Make a ship, like dry land seeming, where we should not think of dreaming
Of amplitude of rolling, though non-synchronous the wave.
WHITEWASHING THE STATUE OF CROMWELL.
"Cromwell," wrote the Daily News on Arthur Balfour's speech, "was the only man of his time who understood the principles of religious freedom." Ahem!
"Papa," said Polly Eccles, referring to certain charges brought against her revered father, "Papa may have his faults, but he's a very clever man." So the D. N. as to the Protector Cromwell. "Oliver," says the D. N. in effect, "being human, may have had his faults, as had other men of his time, but he thoroughly understood religious freedom." Did he? In Ireland for example? With him "religious freedom" was like the verb in grammar, either "expressed" or "understood." It might have been "understood," but it certainly was not "expressed" in action. If Cromwell was such a model of "religious freedom," then it will be as well to reconsider history under Nero, Diocletian, & Co., not to mention the amiable Ninth Charles of France, the genial Harry the Eighth of England, the gentle Peter, Czar of all the Russia, and a few other kindly-disposed rulers, who were, probably, the only men of their time thoroughly understanding the principles of religious freedom. As the song says, "They wouldn't ha' 'urt a biby, They were men as you could trust!" And for Oliver himself, "He was all right when you knew him, But—you had to know him fust!" Rather; and then you had to accommodate yourself to his little ways, or else so much the worse for one of the two, and that one wouldn't have been Oliver Cromwell. But, of course, between principles and practise there is a "Great Divide."
The Shahzada, weary of London life and English enjoyment, will at last exclaim with the canny Scot, "For pleasure gie me Peebles!" (The original remark was made by the author of Peebles whom I have met.)
Note, Saturday, June 15.—Piece running last the week in Theatre Royal Law Courts—"Bébé." For Monday's lunch Sir Henry Hawkins ordered a Capon.