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those to whom he gave less sensible of the benefit. He kept state to the full, which made his court very orderly; no man presuming to be seen in a place where he had no pretence to be. He saw and observed men long, before he received them about his person; and did not love strangers, nor very confident men. He was a patient hearer of causes; which he frequently accustomed himself to at the council board; and judged very well, and was dexterous at the mediating part: so that he often put an end to causes by persuasion, which the stubbornness of men's humours made dilatory in courts of justice.

He was very fearless in his person; but in his riper years not very enterprising. He had an excellent understanding, but was not confident enough of it; which made him oftentimes change his own opinion for a worse, and follow the advice of men that did not judge so well as himself. This made him more irresolute than the conjuncture of his affairs would admit: if he had been of a rougher and more imperious nature, he would have found more respect and duty. And his not applying some severe cures to approaching evils proceeded from the lenity of his nature, and the tenderness of his conscience, which, in all cases of blood, made him choose the softer way, and not hearken to severe counsels, how reasonably soever urged. This only restrained him from pursuing his advantage in the first Scottish expedition, when, humanly speaking, he might have reduced that nation to the most entire obedience that could have been wished. But no man can say he had then many who advised him

to it, but the contrary, by a wonderful indisposition all his council had to the war, or any other fatigue. He was always a great lover of the Scottish nation, having not only been born there, but educated by that people, and besieged by them always, having few English about him, till he was king; and the major number of his servants being still of that nation, who he thought could never fail him. And among these, no man had such an ascendant over him, by the humblest insinuations, as Duke Hamilton had.

As he excelled in all other virtues, so in temperance he was so strict that he abhorred all debauchery to that degree, that, at a great festival solemnity where he was, when very many of the nobility of the English and Scots were entertained, being told by one who withdrew from thence what vast draughts of wine they drank, and "that there was one earl who had drunk most of the rest down, and was not himself moved or altered;" the king said, "that he deserved to be hanged;" and that earl coming shortly after into the room where his majesty was, in some gaiety, to show how unhurt he was from that battle, the king sent one to bid him withdraw from his majesty's presence; nor did he in some days after appear before him.

So many miraculous circumstances contributed to his ruin, that men might well think that heaven and earth conspired it. Though he was, from the first declension of his power, so much betrayed by his own servants, that there were very few who remained faithful to him, yet that treachery proceeded not always from any treason

able purpose to do him any harm, but from particular and personal animosities against other men. And, afterwards, the terror all men were under of the parliament, and the guilt they were conscious of themselves, made them watch all opportunities to make themselves gracious to those who could do them good; and so they became spies upon their master, and from one piece of knavery were hardened and confirmed to undertake another; till at last they had no hope of preservation but by the destruction of their master. And after all this, when a man might reasonably believe that less than a universal defection of three nations could not have reduced a great king to so ugly a fate, it is most certain, that, in that very hour when he was thus wickedly murdered in the sight of the sun, he had as great a share in the hearts and affections of his subjects in general, was as much beloved, esteemed, and longed for by the people in general of the three nations, as any of his predecessors had ever been. To conclude, he was the worthiest gentleman, the best master, the best friend, the best husband, the best father, and the best Christian that the age in which he lived produced. And if he were not the greatest king, if he were without some parts and qualities which have made some kings great and happy, no other prince was ever unhappy who was possessed of half his virtues and endowments, and so much without any kind of vice.

CLARENDON.

OLIVER CROMWELL.

OLIVER Cromwell was sprung from a noble and illustrious family. The name was famous of old under the kings for skill in the administration of public affairs; and it grew more famous in consequence of the orthodox or reformed religion being at the same period established among us for the first time. He grew up in the privacy of his own family, and till his age was quite mature and settled, which he also passed in private, was chiefly known for his strict attendance upon the purer worship, and for his integrity of life. He had cherished his confidence in God, he had nursed his great spirit in silence, for some extraordinary times. When a parliament was at last called by the king, he was returned member for his own town; and immediately became conspicuous for the justness of his opinions, and the firmness of his counsels. When the appeal was made to arms, he is appointed, by his own choice, to a troop of horse; and as his force was augmented by the eager zeal of the good, who flocked from all quarters to his standard, he soon surpassed almost the greatest generals in the grandeur of his achievements, and in the rapidity with which they were executed. Nor is this to be wondered at: for, he was a soldier, above all others the most exercised in the knowledge of himself; he had either destroyed, or reduced to his own control, all enemies within his own breast-vain hopes, fears, desires. A commander first over himself, the conqueror of himself, it was over

himself he had learned most to triumph. Hence, he went to encounter with an external enemy as a veteran accomplished in all military duties, from the day he first entered the camp. It would not be possible for me, within the limits of this eulogium, to follow him with all suitable dignity through so many captured cities, so many battles, and those of the greatest order, in none of which was he ever conquered or put to flight; but he traversed the whole circle of Britain in one continued series of victories-victories, which demand the great work of a regular history; another field, as it were, on which they may be told; a space for narration equal to the things to be described. To evince his extraordinary, his little less than divine virtue, this mark will suffice; that there lived in him an energy whether of spirit and genius, or of discipline, established not by military rule only, but by the rule of Christ and of sanctity, that he drew all to his camp, as to the best school both of military science, and of religion and piety-nay, those who were already good and brave, from all parts, or made them such principally by his own example; and although there were many who opposed him, retained them in their duty (and yet retains) during the whole period of the war, sometimes even of an intervening peace, through so many changes of minds and of circumstances, not by largesses and military licence, but by his authority and their pay alone : and greater praise than this we are not wont to bestow either upon Cyrus, Epaminondas, or upon any of the first generals of antiquity. Hence it is, that no one ever raised for himself a larger or

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