this also, as I said before, they would not consent without the approbation of the Pope, although it was agreed by their Ambassador too.

Upon the whole matter, we find them very false to us, who intended nothing but what was simply honest. And truly we cannot believe that Article that was for our good, was 'ever' really intended by them. And we may now plainly see what the effect is like to be of any Treaty had or made with people or states guided by such principles, who, when they have agreed, have such an evasion as these people have manifestly held forth in their dealing with us. Wherefore we pray you to be very exact in your prosecution of your Instructions; which truly I hope do not arise from the hope of gain, but from a sense of duty. For, seeing we cannot secure our People in their lives, liberties and estates by a Pretence of a Treaty; nor yet answer the just demands this Nation hath for wrongs done them; but must in some sort be guilty of bringing our People as it were into a net, by such specious shows which have nothing but falseness and rottenness in them;—we are necessitated, having amongst ourselves found out no possible expedient, though we have industriously sought it, to salve these things; we, out of necessity 'I say,' and not out of choice, have concluded to go in this way.

You will receive herewith the Copy of an Instruction given and sent to Mr. Meadows, wherein is a time limited for the King's answer: and we desire that this may not be made use of by the King to delay or deceive us: nor that you, upon the first sight hereof, delay to take the best course you can to effect your Instructions, or that the Portugal should get his Fleet home before you get between him and home, and so the birds be flown.

We know not what your affairs are at the present; but are confident that nothing will be wanting on your part for

the effectual accomplishment of this Service. But knowing that all ways, and works, and ourselves, are ever at the perfect disposition of the Lord and His providence, and that our times are in His hands,—we therefore recommend you to the grace and guidance of our good God, who, we hope, hath thoughts of mercy towards us: and that He would guide and bless you is the prayer of, your very loving friend, 'OLIVER P.'*

In Thurloe's handwriting; but very evidently Oliver's composition every sentence of it. There will clearly be no living for the Portugal, unless he decide to throw away his jockeyings and jesuitries, and do what is fair and square!

LETTER CCXI.

A SMALL Vestige, it is presumable, of this Protector's solicitude for the encouragement of Learning and Learned Men. Which is a feature of his character very conceivable to us, and well demonstrated otherwise by testimony of facts and persons. Such we shall presume the purport of this small Civic Message to be:

For Our worthy Friends the Committee of the City of London for Gresham College: These.

GENTLEMEN,

Whitehall, 9th May 1656. We understanding that you have appointed an election this afternoon of a Geometry Professor in Gresham College,--We desire you to suspend the same for some time, till We shall have an opportunity to speak with some of you in order to that business. I rest, your loving friend, OLIVER P.†

* Thurloe, iv. 768. † Original, with Oliver's Signature, now (1846) in the Guildhall Library, London.

Historical Neal says zealously, 'If there was a man in Eng'land who excelled in any faculty or science, the Protector ' would find him out, and reward him according to his merit.' The renowned Dr. Cudworth in Cambridge, I have likewise expressly read, had commission to mark among the ingenuous youth of that University such as he deemed apt for Public Employment, and to make the Protector aware of them. Which high and indeed sacred function we find the Doctor, as occasion offers, intent to discharge.23 The choice this Protector made of men,—'in nothing was his good understanding better discovered;' 'which gave a general satisfaction to the Public,' say the Histories.24 As we can very well believe ! He who is himself a true man, has a chance to know the truth of men when he sees them; he who is not, has none: and as for the poor Public and its satisfactions,—alas, is not the kind of 'man' you set upon it the liveliest symbol of its, and your, veracity and victory and blessedness, or unveracity and misery and cursedness; the general summation, and practical outcome, of all else whatsoever in the Public, and in you?

LETTER CCXII.

ANOTHER Small Note still extant; relating to very small, altogether domestic matters.

For my loving Son Richard Cromwell, Esquire, at Hursley:

SON,

These:

'Whitehall,' 29th May 1656.

You know there hath often been a desire to sell Newhall, because in these four years last past it hath yielded very little or no profit at all, nor did I ever hear you ever liked it for a Seat.

It seems there may be a chapman had, who will give 18,000l. It shall either be laid out where you shall desire; 24 Burnet, in Neal, ii. 514; ib. ii. 461, 494

Thurloe, iii. 614; v. 522; &c.

at Mr. Wallop's, or elsewhere, and the money put into feoffees' hands in trust to be so disposed: or I shall settle Burleigh; which yields near 1,300l.25 per annum, besides the woods. Waterhouse will give you farther information. I rest, your loving father, OLIVER P.

