from aught but Heaven can never sure be brought | Elcanor laugh'd to see them climb, and thought His mighty words th' affrighted suppliants So high, so glorious, and so vast a thought; You bost, which its proad fishes spreads so wide As the thick waves which their rough ocean bears; Which lies so strongly encamped, that one would say, The hill might be remov'd as soon as they ; Tashame the boasted numbers of our foes; Th' honour which does your princely breast inflame, Warms mine too, and joins there with duty's name. If in this act Ill fate our tempter be, But sure, I think, God leads; nor could you bring So high thoughts from a less-exalted spring. Bright signs through all your words and looks are spread, A rising victory dawns around your head.' "Strongly encamp'd on a steep hill's large head, Like some vast wood the mighty host was spread; Th' only access on neighbouring Gabaa's side, An hard and narrow way, which did divide Two cliffy rocks, Boses and Senes nam'd, Much for themselves, and their big strangeness fam'd; More for their fortune and this stranger day, Ye Egyptian slaves, and to our mercy owe brought; Did new affronts to the great Hebrew Name, The prince's sword did his proud head divide; Which Abdon snatch'd, and dy'd it in the blood His life, for ever spilt, stain'd all the grass around. His brother too, who virtuous haste did make Falls groveling o'er his trunk, on mother Earth; Death mix'd no less their bloods than did their birth. Meanwhile the well-pleased Abdon's restless sword Dispatch'd the following train t'attend their lord. On still, o'er panting corpse, great Jonathan led; Hundreds before him fell, and thousands fled. Prodigious prince! which does most wondrous. show, Thy attempt, or thy success? thy fate or thou? If Heaven to men such mighty thoughts would give, What breast but thine capacious to receive Clouds, with ripe thunder charg'd, some thither At the glad noise; joy'd that their foes had shown drew, Of finest sulphur; amongst which they put The mountain felt it; the vast mountain shook. A fear that drowns the scandal of their own. Provisions up for his relief; and lo! one; Wash'd-off his country's shame, and doubly dy'd Without a fault, vow'd and condemn'd to death? Of thanks, himself, for his own victory? Horses and men, torn, bruis'd, and mangled, lay. long; The faint, weak passion grows so bold and strong! They fled, no more than they themselves that fly. Of who so lately bore them. All about, Yet such, sir, was his case; For Saul, who fear'd lest the full plenty might broke; Ev'n perjury its least and bluntest stroke. Entangled in 't? whilst wonders he did do, In his own cause; who falsely fear'd, beside, The prince alone stood mild and patient by; So bright his sufferings, so triumphant show'd, Did reverence, love, and gratitude, excite, And sav'd their wondrous saviour's sacred blood!" Thus David spoke; and much did yet remain Behind, th' attentive prince to entertain; Edom and Zoba's war-for what befel In that of Moab, was known there too well: Where Heaven itself did cruelty command, A DISCOURSE, BY WAY OF VISION, CONCERNING THE GOVERNMENT OF OLIVER CROMWELL. ON THE GOVERNMENT OF OLIVER CROMWELL. It was the funeral day of the late man who made himself to be called protector. And though I bore but little affection, either to the memory of him, or to the trouble and 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 solemnity, the expectation of which had been so great, that it was said to have brought some very curious persons (and no doubt singular virtuosos) as far as from the Mount in Cornwall, and from the Orcades. I found there had been much more cost bestowed, than either the dead man, or indeed death itself, could deserve. There was a mighty train of black assistants, among which, too, divers princes in the persons of their ambassadors (being infinitely afflicted for the loss of their brother) were pleased to attend; the hearse was magnificent, the idol crowned, and (not to mention all other ceremonies which are practised at royal interments, and When upon Earth no kingdom could have shown he. Thou dost a chaos, and confusion, now, therefore by no means could be omitted here) the vast multitude of spectators made up, as it uses to do, no small part of the spectacle itself. But yet, I know not how, the whole was so managed, that, methought, it somewhat represented the life of him for whom it was made; much noise, much A secret known to few) made happier ev'n than tumult, much expense, much maguificence, much vainglory; briefly, a great show, and yet, after all this, but an ill sight. At last (for it seemed long to me, and like his short reign too, very tedious) the whole scene passed 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 ofthis prodigious man: and sometimes I was filled with horrour and detestation of his actions, and sometimes I inclined a little to reverence and admiration of his courage, conduct, and success; till, by these different motions and agitations of mind, rocked as it were asleep, I fell at last into this vision; or if you please to call it but ■ dream, I shall not take it ill, because the father of poets tells us, even dreams, too, are from God. But sure it was no dream; for I was suddenly Thee for a private place of rest, No wind durst stir abroad, the air to discompose: Flow'd in to thee with every tide; When all the proud and dreadful sea, A constant tribute paid to thee; When Plenty in each village did appear, Had face and substance with her voice, When men to men, respect and friendship bore, And like a frantic person, thou dost tear [wear, (Just as thy barbarous Britons did) Painted all o'er, thou think'st thy naked shame is The nations, which envied thee erewhile, Now laugh, (too little 'tis to smile) Art thou the country, which didst hate Unhappy Isle! no ship of thine at sea, Was ever tost and torn like thee. And rather take the winds, than heavens, to be Yet, mighty God! yet, yet, we humbly crave, And though, to wash that blood which does it I think I should have gone on,but