Knight of Hinchinbrook,"
nothing of the dash and daring that marked his more remote ancestor,
"Diamond Dick," who unhorsed all his rivals at a tournament, and so
defended the king's colors that the pleased monarch, bluff King Henry
the Eighth, called the victorious champion his "diamond."

We are not even certain that Richard Cromwell fought in the wars against
the King, as did his brother Oliver and Henry. We cannot find that he
desired either the position or prominence that his father's rise to
greatness gave him. Richard Cromwell cared only to live and die a
quiet, inoffensive, lazy country squire. At any other time in the
history of the world he might easily have lived unknown, unhonored, and
unsung. It was his father's fame that brought him into notice; it was
because he had neither the will, the inclination, nor the ability to
take up his father's work, and carry it forward for the greatness and
glory of England, that to-day the world holds in such slight esteem this
quiet son of Cromwell.

We should not blame people for not doing what they cannot do. It may be,
indeed, that "lazy Dick" was not shiftless, though he was lazy, nor a
numbskull simply because he was not great. Richard Cromwell liked to
take things easy; he hated to be bothered; he liked to keep out of
trouble, and was willing to let the world wag as it would so long as he
had a comfortable home and nothing particular to do.

There is nothing really bad in this; but boys and men of that stamp, you
know, never help the world along. And I am afraid that "lazy Dick,"
notwithstanding all his opportunities and the high position to which he
was finally advanced, never did anything to help the world along. If a
good thing came in his way he took it, enjoyed it if he could, and got
out of it if it proved troublesome and laborious.

When he was twenty his father tried to make him a lawyer; but he soon
dropped that profession. He offered him a command in the army, but Dick
seems never to have accepted it. When he was twenty-three he married a
nice girl in Hampshire. Oliver Cromwell loved her dearly, but he and her
father had their hands full trying to make Dick "toe the mark."

[Illustration: RICHARD PREFERRED HUNTING TO POLITICS.]

Whenever he could, Richard Cromwell would slip away from the work his
father wished him to do and go out hunting, or have a good time with
other rich do-nothings at his Hampshire farm. He disliked the almost
kingly court of hi