"Truly God is good; indeed He is; He will not"'Then his speech failed him, but as I apprehended, it was, "He ' will not leave me." This saying, "God is good," he frequently ' used all along; and would speak it with much cheerfulness, ' and fervour of spirit, in the midst of his pains.-Again he said: "I would be willing to live to be farther serviceable to God and His People: but my work is done. Yet God will I be with His People." He was very restless most part of the night, speaking ' often to himself. And there being something to drink offered 'him, he was desired To take the same, and endeavour to sleep. - Unto which he answered: "It is not my design to 'drink or sleep; but my design is, to make what haste I can 'to be gone." ་ Afterwards, towards morning, he used divers holy expres'sions, implying much inward consolation and peace; among 'the rest he spake some exceeding self-debasing words, annihilating and judging himself. And truly it was observed, 'that a public spirit to God's Cause did breathe in him, ' in his lifetime, so now to his very last.' as When the morrow's sun rose, Oliver was speechless; between three and four in the afternoon, he lay dead. Friday 3d September 1658. "The consternation and astonishment “ of all people,” writes Fauconberg, 17 "are inexpressible; their "hearts seem as if sunk within them. My poor Wife,-I "know not what on earth to do with her. When seemingly quieted, she bursts out again into a passion that tears her "very heart in pieces.”—Husht, poor weeping Mary! Here is a Life-battle right nobly done. Seest thou not, 'The storm is changed into a calm, So that the waves which raged before Then are they glad,—because at rest So to the haven He them brings Which they desired to see.' 'Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord;' blessed are the valiant that have lived in the Lord. Amen, saith the Spirit,' -Amen. 'They do rest from their labours, and their works follow them.' 17 To Henry Cromwell, 7th September 1658 (Thurloe, vii. 375). 'Their works follow them.' As, I think, this Oliver Cromwell'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 slitoff by rash Officiality; Officiality will, for long henceforth, be more cautious about men's ears. The tyrannous Star-chambers, 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 Heroism, 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-shining, 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 thousand fold stern monition to one and all, bid us awake. APPENDIX. No. I. LETTER TO DOWNHALL. [Vol. i. p. 47.] THE stolen Letter of the Ashmole Museum has been found printed, and even reprinted. It is of the last degree of insignificance: a mere Note of Invitation to Downhall to stand 'Godfather unto my Child.' Man-child now ten days old,1 who, as we may see, is christened on Thursday next' by the name of RICHARD,—and had strange ups and downs as a Man when it came to that! To my approved good Friend Mr. Henry Downhall, at his Chambers in St. John's College, Cambridge: These. LOVING SIR, Huntingdon, 14th October 1626. Make me so much your servant as to be2 Godfather unto my Child. I would myself have come over to have made a formal invitation; but my occasions would not permit me and therefore hold me in that excused. The day of your trouble is Thursday next. Let me entreat your company on Wednesday. By this time it appears, I am more apt to encroach upon you for new favours than to show my thankfulness for the love I have already found. But I know your patience and your goodness cannot be exhausted by your friend and servant, 1 Vol. i. p. 60. OLIVER CROMWELL.* 2 by being' in orig. Hearne's Liber Niger Scaccarii (London, 1771), i. 261 n. Of this Downhall, sometimes written Downhault, and even Downett and Downtell; who grounds his claim, such as it is, tò human remembrance on the above small Note from Oliver, -a helpful hand has, with unsubduable research, discovered various particulars, which might amount almost to an outline of a history of Downhall, were such needed. He was of Northamptonshire, come of gentlefolks in that County. Admitted Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, 12th April 1614;—had known Oliver, and apparently been helpful and instructive to him, two years after that. More interesting sil, he this same Downhall was Vicar of St. Ives when Oliver came thither in 1635; still Vicar when Oliver left it, though with far other tendencies than Oliver's now; and had, alas, to be 'ejected with his Curate, in 