Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

"He frequently diverted himself at Hampton Court, whither he went and returned commonly in post, with his guards behind and before. His own diet was spare, and not curious except in public treatments, which were constantly given the Monday in every week, to all the Officers in the Army not below a Captain, where he used to dine with them. A table was likewise spread every day of the week for such Officers as should casually come to court. He was a great lover of music, and entertained the most skilful in that science in his pay and family. He respected all persons that were eximious in any art, and would procure them to be sent or brought to him. Sometimes he would for a frolic, before he had half dined, give order for the drum to beat and call in his Foot Guards, who were permitted to make booty of all they found on the table. Sometimes he would be jocund with some of the Nobility, and would tell them what company they had lately kept, when and where they had drunk the King's health, and the Royal Family's; bidding them, when they did it again, to do it more privately; and this without any passion and as festivous, droll discourse." What a pleasant picture of the man of whose private character so many hard things have been said! If we were to show his acts as a Ruler, he would appear no less admirable. His administration and Officers of Justice were pure and without reproach. But his 'latter end' is fast approaching, and in order to develope the true character of the brave warrior-ruler, and to afford our readers an opportunity of judging for themselves of the peculiar merits of Mr. Carlyle's manner of writing, we will take one more extract from the valuable volume before us, in which will be found an account of the brave old Hero's last days.

"Oliver's look was yet strong; and young for his years, which were Fifty-nine last April. The Three-score and ten years,' the Psalmist's limit, which probably was often in Oliver's thoughts and those of others there, might have been anticipated for him: Ten Years more of Life;-which, we may compute, would have given another History to all the Centuries of England. But it was not to be so, it was to be otherwise. Oliver's health, as we might observe, was but uncertain in late times; often 'indisposed' the spring before last. His course of life had not been favourable to health! "A "burden too heavy for man!" as he himself, with a sigh, would sometimes say. Incessant toil, inconceivable labor, of head and heart and hand; toil, peril, and sorrow manifold, continued for near Twenty years now, had done their part: these robust life-energies, it afterwards appeared, had been gradually eaten out. Like a Tower strong to the eye, but with its foundations undermined; which has not long to stand; the fall of which, on any shock, may be sudden.-The Manzinis and Ducs de Crequi, with their splendors, and congratulations about Dunkirk, interesting to the street-populations, and general public, had not yet withdrawn, when at Hampton Court there

Yes and in

had begun a private scene, of much deeper and quite opposite interest there. The Lady Claypole, Oliver's favorite Daughter, a favorite of all the world, had fallen sick, we know not when; lay sick now,— to death, as it proved. Her disease was of internal female nature ; the painfullest and most harassing to mind and sense, it is understood, that falls to the lot of a human creature. Hampton Court we can fancy once more, in those July days, a house of sorrow; pale Death knocking there, as at the door of the meanest hut. 'She had great sufferings, great exercises of spirit.' the depths of the old Centuries, we see a pale, anxious mother, anxious Husband, anxious weeping Sisters, a poor young Frances weeping anew in her weeds. For the last fourteen' days' his Highness has been by her bedside at Hampton Court, unable to attend to any public business whatever. Be still, my Child; trust thou yet in God: in the waves of the Dark River there too is He a God of help!-On the 6th day of August, she lay dead ; at rest for ever. My young, my beautiful, my brave! She is taken from me; I am left bereaved of her. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord-!'

[ocr errors]

'His Highness,' says Maidston, being at Hampton Court, sick'ened a little before the Lady Elizabeth died. Her decease was on Friday 6th August, 1658; she having lain long under great extremity of bodily pain, which, with frequent and violent convulsion-fits, 'brought her to her end. But as to his Highness, it was observed 'that his sense of her outward misery, in the pains she endured, 'took deep impression upon him; who indeed was ever a most in'dulgent and tender father; his affections too 'being regulated ' and bounded by such Christian wisdom and prudence, as did eminently shine in filling up not only that relation of a father, but also 'all other relations; wherein he was a most rare and singular ex'ample, And no doubt but the sympathy of his spirit with his 'sorely afflicted and dying Daughter' did break him down at this time; considering also,'-innumerable other considerations of sufferings and toils, which made me often wonder he was able to hold up so long; except' indeed that he was borne up by a supernatural 'power at a more than ordinary rate. As a mercy to the truly Christian World, and to us of these nations, had we been worthy ' of him.""

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

·

"A month afterwards we find, his Highness seemed much better : but on the morrow a sad change had taken place; feverish symptoms for which the doctors rigorously prescribed quiet. Saturday to Tuesday the symptoms continued ever worsening: a kind of tertian ague, 'bastard tertian' as the old doctors name it; for which it was ordered that his Highness should return to Whitehall, as to a more favourable air in that complaint. On Tuesday accordingly he quitted. Hampton Court ;-never to see it more.

'His time was come,' says Maidston, and neither prayers nor tears could prevail with God to lengthen out his life, and continue him longer to us. Prayers abundantly and incessantly poured out on his behalf, both publicly and privately, as was observed, in a more than

ordinary way. Besides many a secret sigh, secret and unheard by men, yet like the cry of Moses, more loud, and strongly laying hold on God, than many spoken supplications. All which,-the hearts of God's people being thus mightily stirred up,-did seem to beget confidence in some, and hopes in all; yea, some thoughts in himself, that God would restore him!'

