Purrs about God; Examples, (the tone of which justifies this phrase, and might deserve a severer), may be found by the curious in the frailties of poor human nature, passim, in Cromwell’s ‘Letters and Speeches,’ for which, (although not always edited with precise accuracy), we are indebted to Mr. T. Carlyle. But the view which he takes of his ‘hero,’ whether in regard of many particular facts alleged or neglected, or of the general estimate of Cromwell as a man,—as it appears to the author plainly untenable in face of proved historical facts, is here rejected.
The familiar figure of the Tyrant, too long known to the world,—with the iron, the clay, and the little gold often interfused also in the statue,—has been always easily recognisable by unbiassed eyes in Oliver Cromwell. His tyranny was substantially that of his kind, before his time and since, in its actions, its spirit, its result. Fanaticism and Paradox may come with their apparatus of rhetoric to blur, as they whitewash, the lineaments of their idol. Such eulogists may ‘paint an inch thick’: yet despots,—political, military, ecclesiastical,—will never be permanently acknowledged by the common sense of mankind as worthy the great name of Hero.
The tyrannous Ten; The Major-Generals, originally ten, (but the number varied), amongst whom, in 1655, the Commonwealth was divided. They displayed ‘a rapacity and oppression beyond their master’s’ (Hallam): a phrase amply supported by the hardly-impeachable evidence of Ludlow.
The horrible sacrament; See Appendix D.
Why he cannot win hearts; ‘In the ascent of this bold usurper to greatness . . . he had encouraged the levellers and persecuted them; he had flattered the Long Parliament and betrayed it; he had made use of the sectaries to crush the Commonwealth; he had spurned the sectaries in his last advance to power. These, with the Royalists and Presbyterians, forming in effect the whole people . . . were the perpetual, irreconcilable enemies of his administration’ (Hallam ch. x).
Stage-tricks; See the curious regal imitations and adaptations of the
Protector during his later years, in matters regarding his own and his family’s titles and state, or the marriage of his daughters.
Mortal failure; See Appendix D.
THE POET’S EUTHANASIA
November: 1674