to him in the first instance, that he was appointed to be their ruler by the immediate hand of Heaven.

"What, indeed, can be more extraordinary," as his eulogist, Cowley, justly asks, "than that such a man should have the courage to attempt, and the happiness to succeed in, so improbable a design, as the destruction of one of the most ancient and most solid-founded monarchies upon the earth? That he should have the power or boldness to put his prince and master to an open and infamous death? To banish that numerous and strongly-allied family? To do all this under the name and wages of a parliament? To trample upon them, too, as he pleased; to spurn them out of doors when he grew weary of them; and set up himself above all things that ever were called sovereign in England? To oppress all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice? To overrun each corner of the three nations, and overcome with equal facility both the riches of the south and the poverty of the north? To be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and adopted a brother to the gods of the earth? To have the estates and lives of three kingdoms as much at his disposal as was the little inheritance of his father, and to be as noble and liberal in the spending of them ?”

Such were the marvellous and dazzling exploits which, combined with the discovery of the plot, inflamed the Protector's numerous partisans with loyalty and alarm. Addresses poured in from the army, as well as from the county-troops and their officers, tendering their lives and fortunes to the defence of his highness's person and government, against the common and secret enemy; while the city militia held a general training in Finsburyfields for the same purpose. Upon the first alarm of a royalist rising, the guards about the palace had been doubled, several forces of the regular horse and foot had been marched into the city liberties; the drums of the trainbands beat to arms, when all the six regiments appeared in harness and kept guard the whole night, being employed in seizing several of the citizens, who were known or suspected to be implicated in the conspiracy. Nothing in short was omitted that could give publicity and importance to the plot; and when the Protector's recovery allowed him to receive the numerous addresses it had called forth, nothing was forgotten that could invest the ceremony with a character of impressive and solemn splendour. On account of his still unsettled health, the grand levee was ordered to be held at Hampton Court-house, for the name of palace was discarded, although an air of royal magnificence was observable in all the appointments of the place.

On the day appointed for the reception, Colonel Lilburne joined the train, determined to render in person an account of the manner in which he had executed his commission at Brambletye, and demand instructions as to the disposal of his charge, whom he was induced to take with him, in the generous hope that his youth, beauty, and spirited demeanour might influence the Protector to give an order for his liberation.

With many cautions to Jocelyn to repress his petulance, and preserve silence and respect before his highness, they proceeded together in a carriage to Hampton Court, around whose gates were stationed detachments of the Protector's body-guard, and of other favourite regiments, both foot and horse; most of them stern-looking veterans, whose scarred and warworn countenances offered a striking contrast to the gorgeous freshness of the iron and scarlet in which they were arrayed, for they had been supplied with new uniforms on the occasion. The band consisted only of twe.ve trumpets, which were sounded from time to time when any person of sufficient dignity to merit a salute arrived at the gate.

In the court-yard stood the halberdiers, or wardens of the tower, their captain holding a standard exhibiting the Protector's arms, surmounted

with banners and bannerols. By their side were the domestic servants of the household; those of Sir Oliver Fleming, the master of the ceremonies; and the guard of Sir Gilbert Pickering the lord chamberlain, armed with halberts, and liveried in gray coats welted with black velvet.

Fassing through this file of attendants, the company were ushered up stairs as they arrived, and introduced by the proper officers into the presencechamber, whose walls were hung with such maps, plans, and printed statistical tables as might befit the residence of an enlightened sovereign and politician. Around the room were standing many of those warriors whose names had been rendered illustrious by their exploits in the late wars, most of whom, in compliment to the fashionable alarm of the moment, were equipped in complete or partial armour, as if rather attending a council of officers in a tent, than a peaceful levee in a palace. Some of the junior officers, whose coats of mail covered with buff had not, even in those days, cost less than thirty or forty pounds, and who seemed to think they might assume a little foppery, now that the general himself affected the splendour of a court, had endeavoured to give their military garb a more dressy and drawing-room appearance, by fringing the sleeves and collar of their leathern doublets with expensive point-lace. Others had gold or plated buckles to their shoulder-belts, and gay sword-knots of silk ribbon; but the far greater part, although so scrupulously complete in their martial appointments as to satisfy the most finical martinet, rejected the smallest decoration, and fully justified the averment of the Cavalier song

"They'll not allow, such pride it brings,

Nor favours in hats, nor no such things,
They'll convert all ribbons to Bible-strings,
Which nobody can deny."

