death. He left behind him, likewise, several manu scripts; among the rest Notes and Observations on the Writings and Characters of the Fathers and Ecclesiastical Authors,' which he intended as the basis of an elaborate production, to be entitled "Theologica Bibliotheca. These papers he bequeathed to the care of Dr. Langbaine, of Queen's College, who dying in consequence of a severe cold caught in the execution of his friend's design in 1657, the work dropped, though Dr. Fell made some attempts to get it finished. A copy of it, as far as it was carried, preserved in the Bodleian library.

is

But the work, which has rendered his name illustrious wherever religious knowledge is revered, is his 'Sacred Chronology, or Annals of the Old and New Testament, from the Beginning of the World to the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian, A. D. 70, in two parts;'* the first, extending from the Creation to the time of the Maccabees, published by himself in 1650, and the second in 1654. His latest publication, De Græcâ LXX. Interpretum Versione Syntagma,' &c. contained certain notions respecting that translation, which have been regarded as more ingenious than solid. It has been reprinted in one volume in English, at London and at Dublin, and in Latin, at Paris and at Geneva; and the system, upon which it is constructed, has been almost universally adopted. The whole work, indeed, is justly considered as a repository of ancient history, and with respect to the Roman history in particular,

*He had planned a third part, which was to have reached to the beginning of the fourth century, but this he did not live to finish.

may generally be pronounced one of the best authorities extant. Beside these, three hundred of his Letters to his numerous correspondents, at home and abroad, were published, in one volume folio, by his chaplain Dr. Parr. His works, however, are generally so accessible, as to render extracts from them in the present compilation unnecessary.

245

OLIVER CROMWELL.*

[1599-1658.]

OLIVER CROMWELL was born at Huntingdon April 25, 1599. His family, of the name of Williams, was originally of Welsh extraction; but one of his ancestors marrying the sister of Thomas Cromwell Earl of Essex, a son by that marriage assumed his mother's maiden name, and transmitted it to his descendents.† Mr. Robert Cromwell, his father, was the second son of Sir Henry Cromwell of Hinchinbrook; and his mother was a sister of Sir Robert Stewart Knt., of the isle of Ely. No extraordinary solicitude, it appears, was shown about his early education; as he continued, distinguished very probably chiefly by his turbulence and his boyish tricks,

* AUTHORITIES. Rapin, Harris' Life of Cromwell, Ludlow's Memoirs, and Salmon's Chronological Historian.

+ For a minute account of the Protectoral House of Cromwell, both as to it's ancestry and it's posterity, with it's alliances matrimonial and political and their issue, see Noble's very elaborate Memoirs.'

Descended of the royal house of Stuart, as appears from a pedigree of her family still extant. By Fuller we are told, that in a conversation with Bishop Goodman, the Protector passionately disclaimed all connexion with the Earl of Essex.

6

a day-scholar at the free school of Huntingdon till the age of seventeen. It is pretended, however, that during his boyhood occurred many striking presages of his future greatness. Of his enthusiastic turn, even at this early period of his life, several stories are recorded. One of these may be here introduced as he was lying melancholy upon his bed in the day-time, he fancied he saw a gigantic female figure, which announced that he should be the greatest man in the kingdom;' and although his father requested his master would correct him severely for this his imaginary vision, and his uncle Stewart told him it was too traitorous to be repeated,' he persisted in affirming it's truth. From his youth indeed, we learn through Sir Philip Warwick from one of his physicians, he was quite a splenetic, and had fancies about the cross in that town, and that he had himself been called to him at midnight: neither was he ever wholly free from them, even in the very height of his prosperity. At seventeen, he was sent a fellow-commoner to Sidney College, Cambridge, but without any fixed plan, as to his future destination in life: hence, instead of applying himself closely either to divinity, law, or physic, he devoted the greatest part of his time to manly exer

* Extract from the Register of the College. Oliverus Cromwell, Huntingdoniensis, admissus ad commeatum sociorum Coll. Sid., Aprilis 23°, 1616; Tutore Magistro Ricardo Howlet.'

Between this entry and the next is crowded in, in a smaller hand or letter, the following character:

"Hic fuit grandis ille impostor, carnifex perditissimus, qui pientissimo rege Carolo 1. nefariâ cæde sublato, ipsum usurpavit thronum, et tria regna per quinque fermè annorum spatium sub Protectoris nomine indomitâ tyrannide vexavit.'

His rooms at college are still remembered.

cises. An active rather than a sedentary life seemed to be his choice, and polite more than abstruse learning, his favourite study; by which means, he acquired a competent knowledge of the Greek and Roman annals.

His father, a younger brother, did not possess an income sufficient for the decent support of his family, consisting of four sons and seven daughters. Mrs. Cromwell, therefore, without her husband's participation engaged in a branch of the brewing trade, applying the profits to raising portions for her daughters, for whom she procured advantageous matches. The eldest surviving was the wife of Mr. John, Desborough, subsequently one of the Protector's Major Generals; another married first Roger Whetstone, Esq., and secondly Colonel John Jones, who was executed for having been one of the King's Judges; the third espoused Colonel Valentine Walton, who died in exile; and the fourth, Robina, married successivly Dr. Peter French, and Dr. John Wilkins, the latter a man eminent in the republic of letters, and after the Restoration Bishop of Chester. Such was the

* The partiality of Dugdale and others in calling him "dissolute and disorderly" at this period, and affirming that from his rough and blustering disposition he acquired the name of 'royster,' may be inferred from the knowledge, which (as Waller assures us) he had gained of the Grecian and Latin Histories, from his subsequent patronage of men of learning and science, and from his possessing a very valuable and well-chosen library.

† One of his aunts also, it may be added, married Francis Barrington, Esq., from whom descended the Barringtons of Essex; another married John Hampden, Esq. and bore to him the patriot of that name; a third was the mother of Colonel Whalley, to whose custody the King was entrusted at Hampton Court; and the fourth married Mr. Dunch,