untry. The
officers of native armies, deprived of the civil privileges of other
men, are as much to be feared. This was the great error of that
Parliament: and, though an error it were, it was an error generous,
virtuous, and more to be deplored than censured.

"Hence came the power of the army and its leaders, and especially of
that most famous leader, whom both in our conversation to-day, and in
that discourse whereon I before touched, you have, in my poor opinion,
far too roughly handled. Wherefore you speak contemptibly of his parts
I know not; but I suspect that you are not free from the error common to
studious and speculative men. Because Oliver was an ungraceful orator,
and never said, either in public or private, anything memorable, you
will have it that he was of a mean capacity. Sure this is unjust. Many
men have there been ignorant of letters, without wit, without eloquence,
who yet had the wisdom to devise, and the courage to perform, that which
they lacked language to explain. Such men often, in troubled times, have
worked out the deliverance of nations and their own greatness, not
by logic, not by rhetoric, but by wariness in success, by calmness in
danger, by fierce and stubborn resolution in all adversity. The hearts
of men are their books; events are their tutors; great actions are their
eloquence: and such an one, in my judgment, was his late Highness, who,
if none were to treat his name scornfully now shook not at the sound of
it while he lived, would, by very few, be mentioned otherwise than with
reverence. His own deeds shall avouch him for a great statesman, a great
soldier, a true lover of his country, a merciful and generous conqueror.

"For his faults, let us reflect that they who seem to lead are
oftentimes most constrained to follow. They who will mix with men, and
especially they who will govern them, must in many things obey them.
They who will yield to no such conditions may be hermits, but cannot
be generals and statesmen. If a man will walk straight forward without
turning to the right or the left, he must walk in a desert, and not in
Cheapside. Thus was he enforced to do many things which jumped not with
his inclination nor made for his honour; because the army, on which
alone he could depend for power and life, might not otherwise be
contented. And I, for mine own part, marvel less that he sometimes was
fain to indulge their violence than that he could so often restrain it.

"In that