CHAP. XVII.
Lead us from hence; where we may leisurely
Each one demand, and answer to his part
Perform’d in this wide gap of time.
Winter’s Tale.
It is not necessary to the after-story of the persons in our domestic drama that the various fortunes of that unnatural war, which desolated England for so many years, should be further related.
From the bloody field of Newbury, of which we have already spoken, to the close of that mighty and memorable contest which convulsed the whole kingdom, our tale pauses. The imagination of the reader must pass with us in haste across that afflicting season of violence and woe to consider the first-fruits of that harvest, the seed of which had been sown in the whirlwind of human passions, and had been watered by torrents of human blood.