Church, suitable for such a population, stands yet as it did in Cromwell's time, except perhaps the steeple and pews; the flagstones in the interior are worn deep with the pacing of many generations. The steeple is visible from several miles distant; a sharp high spire, piercing far up from amid the willow-trees. Ihe country hereabouts has all a clammy look, clayey and boggy; the produce of it, whether bushes and trees, or grass and crops, gives you the notion of something lazy, dropsical, gross.-This is St. Ives, a most ancient Cattle-market by the shores of the sable Ouse, on the edge of the Fen-country; where, among other things that happened, Oliver Cromwell passed five years of his existence as a Farmer and Grazier. Who the primitive Ives himself was, remains problematic; Camden says he was 'Ivo a Persian ;'surely far out of his road here. The better authorities designate him as Ives, or Yves, a worthy Frenchman, Bishop of Chartres in the time of our Henry Beauclerk.

Oliver, as we observed, has left hardly any memorial of himself at St. Ives. The ground he farmed is still partly capable of being specified, certain records or leases being still in existence. It lies at the lower or Southeast end of the Town; a stagnant flat tract of land, extending between the houses or rather kitchengardens of St. Ives in that quarter, and the banks of the River, which, very tortuous always, has made a new bend here. If well drained, this land looks as if it would produce abundant grass, but naturally it must be little other than a bog. Tall bushy ranges of willow-trees and the like, at present, divide it into fields; the River, not visible till you are close on it, bounding them all to the South. At the top of the fields next to the Town is an ancient massive Barn, still used as such; the people call it 'Cromwell's Barn :'-and nobody can prove that it was not his! It was evidently some ancient man's or series of ancient men's.

Quitting St. Ives Fen-ward or Eastward, the last house of all, which stands on your right hand among gardens, seemingly the best house in the place, and called Slepe Hall, is confidently pointed out as 'Oliver's House.' It is indisputably Slepe-Hall [Touse, and Oliver's Farm was rented from the estate of Slepe

all. It is at present used for a Boarding-school: the worthy inhabitants believe it to be liver's: and even point out his

'Chapel' or secret Puritan Sermon-room in the lower story of the house: no Sermon-room, as you may well discern, but to appearance some sort of scullery or wash-house or bake-house. "It was here he used to preach," say they. Courtesy forbids you to answer, "Never!" But in fact there is no likelihood that this was Oliver's House at all; in its present state it does not seem to be a century old ;* and originally, as is like, it must have served as residence to the Proprietors of Slepe-Hall estate, not to the Farmer of a part thereof. Tradition makes a sad blur of Oliver's memory in his native country! We know, and shall know, only this, for certain here, That Oliver farmed part or whole of these Slepe-Hall Lands, over which the human feet can still walk with assurance; past which the River Ouse still slumberously rolls, towards Earith Bulwark and the Fen-country. Here of a certainty Oliver did walk and look about him habitually, during those five years from 1631 to 1636; a man studious of many temporal and many eternal things. His cattle grazed here, his ploughs tilled here, the heavenly skies and infernal abysses overarched and underarched him here.

In fact there is, as it were, nothing whatever that still decisively to every eye attests his existence at St. Ives, except the following old Letter, accidentally preserved among the Harley Manuscripts in the British Museum. Noble, writing in 1787, says the old branding-irons, ' O. C.,' for marking sheep, were still used by some Farmer there; but these also, many years ago, are gone. In the Parish-records of St. Ives, Oliver appears twice among some other ten or twelve respectable rate-payers; appointing, in 1633 and 1634, for St. Ives cum Slepa' fit annual overseers for the Highway and Green :'-one of the Oliver Signatures is now cut out. Fifty years ago, a vague old Townclerk had heard from very vague old persons, that Mr. Cromwell had been seen attending divine service in the Church with a piece of red flannel round his neck, being subject to inflammation.'t Certain letters 'written in a very kind style from Oliver Lord Protector to persons in St. Ives,' do not now exist; probably never did. Swords 'bearing

Noble, i., 102, 106.

6

See Noble: his confused gleanings and speculations concerning St. Ives are to be found, i., 105-6, and again, i., 258-61.

the initials of O. C.,' swords sent down in the beginning of 1642, when War was now imminent, and weapons were yet scarce,-do any such still exist? Noble says they were numerous in 1787; but nobody is bound to believe him. Walker* testifies that the Vicar of St. Ives, Rev. Henry Downet, was ejected with his curate in 1642; an act which Cromwell could have hindered, had he been willing to testify that they were fit clergymen. Alas, had he been able! He attended them in red flannel, but had not exceedingly rejoiced in them, it would seem.-There is, in short, nothing that renders Cromwell's existence completely visible to us, even through the smallest chink, but this Letter alone, which,· copied from the Museum Manuscripts, worthy Mr. Harris† has printed for all people. We slightly rectify the spelling and reprint.

To my very loving friend Mr. Storie, at the Sign of the Dog in the Royal Exchange, London: Deliver these.

St. Ives, 11th January, 1635.

