Court there had begun a private scene, of much deeper and quite opposite interest there. The Lady Claypole, Oliver's favorite Daughter, a favorite of all the world, had fallen sick we know not when; lay sick now,―to death, as it proved. Her disease was of internal female nature; the painfullest and most harassing to mind and sense, it is understood, that falls to the lot of a human creature. Hampton Court we can fancy once more, in those July days, a house of sorrow; pale Death knocking there, as at the door of the meanest hut. 'She had great sufferings, great exercises of spirit.' Yes-and in the depths of the old Centuries, we see a pale anxious Mother, anxious Husband, anxious weeping Sisters, a poor young Frances weeping anew in her weeds. For the last fourteen days' his Highness has been by her bedside at Hampton Court, unable to attend to any public business whatever.* Be still, my Child; trust thou yet in God: in the waves of the Dark River there too is He a God of help !—On the 6th day of August she lay dead; at rest for ever. My young. my beautiful, my brave! She is taken from me; I am left bereaved of her. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the Name of the Lord!-

'His Highness,' says Maidston,† 'being at Hampton Court, sickened a little before the Lady Elizabeth died. Her decease was on Friday, 6th August, 1658; she having lain long under great extremity of bodily pain, which, with frequent and violent convulsion-fits, brought her to her end. But as to his Highness, it was observed that his sense of her outward misery, in the pains she endured, took deep impression upon him; who indeed was ever a most indulgent and tender Father ;-his affections' too

* Thurloe, vii., 295 (27 July, 1658).

† A Collection of several Passages concerning his late Highness Oliver Cromwell, in the Time of his Sickness; wherein is related many of his Expressions upon his Deathbed, together with his Prayer within two cr three Days before his Death. Written by one that was then Groom of his Bedchamber. (King's Pamphlets, sm. 4to., no. 792, art. 22: London, 9 June, 1659.) We have called him Maidston,' on Noble's bad authority; and to avoid confusion shall continue to do so; but must warn the reader that Maidston was 'Steward of the Household,' not 'Groom of the Bedchamber,' and that the authorship of this Pamphlet remains uncertain for the present.

'being regulated and bounded by such Christian wisdom and pru. dence, as did eminently shine in filling up not only that relation of a Father, but also all other relations; wherein he was a most rare and singular example. And no doubt but the sympathy of his spirit with his sorely afflicted and dying Daughter' did break him down at this time; 'considering also,'-innumerable other considerations of sufferings and toils, which made me often wonder he was able to hold up so long; except' indeed 'that he was borne up by a Supernatural Power at a more than ordinary rate. As a mercy to the truly Christian World, and to us of these Nations, had we been worthy of him!'

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The same authority, who unhappily is not chronological, adds elsewhere this little picture, which we must take with us: 'At Hampton Court, a few days after the death of the Lady Elizabeth, which touched him nearly,-being then himself under bodily distempers, forerunners of that Sickness which was to death, and in his bedchamber, he called for his Bible, and desired an honorable and godly person there, with others, present, To read unto him that passage in Philippians, Fourth: "Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere, and by all things, I am instructed; both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things, through Christ which strengtheneth me.' ""* Which read, said he, to use his own words as near as I can remember them: "This Scripture did once save my life; when my eldest Son" poor Oliver† "died; which went as a dagger to my heart, indeed it did." And then repeating the words of the text himself, and reading the tenth and eleventh verses, of Paul's contentation, and submission to the will of God in all conditions,-said he: "It's true, Paul, you have learned this, and attained to this measure of grace; but what shall I do? Ah poor creature, it is a hard lesson for me to take out! I find it so!" But reading on to the thirteenth verse, where Paul saith, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,”

† A blank in the Pamphlet here: see Antea, vol. i., 125, 150.

then faith began to work, and his heart to find support and comfort, and he said thus to himself, "He that was Paul's Christ is my Christ too!" And so drew waters out of the well of Salvation.'

In the same dark days, occurred George Fox's third and last interview with Oliver. Their first interview we have seen. The second, which had fallen out some two years ago, did not prosper quite so well. George, riding into Town one evening,' with some Edward Pyot' or other broadbrimmed man, espied the Protector at Hyde Park Corner among his Guards,' and made up to his carriage-window, in spite of opposition; and was altogether cordially welcomed there. But on the following day, at Whitehall, the Protector' spake lightly;' he sat down loosely 'on a table,' and 'spake light things to me,'-in fact, rather quizzed me; finding my enormous sacred Self-confidence none of the least of my attainments!* Such had been our sacred interview; here now is the third and last.-George dates nothing; and his facts everywhere lie round him like the leather-parings of his old shop but we judge it may have been about the time when the Manzinis and Ducs de Crequi were parading in their gilt coaches, That George and two Friends' going out of Town,' on a summer day, 'two of Hacker's men' had met them,―taken them, brought them to the Mews.' 'Prisoners there a while ;'-but the Lord's power was over Hacker's men; they had to let us go. Whereupon :

