he last,--his almost unexampled crimes (so plainly forbidden by that
scripture he had ever on his lips), and the security and confidence of
his last moments, furnish stronger arguments than a thousand volumes of
controversy, to prove the fallacy and danger of those speculative
notions which he patronized, propagated, and exemplified.

[1] The Usurper's terrors at hearing this fine song of Shirley's
is an historical fact. Some of the speeches attributed to him in
this interview, he really used to persons he had confined, and
wished to win over. In the close of his life he grew timid; and,
conscious of being hated, bore insults calmly. Bishop Wren
rejected his offered favours in as strong language as that
attributed to Neville.

CHAP. XXVI.

A good man should not be very willing, when his Lord comes, to be
found beating his fellow-servants; and all controversy, as it is
usually managed, is little better. A good man would be loth to be
taken out of the world reeking hot from a sharp contention with a
perverse adversary; and not a little out of countenance to find
himself, in this temper, translated into the calm and peaceable
regions of the blessed, where nothing but perfect charity and
good-will reign for ever.

Tillotson.

During the turbulent era that immediately followed the death of
Cromwell, obscurity was the only asylum for integrity and innocence. The
respective demagogues contended for mastery; and the nation gazed on
their contests as on so many prize-fighters, whose uninteresting warfare
regarded only themselves. Weary of confusion and discord; aware that
faction had broken every promise and frustrated every hope; that the
visions of freedom had been the harbingers of despotism; and that
pretensions to moderation, disinterestedness, and purity, were but the
disguise of rapacity, pride, and selfishness, the nation longed for the
restoration of a lineal Sovereign, a regular government, and determinate
laws. Even those who first signalized themselves by opposition to the
late King, acknowledged that his government was preferable to the
oligarchy and military tyranny that followed; and the Presbyterians felt
their horror of Episcopacy abate while contrasting the temperance of
established supremacy with the violence of the numerous sects who strove
for superiority as soon as the hierarchy was ov