fhame, as confcience or humanity, in the open face of the whole world? to receive a commiffion for the king and parliament, to murder (as I faid) the one, and destroy no lefs impudently the other? to fight against monarchy when he declared for it, and declare against it when he contrived for it in his own perfon? to abafe perfidiously and fupplant ingratefully his own general + firft, and afterwards molt of thofe officers, who, with the lofs of their honour, and hazard of their fouls, had lifted him up to the top of his unreasonable ambitions? to break his faith with all enemies and with all friends equally? and to make no lefs frequent use of the most folemn perjuries, than the loofer fort of people do of customary oaths? to ufurp thres kingdoms without any shadow of the leaft pretenfions, and to govern them as unjustly as he got them? to fet himself up as an idol (which we know, as St. Paul fays, in itself is nothing), and make the very ftreets of London like the valley of Hinnon, by burning the bowels of men as a facrifice to his Molochfhip? to seek to entail this ufurpation upon his pofterity, and with it an endlefs war upon the nation? and lastly, by the fevereft judgment of Almighty God, to die hardened, and mad, and unrepentant, with the curfes of the prefent age, and the deteftation of all to fucceed?"

Though I had much more to fay (for the life of man is fo fhort, that it allows not time enough to speak against a tyrant); yet, because I had a mind to hear how my frange adverfary would behave himfelf upon this fubject, and to give even the devil (as they fay) his right and fair play in a difputation, I ftopped here, and expected (not without the frailty of a little fear) that he should have broke into a violent paffion in behalf of his favourite: but he on the contrary very calmly, and with the dove-like innocency of a ferpent that was not yet warmed enough to fting, thus replied to me; "It is not fo much out of my affection to that person whom we difcourfe of (whose greatness is too folid to be fhaken by the breath of an oratory), as for your own fake (honeft countryman), whom I conceive to err, rather by mistake than out of malice, that I fhall endeavour to reform your uncharitable and unjust opinion. And, in the firft place, I must needs put you in mind of a fentence of the most ancient of the heathen divines, that you men are acquainted withal,

Οὐχ ̓ ἔσιαν καλαμένοισιν ἐπ ̓ ἀνδράσιν εὐχελαᾶσθαι.

'Tis wicked with infulting feet to tread
Upon the monuments of the dead.

And the intention of the reproof there, is no lefs proper for this fubject; for it is spoken to a perfon who was proud and infolent against those dead men, to whom he had been humble and obedient whilst they lived."

"Your highness may please (faid I) to add the verse that follows, as no less proper for this fubject:

Whom God's just doom and their own fins have fent

Already to their punishment.

But I take this to be the rule in the cafe, that, when we fix any infamy upon deceafed perfons, it should not be done out of hatred to the dead, but out of love and charity to the living: that the curfes, which only remain in men's thoughts, and dare not come forth against tyrants (because they are tyrants) whilft they are fo, may at least be for ever fettled and engraven upon their memories, to deter all others from the like wickednefs; which elfe, in the time of their foolish profperity, the flattery of their own hearts, and of other men's tongues, would not fuffer them to perceive, Ambition is fo fubtile a tempter, and the corruption of human nature fo fufceptible of the temptation, that a man can hardly refift it, be he never so much forewarned of the evil confequences; much lefs if he find not only the concurrence of the prefent, but the approbation too of following ages, which have the liberty to judge more freely. The mifchief of tyranny is too great, even in the fhorteft time that it can continue; it is endlefs and infupportable, if the example be to reign too; and if a Lambert must be in

Sir Thomas Fairfax,

vited to follow the fteps of a Cromwell, as well by the voice of honour, as by the fight of power and riches. Though it may feem to fome fantastically, yet was it wifely, done of the Syracufans, to implead with the forms of their ordinary justice, to condemn and destroy, even the ftatues of all their tyrants: if it were poffible to cut them out of all history, and to extinguish their very names, I am of opinion that it ought to be done; but, fince they have left behind them too deep wounds to be ever closed up without a fcar, at least let us set such a mark upon their memory, that men of the fame wicked inclinations may be no lefs affrighted with their lafting ignominy, than enticed by their momentary glories. And, that your highness may perceive, that I speak not all this out of any private animofity against the perfon of the late protector, I affure you, upon my faith, that I bear no more hatred to his name, than I do to that of Marius or Sylla, who never did me, or any friend of mine, the least injury ;" and with that, tranfported by a holy fury, I fell into this fudden rapture;

