well's works have done and are still doing! We have had our "Revolutions of Eighty-eight," officially called "glorious;" and other Revolutions not yet called glorious; and somewhat has been gained for poor Mankind. Men's ears are not now slit-off by rash Officiality; Officiality will, for long henceforth, be more cautious about men's ears. The tyrannous Starchambers, branding-irons, chimerical Kings and Surplices at All-hallowtide, they are gone, or with immense velocity going. Oliver's works do follow him! The works of a man, bury them under what guano-mountains and obscene owl-droppings you will, do not perish, cannot perish. What of He roism, what of Eternal Light was in a Man and his Life, is with very great exactness added to the Eternities; remains forever a new divine portion of the Sum of Things; and no owl's voice, this way or that, in the least avails in the matter.But we have to end here.

Oliver is gone; and with him England's Puritanism, laboriously built together by this man, and made a thing far-shiing miraculous to its own Century, and memorable to all the Centuries, soon goes. Puritanism, without its King, is kingless, anarchic; falls into dislocation, self-collision; staggers, plunges into ever deeper anarchy; King, Defender of the Puritan Faith there can now none be found; and nothing is left but to recall the old disowned Defender with the remnants of his Four Surplices, and Two Centuries of Hypocrisis (or Play-acting not so called), and put-up with all that, the best we may. The Genius of England no longer soars Sunward, world-defiant, like an Eagle through the storms, "mewing her mighty youth," as John Milton saw her do: the Genius of England, much liker a greedy Ostrich intent on provender and a whole skin mainly, stands with its other extremity Sunward; with its Ostrich-head stuck into the readiest bush, of old Church-tippets, King-cloaks, or what other "sheltering Fallacy" there may be, and so awaits the issue. The issue has been slow; but it is now seen to have been inevitable. No Ostrich, intent on gross terrene provender, and sticking its head into Fallacies, but will be awakened one day, - in a terrible à-posteriori manner, if not otherwise! Awake before it come to that; gods and men bid us awake! The Voices of our Fathers, with thousandfold stern monition to one and all, bid us awake...

APPENDIX A.

SQUIRE PAPERS.

(FROM FRASER'S MAGAZINE.)

THE following Article in Fraser's Magazine had not the effect intended for it, of securing in printer's types a certain poor defaced scantling of Cromwell Letters, which had fallen to my charge under circumstances already sorrowful enough; and then of being, after some slight peaceable satisfaction to such as took interest in it, forgotten by the public; I also being left to forget it, and be free of it. On the contrary, the peaceable satisfaction to persons interested was but temporary; and the public, instead of neglecting and forgetting, took to unquiet guessing, as if there lay some deeper mystery in the thing, perhaps foul play in it: private guessing, which in a week or two broke out into the Newspapers, in the shape of scepticism, of learned doubt too acute to be imposed upon, grounding itself on antiquarian philologies (internal evidence of anachronisms), 'cravat,' 'stand no nonsense,' and I know not what. The unwonted circumstances of the case, and the unsatisfactory though unavoidable reticences in detailing it, threw a certain enigmatic chiaroscuro over the transaction, which, as it were, challenged the idle mind. Since the public had not neglected and forgotten, the public could do no other than guess. The idle public, obstinately resolute to see into millstones, could of course see nothing but opacity and its wide realms; got into ever deeper doubt, which is bottomless, "a sphere with infinite radius," and very easily arrived at; could get into no certainty, which is a sphere's centre, and difficult to arrive at; continued fencing with spectres, arguing from antiquarian philologies, &c. in the Newspapers; whereby, echo answering echo, and no transparency in millestones being attainable, the poor public rose rapidly to a height of

anxiety on this unexpected matter, and raised a noise round itself which, considering the importance of the subject, might be called surprising. In regard to all which, what could an unfortunate Editor of Cromwell Letters do, except perhaps carefully hold his peace? The ancient housekeeper, in some innocent first-floor, in the still night time, throws a potsherd which is in her way into the street of the village: a most small transaction, laudable in its kind; but near by, starts the observant street-dog, who will see farther into it: "Whaf-thaf? Bow-wow!" and so awakens, in what enormous geometrical progression is well known, all the dogs in the village, perhaps all the dogs in the parish, and gradually, even in the county and in the kingdom, to universal vigilant observant "Bowwow, Whaf-thaf?" in the hope of seeing farther into it. Under which distressing circumstances, the ancient housekeeper understands that her one course is patience and silence; that the less she says or does, the sooner it will end! - This Squire Controversy did not quite terminate by nature, I think; but rather was suddenly quenched by that outburst of the European revolutions in the end of the February then passing, which led the public intellect into fruitfuller departments.

