openly read in the churches.

Such was the spirit of the extreme Puritans, both Presbyterian and
Independent. Oliver, indeed, was little disposed to be either
a persecutor or a meddler. But Oliver, the head of a party, and
consequently, to a great extent, the slave of a party, could not
govern altogether according to his own inclinations. Even under his
administration many magistrates, within their own jurisdiction, made
themselves as odious as Sir Hudibras, interfered with all the pleasures
of the neighbourhood, dispersed festive meetings, and put fiddlers in
the stocks. Still more formidable was the zeal of the soldiers. In every
village where they appeared there was an end of dancing, bellringing,
and hockey. In London they several times interrupted theatrical
performances at which the Protector had the judgment and good nature to
connive.

With the fear and hatred inspired by such a tyranny contempt was largely
mingled. The peculiarities of the Puritan, his look, his dress,
his dialect, his strange scruples, had been, ever since the time of
Elizabeth, favourite subjects with mockers. But these peculiarities
appeared far more grotesque in a faction which ruled a great empire
than in obscure and persecuted congregations. The cant, which had moved
laughter when it was heard on the stage from Tribulation Wholesome and
Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, was still more laughable when it proceeded from
the lips of Generals and Councillors of State. It is also to be noticed
that during the civil troubles several sects had sprung into existence,
whose eccentricities surpassed anything that had before been seen in
England. A mad tailor, named Lodowick Muggleton, wandered from pothouse
to pothouse, tippling ale, and denouncing eternal torments against those
who refused to believe, on his testimony, that the Supreme Being was
only six feet high, and that the sun was just four miles from the earth.
[17] George Fox had raised a tempest of derision by proclaiming that it
was a violation of Christian sincerity to designate a single person by a
plural pronoun, and that it was an idolatrous homage to Janus and Woden
to talk about January and Wednesday. His doctrine, a few years later,
was embraced by some eminent men, and rose greatly in the public
estimation. But at the time of the Restoration the Quakers were
popularly regarded as the most despicable of fanatics. By the Puritans
they were treated with severity here, and were persecuted to the