Curst be the man (what do I with? as though

The wretch already were not fo;

But curft on let him be) who thinks it brave
And great, his countrey* to enflave;

Who feeks to overpoife alone

The balance of a nation;

Against the whole but naked ftate,

Who in his own light scale makes up with arms the weight:

Who of his nation loves to be the first,

Though at the rate of being worst;

Who would be rather a great monster, than

A well-proportion'd man,

The fon of earth with hundred hands

Upon his three-pil'd mountain ftands,

Till thunder ftrikes him from the sky;

The son of earth again in his earth's womb does lie.

What blood, confufion, ruin, to obtain

A fhort and miferable reign!

In what oblique and humble creeping wife
Does the mischievous ferpent rife!

But even his forked tongue ftrikes dead :
When he has rear'd up his wicked head,
He murders with his mortal frown;
A bafilifk he grows, if once he get a crown.
But no guards can oppose assaulting fears,
Or undermining tears,

No more than doors or close-drawn curtains keep
The fwarming dreams out, when we fleep.
That bloody confcience, too, of his

(For, oh, a rebel red-coat 'tis)

Does here his early hell begin,

He fees his flaves without, his tyrant feels within,

Let, gracious God! let never more thine hand
Lift up this rod against our land!

A tyrant is a rod and ferpent too,

And brings worfe plagues than Egypt knew.

without

• Countrey.] This word, in the fenfe of patria, or as including in it the idea of a civil conftitution, is always fpelt by Mr. Cowley, I obferve, with an e before y-country;-in the sense of rus, an e-country; and this diftinction, for the fake of perfpicuity, may be worth preferving.-HURD.

What rivers ftain'd with blood have been !
What ftorm and hail-fhot have we seen!
What fores deform'd the ulcerous ftate!
What darkness, to be felt, has buried us of late!
How has it fnatch'd our flocks and herds away!
And made even of our fons a prey!

What croaking fects and vermin has it fent,
The reftlefs nation to torment!
What greedy troops, what armed power
Of flies and locufts, to devour

The land, which every where they fill!

Nor fly they, Lord! away; no, they deyour it ftill.
Come the eleventh plague, rather than this should be;
Come fink us rather in the fea.

Come rather peftilence, and reap us down;
Come God's fword rather than our own.

Let rather Roman come again,

Or Saxon, Norman, or the Dane:

In all the bonds we ever bore,

We griev'd, we figh'd, we wept; we never blush'd, before.

If by our fins the divine juftice be

Call'd to this laft extremity,

Let fome denouncing Jonas first be fent,
To try, if England can repent.
Methinks, at leaft, fome prodigy,
Some dreadful comet from on high,
Should terribly forewarn the earth,

As of good princes death, fo of a tyrant's birth."

Here the spirit of verfe beginning a little to fail, I ftopt: and his highnefs, fmiling, faid, "I was glad to fee you engaged in the enclofure of metre; for, if you had ftaid in the open plain of declaiming against the word tyrant, I muft have had patience for half a dozen hours, till you had tired yourfelf as well as me. But pray, countryman, to avoid this fciomachy, or imaginary combat with words, let me know, Sir, what you mean by the name of tyrant, for I remember that, among your ancient authors, not only all kings, but even Jupiter himself (your juvans pater) is fo termed; and perhaps, as it was ufed formerly in a good fenfe, fo we fhall find it, upon better confideration, to be ftill a good thing for the benefit and peace of mankind; at leaft, it will appear whether your interpretation of it may be justly applied to the perfon, who is now the fubject of our difcourfe."