Grave, orderly, and decorous as was their general mien and deportment, they appeared by the rough unpolished hardihood of their aspect to be rather qualified for the camp than the court, and to merit the character they have received from a contemporary historian, who designates them "Sword grandees, that better became a fray than a feast."

as

It had been expected that his highness would upon this occasion wear the sumptuous robe of purple velvet, and display the Bible, sword, and sceptre, with which he had been invested at his solemn inauguration in Westminster Hall a short time before; but as he had assumed these phylacteries and fringes of state" in conformity with the wishes of others rather than his own, he discarded them the moment they had answered the purposes of their temporary assumption. Few would have judged from his present habiliments that he had so recently refused the title of king, and fewer still that he retained the power of one; for he was attired with an almost fastidious plainness, in a black cloth cloak, doublet, and hose, with velvet facings and buttons. Not a single article of expense or luxury could be detected about his person, unless we may designate as such a pair of black silk high stockings, and satin roses of the same hue in his shoes. nor had he any mark of authority, save that he wore his hat, which was broad-brimmed, with a low conical crown. His eyes were slightly bloodshot, and in the projecting veins of his sanguine and swollen, yet somewhat melancholy face, were to be traced the evidences of a fiery and passionate mperament, tamed down by a long course of religious and moral discipline. There was an inclination to rubicundity in his nose, an inexhaustible subject of ridicule for the lampooners and ballad-writers of the opposite party; and a large wart upon his forehead, which had not been forgotten in the warfare of personal scurrility. His partially grizzled hair hung in slight curls to his shoulders, and his collar, turned down and scolloped at the

edges, disclosed the upper part of his throat, which was thick and muscular. From the hardships of many years' service there was a degree of coarseness in his face, but his head was so shaped as to give him a commanding and intellectual air, while his general appearance was such as to stamp a conviction upon the beholder that he was truly the master-spirit of his age.

As he sat at the upper end of the room, in a chair of state slightly elevated from the floor, but without canopy or other distinction, and received with a dignified and gracious courtesy the different persons who were presented to him, all of whom seemed to salute him with the profoundest homage, Jocelyn surveyed the whole scene with a most perplexed and bewildered admiration. Never having heard him mentioned but in terms of the most unmeasured contempt, he could not credit the identity of the personage before him with the daily object of his father's opprobrious abuse, and in this dilemma he exclaimed to the colonel, luckily in a whisper"Pray, sir, is that really red-nosed Noll?"

"Hush! young malapert ;" cried Lilburne, chasing by an angry frown the momentary smile that had relaxed his features--"hold your tongue, unless you can speak more reverently of his highness the Lord Protector." Jocelyn, now contemplating him with a more fixed attention, thought he could perceive an expression of latent melancholy and distrust, a remark which had already been made by others about his person, who had noticed more particularly the suspicious and fixed look with which he followed every strange face that moved about him. Contrary to the presentiments of Cesar, he anticipated most danger from those whose aspects "were featured with any cheerful and debonair lineaments;" these he eyed with a vigilant misgiving, while his incessant precautions against assassination were matter of public notoriety. His natural fortitude enabled him at first to treat these attempts with indifference, but their perpetual renewal, the appearance of the celebrated pamphlet entitled Killing no Murder, whose author his utmost efforts had failed to discover, and the proclamation of the king, promising 500% per annum and knighthood to whomsoever should despatch him, had combined with sickness to debilitate his, courage, and render him morbidly apprehensive of the fate that had been inflicted on Dorislaus, Ascham, Rainsborough, and others; a fate of which his anticipations had received some sort of confirmation by the recent mysterious occurrence with Lord Broghill.||

*

From the observations he had been making upon the Protector's physiognomy, Jocelyn was presently diverted by a buzzing whisper in the room, * Dated in 1654, and given by Thurloe in his State Papers.

