s father at Whitehall Palace, and though sent to
Parliament, he did little and said less. And when he was made one of his
father's chief advisers--a privy councillor--his counsels amounted to
nothing, and his position was simply what politicians call a sinecure.

When, at last, his great father's life went out, and England was left
without a head, Richard Cromwell was named as his successor, and made
Lord Protector. Lazy Dick became King of England, without the title, but
with more of power than many a King before and after him possessed.

But he had neither the skill nor the sense to hold what the people had
given him. I doubt if he cared either for the place or the power. And
they were his but a short time. Dissatisfaction broke into revolt. The
nation was divided. The King came to his own again. Charles the Second
was placed upon the throne from which his father had been hurled, and
Richard Cromwell, without a word of protest, without striking a blow for
his power, stepped quietly down from the Lord Protector's chair his
father had set up, and slipped back into private life, too weak to be
defended by his friends, too insignificant to be persecuted by his foes.

He lived to be an old, old man, and died at eighty-six amid his
rose-gardens at Cheshunt, near London, unhonored and disregarded by the
England his father had liberated, but which the son was too weak to
uphold as a free commonwealth.

We must not be too bard on "lazy Dick." He had not a spark of greatness
in him, and should not be blamed for failing to maintain his father's
glory. It is a hard thing for a small son to live up to the fame of a
great father. And yet the world does not take lack of ability into
account. Richard Cromwell to-day has no place in the world's esteem. His
name lives because he was his father's son; because he was a failure
where his father had been a success; and because his life was so sad and
stupid a sequel to the people's stand for liberty in the days made
glorious in English history by the might and power, the grandeur and
manliness, the strength and patriotism of England's greatest man--Oliver
Cromwell, great father of a small son.

ITS MEANING.

(_Tommy loq._)

Upon the quiet river,
Enamelled and serene,
Great flakes of oil are floating
In blue and pink and green.

"They look like maps all colored
In my geography,
Blue China, and green Ireland,
And pink Algiers I see.

"And still