that a perfon of mean birth, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which ave fometimes, or of mind, which have often, raised men to the highest dignities, should VOL. II.

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have the courage to attempt, and the happinefs to fucceed in, fo improbable a defign, as the deftruction of one of the most ancient and moft folidly-founded monarchies upon the earth? that he should have the power or boldness to put his prince and mafter to an open and infamous death; to banish that numerous and ftrongly-allied family; to do all this under the name and wages of a parliament; to trample upon them too as he pleafed, and fpurn them out of doors, when he grew weary of them; to raise up a new and unheard-of monfter out of their afhes; to ftifle that in the very infancy, and fet up himself above all things that ever were called fovereign in England; to opprefs all his enemies by arms, and all his friends af erwards by artifice; to ferve all parties patiently for a while, and to command them victoriously at laft; to over-run each corner of the three nations, and overcome with equal facility both the riches of the fouth and the poverty of the north; to be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and adopted a brother to the gods of the earth; to call together parliaments with a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of his mouth; to be humbly and daily petitioned that he would please to be hired, at the rate of two millions a year, to be the mafter of those who had hired him before to be their fervant; to have the cftates and lives of three kingdoms as much at his difpofal, as was the little inheritance of his father, and to be as noble and liberal in the spending of them; and laftly (for there is no end of all the particulars of his glory), to bequeath all this with one word to his pofterity; to die with peace at home, and triumph abroad; to be buried among kings, and with more than regal folemnity; and to leave a name behind him, not to be extinguished, but with the whole world; which, as it is now too little for his praifes, fo might have been too for his conquests, if the short line of his human life could have been stretched-out to the extent of his immortal defigns *?"

By this speech, I began to understand perfectly well what kind of angel his pretended highnefs was; and having fortified myfelf privately with a fhort mental prayer, and with the fign of the crofs (not out of any fuperftition to the fign, but as a recoguition of my baptifm in Chrift), I grew a little bolder, and replied in this manner: "I should not venture to oppofe what you are pleased to say in commendation of the late great, and (I confefs) extraordinary perfon, but that I remember Christ forbids us to give affent to any other doctrine but what himself has taught us, even though it fhould be delivered by an angel; and if fuch you be, Sir, it may be you have spoken all this rather to try than to tempt my frailty: for fure I am, that we must renounce or forget all the laws of the New and Old Teftament, and thofe which are the foundation of both, even the laws of moral and natural honesty, if we approve of the actions of that man whom I fuppofe you commend by irony.

There would be no end to inftance in the particulars of all his wickedness; but, to fum up a part of it briefly, What can be more extraordinarily wicked, than for a perfon, fuch as yourself, qualify him rightly, to endeavour not only to exalt himself above, but to trample upon, all his equals and betters? to pretend freedom for all men, and under the help of that pretence to make all men his fervants? to take arms against taxes of fcarce two hundred thousand pounds a year, and to raise them himself to above two millions? to quarrel for the lofs of three or four ears, and to ftrike off three or four hundred heads? to fight against an imaginary fufpicion of I know not what? two thoufand guards to be fetched for the king, I know not from whence, and to keep up for himself no less than forty thousand? to pretend the defence of parliaments, and violently to diffolve all, even of his own calling, and almost choofing? to undertake the refor mation of religion, to rob it even to the very fkin, and then to expofe it naked to the rage of all fects and herefies? to fet up counfels of rapine, and courts of murder? to fight against the king under a commiffion for him; to take him forcibly out of the hands of thofe for whom he had conquered him; to draw him into his net, with proteftations and vows of fidelity; and when he had caught him in it, to butcher him, with as little

* Mr. Hume has inferted this character of Cromwell, but altered, as he fays, in fome particulars from the original, in his history of Great-Briain,—— -HURD.

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