MR. STORIE, Amongst the catalogue of those good works which your fellow-citizens and our countrymen have done, this will not be reckoned for the least, That they have provided for the feeding of souls. Building of hospitals provides for men's bodies; to build material temples is judged a work of piety; but they that procure spiritual food, they that build up spiritual temples, they are the men truly charitable, truly pious. Such a work as this was your erecting the Lecture in our Country; in the which you placed Dr. Wells, a man of goodness and industry, and ability to do good every way: not short of any I know in England: and I am persuaded that, sithence his coming, the Lord hath by him wrought much good among us.

It only remains now that He who first moved you to this, put you forward in the continuance thereof: it was the Lord; and therefore to Him .ift we up our hearts that He would perfect it. And surely, Mr. Storie,

* Sufferings of the Clergy.

† Life of Cromwell: a blind farrago, published in 1761, 'after the manner of Mr. Bayle,'-a very bad manner,' more especially when a Harris presides over it! Yet poor Harris's Book, his three Books (on Cromwell, Charles and James I.) have worth: cartloads of Excerpts carefully transcribed,→ and edited, in the way known to us, by shoving up the shafts.' The increas ing interest of the subject brought even these to a second edition in 1814.

it were a piteous thing to see a Lecture fall, in the hands of so many able and godly men, as I am persuaded the founders of this are; in these times, wherein we see they are suppressed, with too much haste and violence, by the enemies of God's Truth. Far be it that so much guilt should stick to your hands, who live in a City so renowned for the clear shining light of the Gospel. You know, Mr. Storie, to withdraw the pay is to let fall the Lecture; for who goeth to warfare at his own cost? I beseech you therefore in the bowels of Jesus Christ, put it forward, and let the good man have his pay. The souls of God's children will bless you for it: and so shall I ; and ever rest,

Your loving Friend in the Lord,
OLIVER CROMWELL.

Commend my hearty love to Mr. Busse, Mr. Beadly, and my other good friends. I would have written to Mr. Busse: but I was loath to trouble him with a long letter, and I feared I should not receive an answer from him: from you I expect one so soon as conveniently you may. Vale.*

Such is Oliver's first extant Letter. The Royal Exchange has been twice burned since this piece of writing was left at the Sign of the Dog there. The Dog Tavern, Dog Landlord, frequenters of the Dog, and all their business and concernment there, and the hardest stone masonry they had, have vanished irrecoverable. Like a dream of the Night; like that transient Sign or Effigies of the Talbot Dog, plastered on wood with oil pigments, which invited men to liquor and house-room in those days! The personages of Oliver's Letter may well be unknown

to us.

Of Mr. Story, strangely enough, we have found one other notice he is amongst the Trustees, pious and wealthy citizens of London for most part, to whom the sale of Bishops' Lands is, by act of Parliament, committed, with many instructions and conditions, on the 9th of October, 1646.† 'James Story' is one of these; their chief is Alderman Fowke. From Oliver's ex

* Harris (London, 1814), p. 12. This Letter, for which Harris, in 1761, thanks the Trustees of the British Museum,' is not now to be found in that Establishment; a search of three hours through all the Catalogues, assisted by one of the Clerks,' reports itself to me as fruitless.

† Scobell's Acts and Ordinances (London, 1658), p. 99

pression, our Country, it may be inferred or guessed that Story was of Huntingdonshire: a man who had gone up to London, and prospered in trade, and addicted himself to Puritanism ;— much of him, it is like, will never be known! Of Busse and Beadly (unless Busse be a misprint for Bunse, Alderman Bunce, another of the above 'Trustees '), there remains no vestige.

Concerning the 'Lecture,' however, the reader will recall what was said above, of Lecturers, and of Laud's enmity to them; of the Feoffees who supported Lecturers, and of Laud's final sup. pression and ruin of those Feoffees in 1633. Mr. Story's name is not mentioned in the List of the specific Feoffees; but it need not be doubted he was a contributor to their fund, and probably a leading man among the subscribers. By the light of this Letter we may dimly gather that they still continued to subscribe, and to forward Lectureships where possible, though now in a less ostentatious manner.

It appears there was a Lecture at Huntingdon : but his Grace of Lambeth, patiently assiduous in hunting down such objects, had managed to get that suppressed in 1633,* or at least to get the King's consent for suppressing it. This in 1633. So that 'Mr. Wells' could not, in 1636, as my imbecile friend supposes,† be 'the Lecturer in Huntingdon,' wherever else he might lecture. Besides Mr. Wells is not in danger of suppression by Laud, but by want of cash! Where Mr. Wells lectured, no mortal knows, or will ever know. Why not at St. Ives on the market-days? Or he might be a 'Running Lecturer,' not tied to one locality: that is as likely a guess as any.

Whether the call of this Wells Lectureship and Oliver's Letter got due return from Mr. Story we cannot now say; but judge that the Lectureship,-as Laud's star was rapidly on the ascendant, and Mr. Story and the Feoffees had already lost 1,8007. by the work, and had a fine in the Starchamber still hanging over their heads,—did in fact come to the ground, and trouble no Archbishop or Market Cattle-dealer with God's Gospel any more. Mr. Wells, like the others, vanishes from History, or nearly so. In the chaos of the King's Pamphlets one seems to discern dimly

• Wharton's Laud (London, 1695), p. 527.

+ Noble, i., 259.