that I was in. terrupted by a strange and terrible apparition; for there appeared to me (arising out of the earth, as I conceived) the figure of a man, taller than a giant; or indeed than the shadow of any giant in the evening. His body was naked; but that nakedness adorned, or rather deformed, all over, with several figures, after the manner of the ancient Britons, painted upon it: and I perceived that most of them were the representation 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 same metal, (as I guessed) and that looked as red-hot too, upon his head. He held in his right-hand a sword that was yet bloody, 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, Acts, Ordinances, Protestations, Covenants, Engagements, Declarations, Remon strances, &c. Though this sudden, unusual, and dreadful object might have quelled a greater courage than mine; yet so it pleased God (for there is nothing bolder than a man in a vision) that I was not at all daunted, but asked him resolutely and briefly "What art thou?" And he said, "I am called the north-west principality, his highress, 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 those three kingdoms; which thou seest from this place." And I answered and aid, If it be so, sir, it seems to me that for almost these twenty years past, your highness has been absent from your charge: for not only if any angel, but if any wise and honest man, had since that time been our governor, we should not have wandered thus long in these laborious and endless labyrinths of confusion, but either not have entered at all into them, or at least have returned back ere we had absolutely lost our way; but, instead of your highness, we have had since such a protector, as was his predecessor Richard the third to the king his nephew; for he presently slew the commonwealth, which he pretended to protect, and set up himself in the place of it: a little less guilty indeed in one respect, because the other slew 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 have received a constant Turk, than this every month's apostate; such a protector, as man is to his flocks which he shears, and sells, or devours himself, and I would fain know what the wolf, which he protects him from, could do more. protector" and as I was proceeding, methoughts his highness began to put on a displeased and threatening countenance, as men use 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 his foreign correspondences 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 desired him "that his highness would please to pardon me, if I had unwittingly spoken any thing to the disparagement of a person, whose relations to his highness I had not the honour to know." Such a 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 (said he) of the whole world; which gives me a just title to the defence of his reputation, since I now account myself, as it were, a naturalised English angel, by having had so long the management of the affairs of that country. And pray, countryman, (said he, very kindly and very flatteringly) for I would not have you fall into the general error of the world, that detests and decries so extraordinary a virtue, What can be more extraordinary than that a person of mean birth, no fortune, no emiDent qualities of body, which have sometimes, or of mind, which have often, raised men to the highest dignities, should have the courage to at tempt, and the happiness to succeed in, so improbable a design, as the destruction of one of the most ancient and most solidly-founded monarchies upon the Earth? that he should have the power or boldness to put his prince and master to an open and infamous death; to banish that numerous and strongly-allied family; to do all this under the name and wages of a parliament; to trample upon them too as he pleased, and to spurn them out of doors when he grew weary of them; to raise up a new and unheard-of monster out of their ashes; to stifle that in the very infancy, and set himself above all things that ever were called sovereign in England; to oppress all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice; to serve all parties patiently for a while, and to command them victoriously at last; to over-run each corner of the three nations, and overcome with equal facility both the riches of the south 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 master of those who had hired him before to be their servant; to have the estates and lives of three kingdoms as much at his disposal, as was the little inheritance of his father, and to be as noble and liberal in the spending of them; and lastly (for there is no end of all the particulars of his glory) to bequeath all this with one word to his posterity; to die with peace at home, and triumph abroad; to be buried among kings, and with more than regal solemnity; 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 praises, so 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 designs1?” By this speech, I began to understand perfectly well what kind of angel his pretended highness was; and having fortified myself privately with a short mental prayer, and with the sign of the cross (not out of any superstition to the sign, but as a recognition of my baptism in Christ), I grew a little bolder, and replied in this manner: "I should not venture to oppose what you are pleased to say in commendation of the late great, and (I confess) extraordinary person, but that I remember Christ forbids us to give assent to any other doctrine but what himself has taught us, even though it should be de livered by an angel; and if such you be, sir, it may be you have spoken all this rather to try than to tempt my frailty: for sure I am, that we must renounce or forget all the laws of the New and Old Testament, and those which are the foundation of both, even the laws of inoral and natural honesty, if we approve of the actions of Mr. Hume has inserted this character of Cromwell, but altered, as he says, in some par. ticulars from the original, in his History of Great Britain, HunD. |