My love to your Father and Mother,26 and your dear Wife.*

Newhall is the House and Estate in Essex which had once belonged to the great Duke of Buckingham. Burleigh I guess to be Burleigh on the Hill, near Oakham, another House of the great Duke's, which Oliver in the beginning of his military services had known well: he took it by assault in 1643. Of Oliver's Lands, or even of his Public Lands granted by the Parliament, much more of the successive phases his Estate assumed by new purchase and exchange, there is, as we once observed already, no exact knowledge now anywhere to be had. Obscure incidental notices flit through the Commons Journals and other Records; but the sum of the matter alike with the details of it are sunk in antique Law-Parchments, in obliterated Committee-Papers, far beyond human sounding. Of the Lands he died possessed of, there is a List extant, more or less accurate; which is worth looking at here. On quitting the Protectorship in 1659, Richard Cromwell, with the hope of having his debts paid and some fixed revenue allowed him, gave-in a Schedule of his Liabilities and of his Properties, the latter all in Land; which Schedule poor Noble has found somewhere;27 and copied, probably with blunders. Subjoined is his List of the Properties, some of them misspelt, most likely; the exact localities of which, no indication being given or sought by Noble, may be a problem for persons learned in such matters.28 Το us, only Burleigh and Newhall are of importance here.

25 Written above is '1,260%.'

26 Mr. and Mrs. Mayor of Hursley.

* Original in the possession of Henry William Field, Esq., of the Royal Mint. 27 Not where he says he did, 'in Commons Journals, 14th May 1659' (Noble, i. 333-4).

Newhall with woods, settled for security of 15,000l. for a Portion for my Sister Frances.

1200 O

Newhall, we can observe, was not sold on the occasion of this Letter, nor at all sold; for it still stands in the List of 1659; and with some indication, too, as to what the cause of now trying to sell it may have been. 'For a Portion to my Sister Frances,' namely. Noble's citations from Morant's History of Essex; his and Morant's blunderings and somnambulancies, in regard to this matter of Newhall, seem almost to approach the sublime.29

Leaving these, let us attend a little to the ‘Portion for my Sister Frances;' concerning which and whom a few lines of musical domestic gossip, interesting to the mind, are once more audible, from the same flute-voice above listened to. 'Mr. Rich,' we should premise, is the Lord Rich's Son, the Earl of Warwick's Grandson; heir-apparent, though he did not live to be heir:—pious old Earl of Warwick, whom we have seen heretofore as Admiral in the Long-Parliament time; the poor Earl of Holland's Brother. Here are affairs of the heart, romances of reality, such as have to go on in all times, under all dialects and fashions of dress-caps, Puritan-Protectoral and other.

These are all the Lands at this date in the possession of the Oliver Family. The five names printed here in italics are still recognisable Villiers (Duke of Buckingham) Properties all of these; the first two in Leicestershire, the last three contiguous te one another in Rutlandshire: of the others I at present (A. D. 1845) know nothing. As to poor Richard's finance-budget, encumbered with 2,000l. yearly to my Mother,' with 3,000l. of debt contracted in my Father's lifetime,' and plentifully otherwise, it shall not concern us farther.

(Note of 1857.) The other Properties have now also been discovered: Lands, these, of the confiscated Marquis of Worcester; all of them in the South-Wales or Ragland quarter. 'Gower' is in Glamorgan, not far from Swansea; 'Chepstall' is Chepstow; Tydenham, Tidenham, in the same neighbourhood; 'Woolaston' is in Gloucestershire, four miles from Chepstow; Chaulton, 'one of the Charltons in the same county: 'Magore,' Magor (St. Mary's) in Monmouthshire. For Gower, Tidenham, Magor, and their connexion with Cromwell, there is still direct proof; for the others, which are all Ragland manors too, there is thus presumption to the verge of proof. So that all these Properties, in Richard's Schedule, are either Buckingham or else Worcester ones,-grants by the Nation;-and of my ould land' (now settled otherwise, or indeed not concerned in this question) there is no mention here. (Newspaper called Notes and Queries, Nos. 21-28; London, 23d March-11th May 1850.)

2 Noble, i. 334-5.