"I call him (faid I) a tyrant, who either intrudes himself forcibly into the govern ment of his fellow-citizens without any legal authority over them; or who, having a juft title to the government of a people, abufes it to the deftruction or tormenting of them. So that all tyrants are at the fame time ufurpers, either of the whole, or at leaft of a part, of that power which they affume to themselves; and no lefs are they to be accounted rebels, fince no man can ufurp authority over others, but by rebelling againft them who had it before, or at least against thofe laws which were his fuperiors: and in all these fenfes, no hiftory can afford us a more evident example of tyranny, or more out of all poffibility of excufe or palliation, than that of the perfon whom you are pleafed to defend; whether we confider his reiterated rebellions against all his fuperiors, or his ufurpation of the fupreme power to himself, or his tyranny in the exercife of it: and, if lawful princes have been efteemed tyrants, by not containing themselves within the bounds of those laws which have been left them, as the sphere of their authority, by their forefathers, what fhall we fay of that man, who, having by right no power at all in this nation, could not content himself with that which had fa

tisfied the most ambitious of our princes? nay, not with those vaftly extended limits of fovereignty, which he (difdaining all that had been prescribed and obferved before) was pleafed (out of great modefty) to fet to himfelf; not abstaining from rebellion and ufurpation even against his own laws, as well as thofe of the nation?"

"Hold, friend, (faid his highnefs, pulling me by my arm) for I fee your zeal is transporting you again; whether the protector were a tyrant in the exorbitant exercife of his power, we fhall fee anon; it is requifite to examine, first, whether he were fo in the ufurpation of it. And I fay, that not only he, but no man elfe, ever was, or can be fo; and that for these reasons. First, because all power belongs only to God, who is the fource and fountain of it, as kings are of all honours in their dominions. Princes are but his viceroys in the little provinces of this world; and to fome he gives their places for a few years, to fome for their lives, and to others (upon ends or deserts best known to himself, or merely for his undifputable good pleasure) he beftows, as it were, leafes upon them, and their pofterity, for fuch a date of time as is prefixed in that patent of their destiny, which is not legible to you men below. Neither is it more unlawful for Oliver to fucceed Charles in the kingdom of England, when God fo difposes of it, than it had been for him to have fucceeded the Lord Strafford in the lieutenancy of Ireland, if he had been appointed to it by the king then reigning. Men are in both the cafes obliged to obey him whom they fee actually invested with the authority, by that fovereign from whom he ought to derive it, without difputing or examining the causes, either of the removal of the one, or the preferment of the other. Secondly, because all power is attained, either by the election and confent of the people (and that takes away your objection of forcible intrufion); or elfe by a conquest of them (and that gives fuch a legal authority as you mention to be wanting in the ufurpation of a tyrant); fo that either this title is right, and then there are no ufurpers, or else it is a wrong one, and then there are none else but ufurpers, if you examine the original pretences of the princes of the world. Thirdly, (which, quitting the difpute in general, is a particular juftification of his highnefs) the government of England was totally broken and diffolved, and extinguished by the confufions of a civil war; fo that his highness could not be accufed to have poffeffed himfelf violently of the ancient building of the commonwealth, but to have prudently and peaceably built up a new one out of the ruins and afhes of the former; and he, who after a deplorable fhipwreck, can with extraordinary industry gather together the difperfed and broken planks and pieces of it, and with no less wonderful art and felicity fo rejoin them, as to make a new veffel more tight and beautiful than the old one, deferves, no doubt, to have the command of her (even as his highnefs had) by the defire of the feamen and paffengers themselves. And do but confider, laftly, (for I omit a multitude of weighty things, that might be spoken upon this noble argument) do but confider ferioufly and impartially with yourself, what admirable parts of wit and prudence, what indefatigable diligence and invincible courage, must of neceffity have concurred in the perfon of that man, who, from fo contemptible beginnings (as I obferved before) and through fo many thousand difficulties, was able not only to make himself the greatest and most abfolute monarch of this nation, but to add to it the entire conquest of Ireland and Scotland (which the whole force of the world, joined with the Roman virtue, could never attain to); and to crown all this with illuftrious and heroical undertakings and fucceffes upon all our foreign enemies: do but (I fay again) confider this, and you will confefs, that his prodigious merits were a better title to imperial dignity, than the blood of an hundred royal progenitors; and will rather lament that he lived not to overcome more nations, than envy him the conqueft and dominion of these."