Dr. Isaac Dorislaus, deputed by the parliament as envoy to Holland, was assaulted in his own house, by twelve disguised royalists, then in attendance upon the exiled King Charles II. at the Hague, who barbarously stabbed him in several places, cut his throat, and left him, exclaiming-"Thus dies one of the king's judges." His body was conveyed to England and buried in Westminster Abbey; but taken up after the Restoration, with the bodies of other Cromwelians, and deposited in St. Margaret's churchyard adjoining.

Anthony Ascham, ambassador to Madrid, where he was assassinated in his own lodgings by a party of English loyalists.

Colonel Thomas Rainsborough was shot at an inn in Doncaster by a party of Cavaliers from Pontefract, under a pretence of delivering him a letter from Cromwell.

As this nobleman was accompanying the Lord Protector in his carriage from Westminster to Whitehall, it was stopped on one side of the street, at a spot where, from the great pressure of the crowd, none of the halberdiers had room to stand by the window. In this posture his lordship observed the door of a cobler's stall to open and shut a little, and at every opening could distinguish something bright, like a drawn sword or pistol. Whereupon he drew out his own sword with the scabbard on it, struck it upon the stall, and asked who was there, when a singularly wild-looking man, with a sword by his side, burst out, and effected his escape, although his lordship called to the guards to seize him. It was rumoured that the Protector more than once encountered the same figure afterwards, under circumstances that rendered it difficult to account for his presence.

and the approach of two numerously-escorted gentlemen, whose embroidered silk dresses, flowing and highly-scented perruques, fluttering ribbons, and diamond-hilted swords, presented a singular contrast to the simple and plain character of the surrounding dresses. These proved to be the Duke de Crequi and Monsieur Mancini, deputed from the King of France, Louis XIV. and the Cardinal Mazarine, to the Protector, to congratulate Jim upon the successes of the united English and French forces, and to compliment his highness. Having been lodged, upon their arrival, at Brook House, in Holborn, they now came in state to acquit themselves of their embassy, each delivering a short speech conveying the most flattering assurances of respect and regard from his master, which the Protector, taking off his hat, received with a carriage full of gravity and state, expressed an equal affection for his majesty of France, and invited his repiesentatives to dine with him. To these gentlemen succeeded a host of deputies, civil and military, bearing addresses couched in a fervour of religious enthusiasm, which, in any other days, would have startled the hearer by its profane adulation. In these effusions of pious and passionate loyalty, the Protector was compared to Moses who had gathered together the people of the new Israel, and given them laws, and brought down spiritual food from heaven for their support to Zerubbabel, who restored the true worship of the Lord--to Joshua, who defeated the Amalekites and the Canaanites-to Gideon, who delivered Israel from the oppression of the Midianites-to Elijah, who had been raised up by Heaven to overthrow the worshippers of Baal, and destroy their idol to the chariots and horsemen of Israel to David, to Solomon, to Hezekiah; and finally, that profane as well as sacred history might be put in requisition, to Titus and to Constantine. Hypocrisy formed no part of the Protector's present character; it had long been converted into genuine enthusiasm, and he could therefore exclaim in all sincerity of heart,-"Not to me, but to the Lord be ascribed the praise. I am but a poor worm raised out of the dust to be the instrument of His will."

So much time had been occupied in the presentation of these vapouring and ranting specimens of spiritual bombast, that when Colonel Lilburne saw a long file of gentlemen, foreigners as well as natives, waiting to be introduced, he began to think he should hardly have time to obtain a moment's audience. Although he spoke to these parties with a dignified affability and upon appropriate subjects, his highness did not detain them long, so that they were more than half dismissed, when his roving and restless eye fixed itself for a moment upon Jocelyn, and he whispered a few words to a groom of the chambers, who presently approached Colonel Lilburne, inviting him to dine with the Protector, and requesting him to withdraw into a private room, where his highness would join him as soon as possible.

