Cheese parings went to warre.
Red Herrings lookt both blew and wan,
Green leeks and Puddings jarre.
Blind Hugh went out to see
Two Cripples run a race,
The Ox fought with the Humble Bee,
And claw’d him by the face.
Page 36, lines 21, 22. “Honest Dick;” and “L.”
These lines furnish a clue to the date of this ballad, (and its “Answer” quickly followed): “Honest Dick” being Richard Cromwell, whose Protectorate lasted only eight months, beginning in September, 1658. “The name with an L—” refers to his unscrupulous rival Lambert; with his spasmodic attempts at supremacy, urged on by his own ambition and that of his wife (accustomed too long to rule Oliver himself, during a close intimacy, not without exciting scandal, while she insisted on displacing Lady Dysart). For an account of Lambert’s twenty-one years of captivity, first at Guernsey and later at Plymouth, see Choice Notes on History, from N. and Q., 1858, pp. 155-163. Lambert played a selfish game, lost it, and needs no pity for having had to pay the stakes. But for “Honest Dick,” “Tumble down Dick,” who had warmly pleaded with his father to save the king’s life in the fatal January of 1649, we keep a hearty liking. Carlyle stigmatizes him as “poor, idle, trivial,” &c., but let that pass. Had Richard been crafty or cruel, like those who removed him from power, his reign might have been prolonged. But “what a wounded name” he would have then left behind, compared with his now stainless character: and, in any case, his ultimate fall was certain.