Prayers public and private: they are worth imagining to ourselves. Meetings of Preachers, Chaplains, and Godly Persons; Owen, Goodwin, Sterry, with a company of others, in an adjoining room;' in Whitehall, and elsewhere over religious London and England, fervent outpourings of many a loyal heart. For there were hearts to whom the nobleness of this man was known; and his worth to the Puritan Cause was evident. Prayers, strange enough to us; in a dialect fallen obsolete, forgotten now. Authentic wrestlings of ancient Human Souls,-who were alive then, with their affections, awestruck pieties; with their Human wishes, risen to be transcendant, hoping to prevail with the Inexorable. All swallowed now in the depths of dark Time; which is full of such, since the beginning!Truly it is a great scene of World-History, this in old Whitehall : Oliver Cromwell drawing nigh to his end. The exit of Oliver Cromwell and of English Puritanism; a great light, one of our few authentic Solar Luminaries, going down now amid the clouds of Death. Like the setting of a great victorious Summer Sun, its course now finished. So stirbt ein Held,' says Schiller, so dies a Hero! Sight worthy to be worshipped!-He died, this Hero Oliver, in Resignation to God; as the brave have all done. 'We could not be more desirous he should abide,' says the pious Maidston,' 'than he was content and willing to be gone.' The struggle lasted, amid hope and fear, for ten days."

"Tomorrow is September Third, always kept as a Thanksgiving day, since the Victories of Dunbar and Worcester. Maidston heard the wearied one, 'that very night before the Lord took him to his everlasting rest,' thus with oppressed voice speaking:

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

666

[ocr errors]

66

"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 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: 86 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 expressions, '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

6

[ocr errors]

'Cause did breathe in him, as in his life-time, so now to his ' very last.'

66

When the morrow's sun rose, Oliver was speechless; between three and four in the afternoon, he lay dead. Friday, 3rd September, 1658. "The consternation and astonishment of all people," writes Fauconberg,* 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, At His command and will;

So that the waves which raged before
Now quiet are and still!

Then are they glad,—because at rest
And quiet now they be:

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.'

[ocr errors]

ears.

6

[ocr errors]

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 slit-off by rash Officiality ; Officiality will, for long henceforth, be more cautious about men's The tyrannous Starchambers, branding-irons, chimerical Kings and Surplices at Allhallow-tide, 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 owldroppings 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."

And now we also must end. Thomas Carlyle has pourtrayed Cromwell's character on a large scale, and we have endeavoured to reflect it in miniature. With regard to the value of the original, our opinion may be stated in few words; we firmly believe it to be one of the very few productions of the day, which will command the admiration of posterity.

*To Henry Cromwell, 7 September, 1568 (Thurloe vii. 375).

SELF-CULTURE,

(BY WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.*)

THE first great means of Self-Culture, that which includes all the rest, is to fasten on this culture as our Great End, to determine deliberately and solemnly, that we will make the most and the best of the powers which God has given us. Without this resolute purpose, the best means are worth little, and with it the poorest become mighty. You may see thousands, with every opportunity of improvement which wealth can gather, with teachers, libraries, and apparatus, bringing nothing to pass, and others, with few helps, doing wonders; and simply because the latter are in earnest, and the former not. A man in earnest finds means, or, if he cannot find, creates them. A vigorous purpose makes much out of little, breathes power into weak instruments, disarms difficulties, and even turns them into assistances. Every condition has means of progress, if we have spirit enough to use them. A great idea, like this of Self-Culture, if seized on clearly and vigorously, burns like a living coal in the soul, He who deliberately adopts a great end, has by this act, half accomplished it, has scaled the chief barrier to success.

One thing is essential, to the strong purpose of Self-Culture now insisted on, namely, faith in the practicableness of this culture. A great object, to awaken resolute choice, must be seen to be within our reach. The truth, that progress is the very end of our being, must not be received as a tradition, but comprehended and felt as a reality. Our minds are apt to pine and starve, by being imprisoned within what we have already attained. A true faith, looking up to something better, catching glimpses of a distant perfection, prophesying to ourselves improvements proportioned to our conscientious labours, gives energy of purpose, gives wings to the soul; and this faith will continually grow, by acquainting ourselves with our own nature, and with the promises of Divine help, and immortal life which abound in Revelation.

Some are discouraged from proposing to themselves improvement, by the false notion, that the study of books, which their situation denies them, is the all important, and only sufficient means. Let such consider, that the grand volumes, of which all our books are transcripts, I mean, nature, revelation, the human soul, and human life, are freely unfolded to every eye. The great sources of wisdom are experience and observation; and these are denied to none. Το open and fix our eyes upon what passes without and within us, is the most fruitful study. Books are chiefly useful, as they help us to interpret what we see and experience. When they absorb men, as they sometimes do, and turn them from observation of nature and life, they generate a learned folly, for which the plain sense of the labourer could not be exchanged but at a great loss. It deserves attention

on

* The famous Dr. Channing of America, from whose admirable lecture SELF-CULTURE" we make the above extract.

« PredošláPokračovať »