Following this conductor, they were ushered into a spacious and noble library, whose shelves were closely filled with books. At the upper end, before a desk, on which were several folio volumes, two gentleman were seated, one of whom was writing from the dictation of his companion. The latter, who was rather below the middle size, wearing his light brown hair parted at the foretop, and hanging down on either side of his singularly comely and majestic countenance, took not the smallest notice of them as they passed, but continued dictating. His amanuensis, a strong-set figure, with a round face, cherry cheeks, hazel eyes, and brown hair, bowed to them with a cheerful smile as they walked through into an inner apartment, but did not speak. These were the immortal Milton, Latin secretary to the Protector, and who had now been for some time blind; and the scarcely less illustrious Andrew Marvel, recently appointed his assistant; men worthy to sit enthroned in that costly librarv. and to be surrounded by the

great and kindred intellects of the world: men who have become the certain heirs of never-dying fame, while, with one or two exceptions, the crowd of nobles and grandees that thronged the adjoining saloon have passed rapidly away into irredeemable oblivion.

From this apartment the colonel and Jocelyn passed into a gallery, and were ushered into his Highness's private room, where their conductor left them. It was a small chamber, furnished with globes, maps, atlasses, charts, plans of different fortifications, and a handsome book-case, mostly filled with controversial divinity, though it contained such works as were then published by Waller, Denham, Cowley, Harrington, Marvel, and the lighter effusions of Milton; together with Hartlib's Discourse of Husbandry, the works of Machiavel, Harvey's Latin essay on the circulation of the blood, and other political and scientific books, Latin, English, and French. On a small table in the middle of the room lay the Protector's plan for the foundation of a new college, with a portfolio containing engravings of Scripture subjects, by Faithorne, around which were scattered numerous pamphlets and fugitive pieces, religious and political. It was not without surprise that the colonel recognised among the latter several of the crazy publications of his brother the saint, alias Free-born John, alias Lilburne the Trouble-world ;* such as "Jonah's cry out of the Whale's Belly," "An Impeachment of High Treason against Oliver Cromwell and his sonin-law Henry Ireton," and other similar attacks upon the Protector, for which he was at that moment in prison. In a recess of the window, upon a sloping desk, was an open folio Bible, thickly overwritten with marginal annotations in Cromwell's own hand, though the tremulous letter showed that he now guided the pen with difficulty; and from a half-open draw ei beneath glittered the hilts of a brace of pistols. With a boyish curiosity, Jocelyn opened the door of an inner closet, in which he observed two naked swords hanging against the wall, and a secret staircase, probably intended for escape in case of a sudden surprise.

As a proof of the hold which heraldic vanities may obtain, even over such a mind as Cromwell's, it is not unworthy of remark that his family arms, handsomely emblazoned upon vellum, and set in a gilt frame, were not only hung up in the saloon, but were exhibited in his private apartment. Nor did it escape Lilburne's observation, that since he had become Protector, he had assumed a particular bearing in his crest, which had been granted to his ancestor by Henry the Eighth,† as if anxious to disprove the cur

On the death of this turbulent and refractory enthusiast, which occurred soon afterwards, there appeared the following epigrammatic epitaph:

"Is John departed, and is Lilburne gone?
Farewell to both, to Lilburne and to John!
Yet being gone, take this advice from me,
Let them not both in one grave buried be.
Here lay ye John; lay Lilburne hereabout,

For if they both should meet, they would fall out."

This alludes to a saying, that John Lilburne was so quarrelsome, that if he were the only man in the world, John would quarrel with Lilburne and Lilburne with John. † Against Sir Richard Cromwell's name, in Noble's Pedigree of that family, is the following note: "The first of May, 1540, a solemn triumph was held at Westminster, before King Henry VIII. by Sir John Dudley, Sir Richard Cromwell, and four other challengers, which was proclaimed in France, Spain, Scotland, and Flanders. The 2d day, at Tourney, Sir Richard Cromwell overthrew Mr. Palmer off his horse. And the 5th day, at Barriers, he likewise overthrew Mr. Culpep; to his and the challenger's great ho." Mr. Noble gives from Stowe a particular account of this jousting and adds from Fuller's Church History, that when the king saw Sir Richard's prowess, he was so enraptured that he exclaimed, "Formerly thou wast my Dick, but hereafter thou shalt be my diamond; and thereupon dropped a diamond ring from his finger, whicn Sir Richard taking up, his majesty presented it to him, bidding him ever afterwards bear such a one in the fore gamb of the demy-lion in his crest, instead of the javelin." -Memoirs of the Protector O. C. p. 201.