w can you
trouble yourself about so mean a thing as that Milton?_" Everything was
falling into its proper place: Dryden above, Shakespeare below; Charles
II. on the throne, Cromwell on the gibbet. England was raising herself
out of the shame and the excesses of the past. It is a great happiness
for nations to be led back by monarchy to good order in the state and
good taste in letters.

That such benefits should be misunderstood is difficult to believe. To
turn the cold shoulder to Charles II., to reward with ingratitude the
magnanimity which he displayed in ascending the throne--was not such
conduct abominable? Lord Linnaeus Clancharlie had inflicted this vexation
upon honest men. To sulk at his country's happiness, alack, what
aberration!

We know that in 1650 Parliament had drawn up this form of declaration:
"_I promise to remain faithful to the republic, without king, sovereign,
or lord_." Under pretext of having taken this monstrous oath, Lord
Clancharlie was living out of the kingdom, and, in the face of the
general joy, thought that he had the right to be sad. He had a morose
esteem for that which was no more, and was absurdly attached to things
which had been.

To excuse him was impossible. The kindest-hearted abandoned him; his
friends had long done him the honour to believe that he had entered the
republican ranks only to observe the more closely the flaws in the
republican armour, and to smite it the more surely, when the day should
come, for the sacred cause of the king. These lurkings in ambush for the
convenient hour to strike the enemy a death-blow in the back are
attributes to loyalty. Such a line of conduct had been expected of Lord
Clancharlie, so strong was the wish to judge him favourably; but, in the
face of his strange persistence in republicanism, people were obliged to
lower their estimate. Evidently Lord Clancharlie was confirmed in his
convictions--that is to say, an idiot!

The explanation given by the indulgent, wavered between puerile
stubbornness and senile obstinacy.

The severe and the just went further; they blighted the name of the
renegade. Folly has its rights, but it has also its limits. A man may be
a brute, but he has no right to be a rebel. And, after all, what was
this Lord Clancharlie? A deserter. He had fled his camp, the
aristocracy, for that of the enemy, the people. This faithful man was a
traitor. It is true that he was a traitor to the stronger, and faithful
to the