ccuracy),
we are indebted to Mr. T. Carlyle. But the view which he takes of his
'hero,' whether in regard of many particular facts alleged or neglected,
or of the general estimate of Cromwell as a man,--as it appears to the
author plainly untenable in face of proved historical facts, is here
rejected.

The familiar figure of the Tyrant, too long known to the world,--with the
iron, the clay, and the little gold often interfused also in the
statue,--has been always easily recognisable by unbiassed eyes in Oliver
Cromwell. His tyranny was substantially that of his kind, before his
time and since, in its actions, its spirit, its result. Fanaticism and
Paradox may come with their apparatus of rhetoric to blur, as they
whitewash, the lineaments of their idol. Such eulogists may 'paint an
inch thick': yet despots,--political, military, ecclesiastical,--will
never be permanently acknowledged by the common sense of mankind as
worthy the great name of Hero.

_The tyrannous Ten_; The Major-Generals, originally ten, (but the number
varied), amongst whom, in 1655, the Commonwealth was divided. They
displayed 'a rapacity and oppression beyond their master's' (Hallam): a
phrase amply supported by the hardly-impeachable evidence of Ludlow.

_The horrible sacrament_; See _Appendix_ D.

_Why he cannot win hearts_; 'In the ascent of this bold usurper to
greatness . . . he had encouraged the levellers and persecuted them; he
had flattered the Long Parliament and betrayed it; he had made use of the
sectaries to crush the Commonwealth; he had spurned the sectaries in his
last advance to power. These, with the Royalists and Presbyterians,
forming in effect the whole people . . . were the perpetual,
irreconcilable enemies of his administration' (Hallam ch. x).

_Stage-tricks_; See the curious regal imitations and adaptations of the
Protector during his later years, in matters regarding his own and his
family's titles and state, or the marriage of his daughters.

_Mortal failure_; See _Appendix_ D.

THE POET'S EUTHANASIA

November: 1674

Cloked in gray threadbare poverty, and blind,
Age-weak, and desolate, and beloved of God;
High-heartedness to long repulse resign'd,
Yet bating not one jot of hope, he trod
The sunless skyless streets he could not see;
By those faint feet made sacrosanct to me.

Yet on that laureate brow the sign he wore
Of Phoebus' wrath; who,--for his favourite child,
When war and faction raised the