ture's own
lion-hearted Son! Antaeus-like, his strength is got by _touching the
Earth_, his Mother; lift him up from the Earth, lift him up into
Hypocrisy, Inanity, his strength is gone. We will not assert that
Cromwell was an immaculate man; that he fell into no faults, no
insincerities among the rest. He was no dilettante professor of
'perfections,' 'immaculate conducts.' He was a rugged Orson, rending
his rough way through actual true _work_,--doubtless with many a
_fall_ therein. Insincerities, faults, very many faults daily and
hourly: it was too well known to him; known to God and him! The Sun
was dimmed many a time; but the Sun had not himself grown a Dimness.
Cromwell's last words, as he lay waiting for death, are those of a
Christian heroic man. Broken prayers to God, that He would judge him
and this Cause, He since man could not, in justice yet in pity. They
are most touching words. He breathed out his wild great soul, its
toils and sins all ended now, into the presence of his Maker, in this
manner.

I, for one, will not call the man a Hypocrite! Hypocrite, mummer, the
life of him a mere theatricality; empty barren quack, hungry for the
shouts of mobs? The man had made obscurity do very well for him till
his head was gray; and now he _was_, there as he stood recognised
unblamed, the virtual King of England. Cannot a man do without King's
Coaches and Cloaks? Is it such a blessedness to have clerks forever
pestering you with bundles of papers in red tape? A simple Diocletian
prefers planting of cabbages; a George Washington, no very
immeasurable man, does the like. One would say, it is what any genuine
man could do; and would do. The instant his real work were out in the
matter of Kingship,--away with it!

Let us remark, meanwhile, how indispensable everywhere a _King_ is, in
all movements of men. It is strikingly shown, in this very War, what
becomes of men when they cannot find a Chief Man, and their enemies
can. The Scotch Nation was all but unanimous in Puritanism; zealous
and of one mind about it, as in this English end of the Island was far
from being the case. But there was no great Cromwell among them; poor
tremulous, hesitating, diplomatic Argyles and suchlike; none of them
had a heart true enough for the truth, or durst commit himself to the
truth. They had no leader; and the scattered Cavalier party in that
country had one: Montrose, the noblest of all the Cavaliers; an
accomplished, gallant-hearte