people, who had continued to believe that a treaty with his Majesty was not altogether impracticable. No one was any longer permitted to doubt that personal motives weighed more with the ambitious soldier than the love of country; and that, in hastening the execution of his sovereign, he had yielded to the impulse of a selfish apprehension, rather than to the desire which he professed to entertain of vindicating the injured rights of his fellow-subjects. At the same time, he brought dishonour upon the cause for which he had appeared in the field with so much advantage: He threw a stain upon the patriotism of others, who sincerely laboured to renew the constitution, and thereby to place on a firmer basis the privileges of the people and the just authority of the sovereign: And, by disgusting the nation with a tyranny more intolerable than any that had ever been inflicted by a legitimate prince, he paved the way for the restoration of the monarchy, in the same undefined and arbitrary form in which it originally descended to the House of Stuart. In return for this treachery to his friends and his own better principles, Cromwell attained indeed to the enjoyment of a power more extensive in itself, and less restricted in its exercise, than had been possessed by any hereditary monarch on the throne of England: but which, in the end, so far from affording him any real satisfaction, only embittered his days and diminished their number. He felt himself surrounded with anxiety, suspicion, and even terror for his personal safety; knowing that he was envied by some, hated by others, ridiculed by a third 310 LIFE OF OLIVER CROMWELL. party, and regarded with aversion by the great body of the people. He continued, at the same time, to be corroded by the workings of an ambition which he was not allowed to gratify. He aspired to the crown and sceptre, although warned that he could not enjoy them but at the expense of his life; cherishing the dream that he might be the founder of a new dynasty, while he saw every reason to fear that, at his death, his family would immediately fall back into the same obscurity from which he had succeeded in giving to it a momentary elevation. At all events, the execution of Charles opened up for him a wider field wherein to display his peculiar talents, and to pursue his favourite objects. Henceforth we shall contemplate him at the head of the government; acting with a degree of energy and success, which have secured for his administration a lasting fame, and which, in some degree, compensated to his contemporaries the severity and exactions which he found it necesary to impose. NOTES. NOTE A, p. 46. THE following notices may be adduced in support of the opinion, that Cromwell was for some time engaged in the business of brewing. Butler, speaking of the knight's dagger, says "It had been 'prentice to a brewer, The author of Oliver's Court remarks- Another writer, in allusion to the House of Commons, observes ""Tis Noll's old brew-house now, I swear, The Speaker's but his skinker, Their members are like th' council of war, A Song, styled "The Protecting Brewer," given in the collection of "Loyal Songs." A brewer may be a burgess grave, And carry the matter so fine and so brave, A brewer may be a Parliament man, A brewer may put on a Nabal face, Which nobody can deny. A brewer may speak so wondrous well, Which nobody can deny. A brewer may make his foes to flee, Which nobody can deny. A brewer may be all in all, And raise his powers both great and small, Which nobody can deny. A brewer may be like a fox in a cub, Which nobody can deny. A brewer, by's excise and rate, Will promise his army he knows what, Which nobody can deny. Methinks I hear one say to me, Lord Chancellor o' th' University? A brewer may be as bold as Hector, Which nobody can deny. Now here remains the strangest thing, Which nobody can deny. A brewer may do what he will, And rob the church and state, to sell Which nobody can deny. In the song of the Sale of Religious Household Stuff given by the same gentleman, are these two lines :"And here are Old Noll's brewing vessels, And here are his dray and his slings." Mr Walker, who paid so dear for writing his sentiments in the History of Independency, after prophesying that Cromwell (then lieutenant-general to Fairfax) would assume the supreme sway, says, "then let all true saints and subjects cry out with me, 'God save King Oliver and his brewing vessels ;'" and in another place, speaking of Harry Parker, whom he calls Observator, he says that he is returned from Hamburg, and "that he is highly preferred to be a brewer's clerk, (alias secretary to Cromwell.") Worm, in Cowley's "Cutter of Colman Street," has a reference to Cromwell, when, speaking in derision of Cutter's learning, he asks him, "What parts hast thou? Hast thou scholarship enough to be a brewer's clerk?" NOTE B, p. 70. NOTHING is heard now amongst the brethren, but triumph and fury, singing and mirth, for their happy success (thanks to the Devil first, and next to Noll Cromwell's Nose) against the Scots, whom they vaunt to have beaten to dust. Monro, one of the best soldiers in ChrisVOL. I. 2 c |