ment;-giving colour probably to all the subsequent Centuries of England, this answer! On or near the night of the same stormy Monday, two or three days before he died,' we are to place that Prayer his Highness was heard uttering; which, as taken down by his attendants, exists in many old Notebooks. In the tumult of the winds, the dying Oliver was heard uttering this PRAYER Lord, though I am a miserable and wretched creature, I am in Covenant with Thee through grace. And I may, I will, come to Thee, for Thy People. Thou hast made me, though very unworthy, a mean instrument to do them some good, and Thee service; and many of them have set too high a value upon me, though others wish and would be glad of my death; Lord, however Thou do dispose of me, continue and go on to do good for them. Give them consistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual love; and go on to deliver them, and with the work of reformation; and make the Name of Christ glorious in the world. Teach those who look too much on Thy instruments, to depend more upon Thyself. Pardon such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy People too. And pardon the folly of this short Prayer :-Even for Jesus Christ's sake. And give us a good night, if it be Thy pleasure. Amen. 'Some variation there is,' says Harvey, of this Prayer, as to the account divers give of it; and something is here omitted. 'But so much is certain, that these were his requests. Wherein 'his heart was so carried out for God and His People,-yea in'deed for some who had added no little sorrow to him,' the Anabaptist Republicans, and others, that at this time he seems wrote to Bordeaux that His Highness "had had time" to name Lord Richard as his successor, and that it had been announced to the Council that "last evening the Protector, by a nuncupative testament" had named his eldest son.] 'to forget his own Family and nearest relations.' is to be remarked. Which indeed Thursday night the Writer of our old Pamphlet was himself in attendance on his Highness; and has preserved a trait or two; with which let us hasten to conclude. Tomorrow is September Third, always kept as a Thanksgiving day, since the Victories of Dunbar and Worcester. The wearied one, 'that very night before the Lord took him to his everlasting rest,' was heard thus, with oppressed voice, speaking: -Then "Truly God is good; indeed He is; He will not ". 'his speech failed him, but as I apprehended, it was, "He will 'not leave me." This saying, "God is good," he frequently used all along; and would speak it with much cheerfulness, and fer'vour of spirit, in the midst of his pains.-Again he said: "I 'would be willing to live to be farther serviceable to God and 'His People: but my work is done. Yet God will be with His 'People.' 'He was very restless most part of the night, speaking often 'to himself. And there being something to drink offered him, was desired To take the same, and endeavour to sleep-Unto 'which he answered: "It it not my design to drink or sleep; 'but my design is, to make what haste I can to be gone." 'Afterwards, towards morning, he used divers holy expressions, 'implying much inward consolation and peace; among the rest 'he spake some exceeding self-debasing words, annihilating and 'judging himself. And truly it was observed, that a public spirit 'to God's Cause did breathe in him,-as in his lifetime, so now 'to his very last.' When the morrow's sun rose, Oliver was speechless; between three and four in the afternoon, he lay dead. Friday, 3rd September 1658. "The consternation and astonishment of all people," writes Fauconberg,1 "are inexpressible; their hearts seem as if "sunk within them. My poor Wife,-I know not what on earth "to do with her. When seemingly quieted, she bursts out again "into a passion that tears her very heart in pieces."-Husht, poor weeping Mary! Here is a Life-battle right nobly done. thou not, 'The storm is changed into a calm, At His command and will; So that the waves which raged before 1 To Henry Cromwell, 7th September 1658 (Thurloe, vii. 275). Then are they glad,—because at rest And quiet now they be: So to the haven He them brings Which they desired to see.'1 'Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord;' blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord. 'Amen, saith the Spirit,'Amen. 'They do rest from their labours, and their works follow them.' 'Their works follow them.' As, I think, this Oliver Cromwell's works have done and are still doing! We have had our 'Revolutions of Eighty-eight,' officially called 'glorious;' and other Revolutions not yet called glorious; and somewhat has been gained for poor Mankind. Men's ears are not now slit-off by rash Officiality; Officiality will, for long henceforth, be more cautious about men's ears. The tyrannous Star-chambers, branding-irons, chimerical Kings and Surplices at All-hallowtide, they are gone, or with immense velocity going. Oliver's works do follow him!-The works of a man, bury them under what guanomountains and obscene owl-droppings you will, do not perish, cannot perish. What of Heroism, what of Eternal Light was in a Man and his Life, is with very great exactness added to the Eternities; remains forever a new divine portion of the Sum of Things; and no owl's voice, this way or that, in the least avails in the matter.-But we have to end here. Oliver is gone; and with him England's Puritanism, laboriously built together by this man, and made a thing far-shining, miraculous to its own Century, and memorable to all the Centuries, soon goes. Puritanism, without its King, is kingless, anarchic; falls into dislocation, self-collision; staggers, plunges into ever deeper anarchy; King, Defender of the Puritan Faith there can now none be found;--and nothing is left but to recall the old disowned Defender with the remnants of His Four Surplices, and Two Centuries of Hypocrisis (or Play-acting not so-called), and put-up with all that, the best we may. The Genius of England no longer soars Sunward, world-defiant, like an Eagle through the storms, 'mewing her mighty youth,' as John Milton saw her do: the Genius of England, much liker a greedy Ostrich intent on provender and a whole skin mainly, stands with its other extremity Sunward; with its Ostrich-head stuck into the readiest 1 [Psalm cvii. Rouse's version.] bush, of old Church-tippets, King-cloaks, or what other 'sheltering Fallacy' there may be, and so awaits the issue. The issue has been slow; but it is now seen to have been inevitable. No Ostrich, intent on gross terrene provender, and sticking its head into Fallacies, but will be awakened one day,-in a terrible à-posteriori manner, if not otherwise! - Awake before it come to that; gods and men bid us awake! The Voices of our Fathers, with thousandfold stern monition to one and all, bid us awake. APPENDIX No. 1 LETTER TO DOWNHALL [Vol. i. p. 48] THE stolen Letter of the Ashmole Museum has been found printed, and even reprinted. It is of the last degree of insignificance: a mere Note of Invitation to Downhall to stand Godfather unto my child.' Manchild now ten days old,' who, as we may see, is christened on Thursday next' by the name of RICHARD,-and had strange ups and downs as a Man when it came to that! To his approved good Friend Mr. Henry Downhale, at his Chambers in St. John's College: These LOVING SIR, Huntingdon, 14th October 1626. Make me so much your servant as to be Godfather unto my child. I would myself have come over unto you to have made a more formal invitation, but my occasions would not permit: and therefore hold me in that excused. The day of your trouble is Thursday next. Let me entreat your company on Wednesday. By this time it appears, I am more apt to encroach upon you for new favours than to show my thankfulness for the love I have already found. But I know your patience and your goodness cannot be exhausted by Your friend and servant, 1 Vol. i. p. 62. OLIVER CROMWELL.* 2 by being' in orig. * Hearne's Liber Niger Scaccarii (London, 1771), i. 261 ». |