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Which still the longer 'tis in doing,
Becomes the surer way to ruin.

This when the royalists perceiv'd,*
Who to their faith as firmly cleav'd,
And own'd the right they had paid down
So dearly for, the church and crown,
Th' united constanter, and sided
The more, the more their foes divided

For tho' outnumber'd, overthrown,

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Began once more to shew them play,
And hopes, at least, to have a day,
They rally'd in parade of woods,
And unfrequented solitudes;
Conven'd at midnight in outhouses,
T'appoint new-rising rendezvouses,
And, with a pertinacy unmatch'd,
For new recruits of danger watch'd.§
No sooner was one blow diverted,
But up another party started,
And as if Nature too, in haste,
To furnish our supplies as fast,
Before her time had turn'd destruction,

T'a new and numerous production ;||
No sooner those were overcome,

But up rose others in their room,

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A fine encomium on the royalists, their prudence, and suffering fidelity.

† As the dial is invariable, and always open to the sun whenever its rays can show the time of day, though the weather is often cloudy, and obscures its lustre: so true loyalty is always ready to serve its king and country, though it often suffers great afflictions and distresses.

The poet, to serve his metre, lengthens words as well as contracts them; thus lightening, oppugne, sarcasmous, affaires, bungleing, sprinkleing, benigne.

Recruits, that is, returns..

The succession of loyalists was so quick, that they seemed to be perishing, and others supplying their places, before the periods usual in nature; all which is expressed with an allusion to uivocal generation.

That, like the christian faith, increas'd,

The more, the more they were suppress'd ·
Whom neither chains, nor transportation,
Proscription, sale or confiscation,
Nor all the desperate events
Of former try'd experiments,

Nor wounds, could terrify, nor mangling, · To leave off loyalty and dangling,

Nor death, with all his bones, affright
From vent'ring to maintain the right,
From staking life and fortune down
'Gainst all together, for the crown :*
But kept the title of their cause
From forfeiture, like claims in laws;
And prov'd no prosp'rous usurpation
Can ever settle on the nation;
Until, in spite of force and treason,
They put their loy'lty in possession;
And, by their constancy and faith,
Destroy'd the mighty men of Gath.
Toss'd in a furious hurricane,
Did Oliver give up his reign,t
And was believ'd, as well by saints
As moral men and miscreants,t

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* That is, all of them together, namely, the several factions, their adversaries, and the devil. See v. 178.

The Monday before the death of Oliver, August 30th, 1658, was the most windy day that had happened for twenty years; Dennis Bond, a member of the long parliament, and one of the king's judges, died on this day; wherefore, when Oliver likewise went away in a storm the Friday following, it was said the devil came in the first wind to fetch him, but finding him not quite ready, he took Bond for his appearance. Dr. Morton, in his book of Fevers, says, that Oliver died of an ague, or intermittent fever; and intimates that his life might have been saved, had the virtues of the bark been sufficiently known; the distemper was then uncommonly epidemical and fatal: Morton's father died of it. As there was also a high wind the day Oliver died, both the poets and Lord Clarendon may be right; though the note on A. Wood's Life insinuates, that the noble historian mistook the date of the wind. Wood's Life, p. 115. Waller says: In storms as loud as his immortal fame;

and Godolphin:

In storms as loud as was his crying sin.

Some editions read mortal, but, not with so much sense or wit. The Independents called themselves the saints; the cavaliers, and the church of England, they distinguished into two Borts; the immoral and wicked, they called miscreants; those that were of sober and of good conversation, they called moral

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To founder in the Stygian ferry,
Until he was retriev'd by Sterry,*
Who, in a false erroneous dream,t

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men; yet, because these last did not maintain the doctrine of absolute predestination and justification by faith only, but insisted upon the necessity of good works, they accounted them no better than moral heathens. By this opposition in the terms betwixt moral men and saints, the poet seems to insinuate, that the pretended saints were men of no morals.

*It was thought by the king's party, that Oliver Cromwell was gone to the devil; but Sterry, one of Oliver's chaplains, assured the world of his assumption into heaven. Sterry preached the sermon at Oliver's funeral, and comforted the audience with the following information. "As sure as this is the Bible "(which he held up in his hand) the blessed spirit of Oliver "Cromwell is with Christ, at the right hand of the Father, and "if he be there, what may not his family expect from him? For "if he were so useful and helpful, and so much good influenced "from him to them when he was in a mortal state, how much "more influence will they have from him now in heaven: the "Father, Son, and Spirit, through him, bestowed gifts and graces "6 upon them." Bishop Burnet hath recorded more rant of this high-flown blasphemer, as I find him called by A. Wood, viz.-that praying for Richard Cromwell, he said, "Make him the brightness of his father's glory, and the express image of his "person." Archbishop Tillotson heard him. The following extract is from the register of Caversham, in Berkshire, comminnicated to me by the very ingenious and learned Dr. Loveday, of that place, to whom I rejoice to acknowledge my obligations for his assistance in the course of this work. "Vaniah Vaux, the "daughter of Captain George and Elizabeth Vaux, was born upon "a Monday morning, between seven and eight o'clock, at Caus"ham Lodge, being the 19th of May, 1656, and christened by Mr. "Peter Sterry, minister and chaplain to the Highness the Lord "Protector."

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† Peter Sterry dreamed that Oliver was to be placed in heaven, which he foolishly imagined to be the true and real heaven above; but it happened to be the false carnal heaven at the end of Westminster-Hall, where his head was fixed after the Restoration. There were, at that time, two victualling-houses at the end of Westminster-hall, under the Exchequer, the one called Heaven, and the other Hell:* near to the former Oliver's head was fixed, January 30, 1660. Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, were drawn to Tyburn on three several sledges, and. being taken from their coffins, hanged at the several angles; afterwards their heads were cut off, and set on Westminster-Hall. The following is a transcript from a MS. diary of Mr. Edward Sainthill, a Spanish merchant of those times, and preserved by his descendants. "The 30th of January, being that day twelve 66 years from the death of the king, the odious carcasses of Oliver "Cromwell, Major-general Ireton, and Bradshaw, were drawn in "sledges to Tyburn, where they were hanged by the neck, from "morning till four in the afternoon. Cromwell in a green seare. 'cloth, very fresh, embalmed; Ireton having been buried long,

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Those gentlemen who had been restrained in the court of wards, were led through Westminster-Hall, by a strong guard, to that place under the Exchequer, commonly called Hell, where they might eat and drink, at their own costs, what they pleased.

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