'The same day, taking boat I went down' (up) 'to Kingston, and from thence to Hampton Court, to speak with the Protector about the Sufferings of Friends. I met him riding into Hampton-Court Park; and before I came to him, as he rode at the head of his Lifeguard, I saw and felt a waft' (whiff)' of death go forth against him'--Or in favor of him, George? His life, if thou knew it, has not been a merry thing for this man, now or heretofore! I fancy he has been looking, this long wnile, to give it up, whenever the-Commander-in-chief required. To quit his laborious sentry-post; honorably lay-up his arms, ana gone to his rest-all Eternity to rest in, O George! Was thy own life merry, for example, in the hollow of the tree; clad * Fox's Journal, i., 381, 2.

be

permanently in leather? And does kingly purple, and governing refractory worlds instead of stitching coarse shoes, make it merrier? The waft of death is not against him, I think,—perhaps against thee, and me, and others, O George, when the Nell-Gwyn Defender and Two Centuries of all-victorious Cant have come in upon us! My unfortunate George - 'a waft of death go forth

against him; and when I came to him, he looked like a dead man. After I had laid the Sufferings of Friends before him, and had warned him according as I was moved to speak to him, he bade me come to his house. So I returned to Kingston; and, the next day, went up to Hampton Court to speak farther with him. But when I came, Harvey, who was one that waited on him, told me the Doctors were not willing that I should speak with him. So I passed away, and never saw him

Friday the 20th of August, 1658, this was probably the day on which George Fox saw Oliver riding into Hampton Park with his Guards, for the last time. That Friday, as we find, his Highness seemed much better: but on the morrow a sad change had taken place; feverish symptoms, for which the Doctors rigorously prescribed quiet. Saturday to Tuesday the symptoms continued ever worsening: a kind of tertian ague, 'bastard tertian' as the old Doctors name it; for which it was ordered that his Highness should return to Whitehall, as to a more favorable air in that complaint. On Tuesday accordingly he quitted Hampton Court;

-never to see it more.

'His time was come,' says Maidston; and neither prayers nor tears could prevail with God to lengthen out his life and continue him longer to us. Prayers abundantly and incessantly poured out on his behalf, both publicly and privately, as was observed, in a more than ordinary way. Besides many a secret sigh, secret and unheard by men, yet like the cry of Moses. more loud, and strongly laying hold on God, than many spoken supplications. All which,-the hearts of God's People being thus mightily stirred up,-did seem to beget confidence in some, and hopes in all; yea some thoughts in himself, that God would re. store him.'

Fox's Journal, pp. 485, 6.

'Prayers public and private:' they are worth imagining to ourselves. Meetings of Preachers, Chaplains, and Godly Persons; 'Owen, Goodwin, Sterry, with a company of others, in an adjoining room;' in Whitehall, and elsewhere over religious London and England, fervent outpourings of many a loyal heart. For there were hearts to whom the nobleness of this man was known; and his worth to the Puritan Cause was evident. Prayers,strange enough to us; in a dialect fallen obsolete, forgotten now. Authentic wrestlings of ancient Human Souls,-who were alive then, with their affections, awe-struck pieties; with their Human Wishes, risen to be transcendant, hoping to prevail with the Inexorable. All swallowed now in the depths of dark Time; which is full of such, since the beginning!-Truly it is a great scene of World-History, this in old Whitehall; Oliver Cromwell drawing nigh to his end. The exit of Oliver Cromwell and of English Puritanism; a great Light, one of our few authentic Solar Luminaries, going down now amid the clouds of Death. Like the setting of a great victorious Summer Sun; its course now finished. So stirbt ein Held,' says Schiller, 'So dies a Hero! Sight worthy to be worshipped!'-He died, this Hero Oliver, in Resignation to God; as the Brave have all done. 'We could not be more desirous he should abide,' says the pious Maid. ston, 'than he was content and willing to be gone.' The struggle lasted, amid hope and fear, for ten days. Some small miscellaneous traits, and confused gleanings of last-words; and then our poor History ends.

Oliver, we find, spoke much of the Covenants ;' which indeed are the grand axis of all, in that Puritan Universe of his. Two Covenants; one of Works, with fearful Judgment for our shortcomings therein, one of Grace and unspeakable mercy ;-gracious Engagements, Covenants,' which the Eternal God has vouchsafed to make with His feeble creature Man. Two; and by Christ's Death they have become One; there for Oliver is the divine solution of this our Mystery of Life.* They were Two,"

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* Much intricate intense reasoning to this effect, on this subject, in Owen's Works, among others,