This is not a state of matters one would wish to reawaken! Scepticism, learned doubt, in regard to these Squire Papers, I understand is still the prevailing sentiment; and also that silence, and the reflection how small an interest, if any whatever, is involved in the matter, are the only means of removing doubt, and of leading us to the least miraculous explanation, whatever that may be. To myself, I confess, the phenomenon is, what it has always been, entirely inexplicable, a miracle equal to any in Bollandus or Capgravius, unless these Squire Letters are substantially genuine: and if their history on that hypothesis is very dim and strange, on the other hypothesis they refuse, for me at least, to have any conceivable history at all. Antiquarian philologies, &c. such as appeared in the late universal" Whaf-thaf?" or grand" Squire Controversy," never to be revived, had naturally no effect in changing one's opinion, and could have none. I have since had a visit, two visits, from the Gentleman himself; have conversed with him twice, at large, upon the Letters, the burnt Journal, and all manner of adjacent topics: and certainly, whatever other notion I might form of him, the notion that he either would or could have himself produced a Forgery of Cromwell Letters,

or been the instrument (for any consideration, much more for none) of another producing it, was flatly inconceivable once for all. Nay to hint at it, I think, would not be altogether safe for Able Editors within wind of this Gentleman! So stands it, as it has always stood, with myself, in regard to this small question.

At the same time, I am well enough aware, the Gentleman's account of proceedings in the business has an amazing look; which only the personal knowledge of him could perhaps render less amazing. Doubt, to strangers, is very permissible; nay to all, these Letters, by the very hypothesis, are involved everywhere in liability to incorrectness; irrecoverably stript of their complete historical authenticity, and not to be admitted, but to be rigorously excluded, except on that footing, in any History of Cromwell; and, on the whole, are in the state of an absurd entanglement, connected with a most provoking coil of such. Out of which there is only this good door of egress: That they are intrinsically of no importance in the History of Cromwell; that they alter nothing of his Life's character, add nothing, deduct nothing; can be believed or disbelieved, without, to him or to us, any perceptible result whatever; and ought, in fine, to be dismissed and sent upon their destinies, by all persons who have serious truth to seek for, and no time for idle guesses and riddle-ma-rees of the Scriblerus and Nugatory-Antiquarian sort.

Accordingly I had decided, as to these Squire Papers, which can or could in no case have been incorporated into any documentary Life of Cromwell, not to introduce them at all into this Book, which has far other objects than they or their questions of antiquarian philology can much further! But, on the other hand, it was urged by friends who believe, like myself, in the fundamental authenticity of Squire, that hereby would arise a tacit admission of Squire's spuriousness, injustice done by me to Squire and to the antiquarian philologers; that many readers, disbelievers or not, would have a certain wish to see the Squire Papers; that, in fine, under the head of the semi-romantic or Doubtful Documents of Oliver's History, and at all events as an accidental quite undoubtful Document in the history of Oliver's History, they would have a certain value. To all which arguments, not without some slight weight, the Printer now accidentally adds another. That he has room for these Squire Papers, and even need of them to

preserve his symmetries; that he can maintain an impassable wall between them and the Book, can insert them at the end of Volume First and yet not in the Volume, with ease and with advantage. Here accordingly these astonishing Squire Papers are: concerning which I have only one hope to express, That the public, thinking of them (in silence, if I might advise) exactly what it finds most thinkable, will please to excuse me from further function in the matter; my duty in respect of them being now, to the last fraction of it, done; my knowledge of them being wholly communicated; and my care about them remaining, what it always was, close neighbour to nothing. The Reprint is exact from Fraser's Magazine, except needful correction of misprints, and insertion of two little Notes, which have hung wafered on the margin this long while, and are duly indicated where they occur.

7th May 1849.

FRASER'S MAGAZINE FOR DECEMBER 1847: ARTICLE I.

THIRTY-FIVE UNPUBLISHED LETTERS OF OLIVER CROMWELL.

On the first publication of Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, new contributions of Cromwell matter, of some value of no value, and even of less than none, were, as the general reader knows, diligently forwarded to me from all quarters; and turned to account, in the Second Edition of that work, as the laws of the case seemed to allow. The process, which seemed then to all practical intents completed, and is in fact very languid and intermittent ever since, has nevertheless not yet entirely ceased; and indeed one knows not when, if ever, it will entirely cease; for at longer and longer intervals new documents and notices still arrive; though, except in the single instance now before us, I may describe these latter as of the last degree of insignificance; hardly even worth "inserting in an Appendix,' which was my bargain in respect of them. Whence it does, at last, seem reasonable to infer that our English Archives are now pretty well exhausted, in this particular; and that nothing more, of importance, concerning Oliver Cromwell's utterances of himself in this world will be gathered henceforth. Here, however, is a kind of exception, in regard to which, on more accounts than one, it has become necessary for me to adopt an exceptional course; and if not to edit, in the sense of elucidating, the contribution sent me, at least to print it straightway, before accident befal it or me.