reported to have fallen in it, it follows that Cromwell's army at
Worcester must have been an army of cowards, as it lost less than two
hundred men, though it had to fight hard for several hours for victory.
"As stiff a contest, for four or five hours," said the Lord-General,
"as ever I have seen." And what shall we think of the Scotch, who lost
fourteen thousand men? Mr. Lodge, whose sympathies are all with the
Cavaliers, says that the action is undeservedly called the Battle of
Worcester, "for it was in fact the mere rout of a _panic-stricken_
army." Certainly all the circumstances of the day tend to confirm this
view of what occurred on it: the heavy loss of the Scotch, the small
loss of the English, and the all but total destruction of the Royal
army. That Cromwell should make the most of his victory, of the
"crowning mercy," as he hoped it might prove, was natural enough.
Nothing is more common than for the victor to sound the praises of the
vanquished, that being a delicate form of self-praise. If they were so
clever and so brave, how much greater must have been the cleverness and
bravery of the man who conquered them? The difficulty is in inducing
the vanquished to praise the victor. We have no doubt that General
Beauregard speaks very handsomely of General McDowell; but how speaks
General McDowell of General Beauregard? Wellington often spoke well of
Napoleon's conduct in the campaign of 1815; but among the bitterest
things ever said by one great man of another great man are Napoleon's
criticisms on the conduct of Wellington in that campaign. We are not to
suppose that Wellington was a more magnanimous person than Napoleon,
which he assuredly was not; but he was praising himself, after an
allowable fashion, when he praised Napoleon. There would have been a
complete change of words in the mouths of the two men, had the result of
Waterloo been, as it should have been, favorable to the French. Napoleon
said that he never saw the Prussians behave well but at Jena, where he
broke the army of the Great Frederick to pieces. He had not a word to
say in praise of the Prussians who fought at the Katzbach, at Dennewitz,
and at Waterloo. Human nature is a very small thing even in very great
men.

As we see that the Roundheads triumphed in England, notwithstanding the
panics from which their armies suffered, subduing the descendants of
the conquering chivalry of Normandy, "to whom victory and triumph were
traditional, habitu