"Whoever you are, faid I (my indignation making me somewhat bolder) your dif courfe, methinks, becomes as little the perfon of a tutelar angel, as Cromwell's actions did that of a protector. It is upon these principles, that all the great crimes of the world have been committed, and most particularly those which I have had the misforfune to fee in my own time, and in my own country. If these be to be allowed, we muft break up human fcciety, retire into the woods, and equally there ftand upon our

guards againft our brethren mankind, and our rebels the wild beafts. For, if there can be no prefumption upon the rights of a whole nation, there can be none moft certainly upon those of a private perfon; and, if the robbers of countries be God's vicegerents, there is no doubt but the thieves and banditos, and murderers, are his under-officers. It is true which you fay, that God is the fource and fountain of all power; and it is no lefs true, that he is the creator of ferpents, as well as angels; nor does his goodness fail of its ends, even in the malice of his own creatures. What power he fuffers the devil to exercife in this world, is too apparent by our daily experience; and by nothing more. than the late monftrous iniquities which you difpute for, and patronize in England: but would you infer from thence, that the power of the devil is a juft and lawful one; and that all men ought, as well as moft men do, obey him? God is the fountain of all powers; but fome flow from the right hand (as it were) of his goodness, and others from the left hand of his juftice; and the world, like an ifland between thefe two rivers, is fometimes refreshed and nourished by the one, and fometimes over-run and ruined by the other; and (to continue a little farther the allegory) we are never overwhelmed with the latter, till, either by our malice or negligence, we have stopped and dammed up the former.

But to come a little clofer to your argument, or rather the image of an argument, your fimilitude. If Cromwell had come to command in Ireland, in the place of the late Lord Strafford, I should have yielded obedience, not for the equipage, and the ftrength, and the guards which he brought with him, but for the commiffion which he fhould firft have fhewed me from our common fovereign that fent him; and, if he could have done that from God Almighty, I would have obeyed him too in England; but that he was fo far from being able to do, that, on the contrary, I read nothing but commands, and even public proclamations, from God Almighty, not to admit him.

Your fecond argument is, that he had the fame right for his authority, that is the foundation of all others, even the right of conqueft. Are we then fo unhappy as to be conquered by the perfon whom we hired at a daily rate, like a labourer, to conquer others for us? Did we furnish him with arms, only to draw and try upon our enemies (as we, it feems, faifely thought them) and keep them for ever fheathed in the bowels of his friends? Did we fight for liberty againft our prince, that we might become flaves to our fervant? This is fuch an impudent pretence, as neither he nor any of his flatterers for him 'nad ever the face to mention. Though it can hardly be spoken or thought of without paffion, yet I fhall, if you pleafe, argue it more calmly than the cafe deferves.

The right, certainly, of conqueft can only be exercifed upon those against whom the war is declared, and the victory obtained. So that no whole nation can be faid to be conquered, but by foreign force. In all civil wars, men are fo far from ftating the quarrel against their country, that they do it only against a perfon, or party, which they really believe, or at least pretend, to be pernicious to it; neither can there be any juft caufe for the deftruction of a part of the body, but when it is done for the prefervation and fafety of the whole. It is our country that arms, our country that pays them, our country that authorizes the undertaking, and by that diftinguishes it from rapine and murder; laftly, it is our country that directs and commands the army, and is indeed their general. So that to fay, in civil wars, that the prevailing party conquers their country, is to fay, the country conquers itfelf. And, if the general only of that party be the conqueror, the army, by which he is made fo, is no lefs conquered than the army which is beaten, and have as little reafon to triumph in that victory, by which they lofe both their honour and liberty. So that, if Cromwell conquered any party, it was only that against which he was fent; and what that was, mult appear by his commiffion. It was (fays that) against a company of evil counfellors, and difaffected perfons, who kept the king from a good intelligence and conjunction with his people. It was not then against the people, It is fo far from being so, that even of that party which was beaten, the conqueft did not belong to Cromwell, but to the parliament which employed him in their fervice, or rather indeed to the king and parliament, for whefe fervice (if there