shes a parallel in Washington alone."[1]

[Footnote 1: Macaulay.]

[Sidenote: Oliver Cromwell.]

This great man was removed by Providence from the scene of violence
and faction at an early period of the contest. He was mortally wounded
in one of those skirmishes in which the detachments of both armies had
thus far engaged, and which made the campaigns of 1642-3 so undecided,
so tedious, and so irritating--campaigns in which the generals of both
armies reaped no laurels, and which created the necessity for a
greater genius than had thus far appeared. That genius was Oliver
Cromwell. At the battle of Edge Hill he was only captain of a troop of
horse, and at the death of his cousin Hampden, he was only colonel. He
was indeed a member of the Long Parliament, as was Hampden, and had
secured the attention of the members in spite of his slovenly
appearance and his incoherent, though earnest speeches. Under his
rough and clownish exterior, his talents were not perceived, except by
two or three penetrating intellects; but they were shortly to appear,
and to be developed, not in the House of Commons, but on the field of
battle. The rise of Oliver Cromwell can scarcely be dated until the
death of John Hampden; nor were the eyes of the nation fixed on him,
as their deliverer, until some time after. The Earl of Essex was still
the commander of the forces, while the Earl of Bedford, Lord
Manchester, Lord Fairfax, Skippon, Sir William Waller, Leslie, and
others held high posts. Cromwell was still a subordinate; but genius
breaks through all obstacles, and overleaps all boundaries. The time
had not yet come for the exercise of his great military talents. The
period of negotiation had not fully passed, and the king, at his
head-quarters at Oxford, "that seat of pure, unspotted loyalty," still
hoped to amuse the parliament, gain time, and finally overwhelm its
forces. Prince Rupert--brave, ardent, reckless, unprincipled--still
ravaged the country without reaping any permanent advantage. The
parliament was perplexed and the people were disappointed. On the
whole, the king's forces were in the ascendant, and were augmenting;
while plots and insurrections were constantly revealing to the
parliamentarians the dangers which threatened them. Had not an able
leader, at this crisis, appeared among the insurgents, or had an able
general been given to Charles, it is probable that the king would have
secured his ends; for popular