1642,' as an Anti-Puritan Malignant :3-Oliver's course and his having altogether parted now! Nay farther, the same Downhall, surviving the Restoration, became Archdeacon of Huntingdon' in 1667: fifty-one years ago he had lodged there as Oliver Cromwell's Guest and Gossip; and now he comes as Archdeacon, -with a very strange set of Annals written in his old head, poor Downhall! He died' at Cottingham in Northamptonshire, his native region, in the winter-time of 1669 ;'—and so, with his Ashmole Letter, ends.4 ་ No. 2. AT ELY. [Vol. i. p. 82.] THERE is at Ely a Charitable Foundation now above four centuries old; which in Oliver's time was named the Ely Feoffees' Fund, and is now known as Parsons' Charity; the old Records of which, though somewhat mutilated during those years, offer one or two faint but indubitable vestiges of Oliver, not to be neglected on the present occasion. This Charity of ancient worthy Thomas Parsons, it appears, had, shortly before Oliver's arrival in Ely, been somewhat remodelled by a new Royal Charter: To be henceforth more specially devoted to the Poor of Ely; to be governed by Twelve Feoffees; namely, by Three Dignitaries of the Cathedral, and by Nine Townsmen of the better sort, who are permanent, and fill-up their own vacancies,—of which latter class, Oliver Cromwell Esquire, 3 Vol. i. p. 76. 4 Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, iii. 187; and Ms. communicated by Mr. Cooper, resting on the following formidable mass of documentary Authorities: Cole MSS. (which is a Transcript of Baker's History of St. John's Coliege), 166, 358; Rymer's Fœdera, xix. 261; Le Neve's Fasti Ecclesia Anglicanæ, p. 160; Kennet's Register and Chronicle, pp. 207, 251; Walker's Sufferings, ii. 129, 130; Wood's Athena (2d edition, passage wanting in both the 1st and 3d), ii. 1179. 1 Report of the Commissioners concerning Charities (London, 1837): distinct account of it there, § Cambridgeshire, pp. 218-20. most likely elected in his Uncle's stead, was straightway made one. The old Books, as we say, are specially defective in those years; have lost 40 or 50 leaves at the end of Book I., and 12 leaves at the beginning of Book II.,'-leaves cut out for the sake of Oliver's autograph, or as probably for other reasons. Detached Papers, however, still indicate that Oliver was one of the Feoffees, and a moderately diligent one, almost from his first residence there. Here, under date some six or seven months after his arrival, is a small Entry in certain loose Papers, labelled The Accompts of Mr. John Hand and Mr. Wm. Crauford, Collectors of the Revenewes belonging to the Towne of Ely' (that is, to Parsons' Charity in Ely); and under this special head, The Disbursements of Mr. John Hand, from the - of August 1636 unto the · of — 1641: - Given to divers Poore People at ye Work-house, in £16 14 0.' And under this other head, 'The Disbursements of Mr. Crauford,' which unluckily are not dated, and run vaguely from 1636 to 1641: 'Item to Jones, by Mr. Cromwell's consent Twice or thrice elsewhere the name of Cromwell is mentioned, but not as indicating activity on his part, indicating merely Feoffeeship and passivity;3-except in the following instance, where there is still extant a small Letter of his. 'Mr. Hand,' as we have seen, is one of the Collectors,' himself likewise a Feoffee or Governor, the Governors (it would appear) taking that office in turn. MR. HAND, 'To Mr. Hand, at Ely: These.' 'Ely,' 13th September 1638. I doubt not but I shall be as good as my word for your Money. I desire you to deliver Forty Shillings of the Town Money to this Bearer, to pay for the physic for Benson's cure. If the Gentlemen will not allow it at the time of account, keep this Note, and I will pay it out of my own purse. rest, your loving friend, OLIVER CROMWELL.* So I 2 One 'Wigmore; the Dean was 'William Fuller; the Bishop 'Matthew Wren,' very famous for his Popish Candles and other fripperies, who lay long in the Tower afterwards. These were the three Clerical Feoffees in Oliver's time. 3 Excerpts of Documents obligingly communicated by the Dean of Ely,-now penes Mr. Cooper of Cambridge. Memoirs of the Protector, by Oliver Cromwell, a Descendant &c. (London, 1822), i. 351; where also (p. 350) is found, in a very indistinct state, the above-given Entry from Hand's Accompts, misdated 1641,' instead of roth February 1636-7. The Letter to Hand 'has not been among the Feoffees' Papers for several years; and is now (1846) none knows where. |