I am in covenant with Thee through grace, and I may, I will, come to Thee, for Thy people. Thou hast made me (though very unworthy) a mean instrument to do them some good, and Thee service; and many of them have set too high a value upon me, though others wish and would be glad of my death; but, Lord, however Thou dost dispose of me, continue and go on to do good for them. Give them consistency of judgment, one heart, and mutual love and go on to deliver them, and with the work of reformation; and make the name of Christ glorious in the world. Teach those who look too much upon Thy instruments, to depend more upon Thyself. Pardon such as desire to trample upon the dust of a poor worm, for they are Thy people too. And pardon the folly of this short prayer. Even for Jesus Christ's sake. And give us a good night, if it be Thy pleasure. Amen."

Oliver died on the 3rd of September," it having been to him," says the Court Newspaper announcing his death," a day of triumphs and thanksgiving for the memorable victories of Dunbar and Worcester; a day which after so many strange revolutions of Providence, high contradictions, and wicked conspiracies of unreasonable men, he lived once again to see, nd then to die, with great assurances and

"Some variation," says the writer of the Collection of Passages, "there is of this prayer, as to the account divers give of it, and something is here omitted. But this is certain, that these were his requests, wherein his heart was so carried out for God and his people, yea for them who had added no little sorrow to his grief and afflictions, that at this time he seems to forget his own family and nearest relations."-13.

The statement that Sterry exclaimed after Cromwell's death, that he was of great use to the people of God whilst he lived, and that he would be much more so interceding for them at the right hand of Christ, rests mainly on the authority of Ludlow (Memoirs, ii. 612) who was not present, and in this instance could only repeat a rumour. He was as prejudiced against Cromwell and his court as any Royalist could be.

serenity of mind, peaceably in his bed. Thus it hath proved to him to be a day of triumph indeed, there being much of Providence in it, that after so glorious crowns of victory placed on his head by God on this day, having neglected an earthly crown, he should now go to receive the crown of everlasting life."1

The passages we have cited have an interest beyond their bearing upon the Protector's character. They are specimens of the domestic and social piety of the age. Letters like his in tone and spirit, varying in intellectual conception and style of language, passed in those days by thousands over the rough roads of broad England in the pocket of some friendly traveller or in the postman's bag. So fathers and mothers, and parents and children, and brothers and sisters, wrote to one another, feeling every word they wrote-living under a deep apprehension of those higher bonds which unite souls to souls, families to families, Churches to Churches, and all to God and Christ. Hopes and fears, and joys and sorrows, such as the Protector expressed, although utterly unreal to multitudes of their neighbours, were experienced by many a man and woman in those times, and were to them as real as the everlasting hills or the unchanging stars.

The ruler, in mortal agony, 2 by his faith and prayers, presents a luminous contrast to another death-scene at Whitehall, a few years afterwards, when a different spirit

1 Commonwealth Mercury, Sept.2nd to Sept. 9th. The Protector's funeral was very magnificent, of which a minute account is given by the Rev. John Prestwich, of All Souls, Oxford, in a document preserved amongst the Ashmolean MSS. It is printed in the Cromwellian Diary, ii. 516.

In the newspaper announcing

Cromwell's death, there occurs this amusing advertisement:-"That excellent, and by all physitians approved China drink, called by the Chineans, Tcha, by other nations Tay, or Tee, is sold at the SultanessHead, a cophee-house in Sweetings Rents, by the Royal Exchange, London."

2 Clarendon (Hist., 862), says that

passed away amidst symbols of popish superstition, the accessories of an abandoned Court, and the memories of a sensual life. But, beyond that contrast, and apart from all circumstances of royal splendour; dismissing from our minds images of the quaint magnificence of the sick chamber in Whitehall, with its, perhaps, tapestried walls and bed of damask hangings, and the figures of generals, chaplains, and state servants, clustering round the form wasted by disease, and the countenance growing pale in death; putting aside, also, the memory of the marvellous career of the departing soldier and statesman of the Commonwealth-we meet in Cromwell's last words with an expression of the inmost soul of many a Puritan in such dark nights, doing battle with the last enemy. Nor, perhaps in the sorrows of his beloved family, and the sympathies of brother generals, and the intercessions of attached chaplains, was there more of religious affection than gathered about other pilgrims at that era, whilst at last they were laying down all life's heavy burdens at once and for ever. Such sentiments were often heard, such consolations were often imparted, and such prayers, whatever of infirmity there might be clinging to them, often went up to the throne of grace: but on account of Oliver's high position, and the vast interests which depended on his life, there would be in his case additional grounds for earnestness and the inspiration of a much

the day of Cromwell's death was memorable for a storm, which he describes as very violent. Heath says it was reported that he was carried away in the storm the day before. (Chronicle, 408.) The fact is, that this storm, of which both the friends and the enemies of Cromwell made so much, really occurred on Monday, the 30th of August, four

days before his death. Barwick, in a letter to Charles II., mentions it as occurring on the 30th. Thurloe, vii. 416. Ludlow, in his Memoirs, does the same, ii. 610. In the title to Waller's poem on the Protector, it is said that it alludes "to the storm that happened about that time."

wider sympathy. Thurloe wrote to the Protector's son Henry, when all was over, "that never was there any man so prayed for as he was during sickness; solemn assemblies meeting every day to beseech the Lord for the continuance of his life, so that he is gone to heaven embalmed with the tears of his people and upon the wings of the prayers of the saints." And in these impassioned supplications we can see even now the reflection of a devout temper then very common; and in the parish congregations, and the church gatherings of that day, may be recognized the interest felt in the life of one who was the pillar of their strength, and the shield of their freedom.

'Particular notice is taken of the prayers offered for Oliver's recovery in letters of the period.-See Thurloe, vii. 364-7.

APPENDIX.

I.-VOL. I. 137.

Passages from Letters in the State Paper Office Respecting the Trial of the' Earl of Strafford.

N. TOMKYNS. APRIL 12th, 1641.

"ON Saturday morning the Earl of Strafford being come to Westminster Hall, and both Houses sitting in the presence of the King, the Commons desired they might enlarge their charge upon the 23rd Article, whereupon the Earl also desired he might enlarge his answer upon the 2nd, and 21st, and 23rd Articles; the Lords retiring to their own House returned with this resolution, that they held it equal if the Commons added anything de novo, that the Earl should also have the like liberty. The Commons, not satisfied therewith, much pressed that they had formerly had a saving granted them, but the Earl had none. The Earl said he had humbly besought the Lords, (his judges,) that he might have the like saving, and he hoped it would be held reasonable, that if new objections were made, he should have permission to make new

Art. II. charged him with saying "that some of the Justices were all for law, and nothing would please them but law; but they should find that the King's little finger should be heavier than the loins of the law."

Art. XXI. charged him with counselling his Majesty to call a Parliament in England with a design "to break the same, and by ways of force

and power to raise monies upon the subjects of this kingdom."

Art. XXIII. charged him with saying "that his Majesty having tried the affections of his people, he was loose and absolved from all rules of Government, and was to do everything that power would admit." - Rushworth's Trial of Lord Strafford, 62, 71, 72.