nterest, and seem more the result of impetuous fury or narrow
prejudices, than of cool foresight and deliberation. An eminent
personage, however, he was in many respects, and even a superior genius;
but unequal and irregular in his operations. And though not defective
in any talent, except that of elocution, the abilities which in him were
most admirable, and which most contributed to his marvellous success,
were the magnanimous resolution of his enterprises, and his peculiar
dexterity in discovering the characters, and practising on the
weaknesses, of mankind.

If we survey the moral character of Cromwell with that indulgence which
is due to the blindness and infirmities of the human species, we shall
not be inclined to load his memory with such violent reproaches as
those which his enemies usually throw upon it. Amidst the passions and
prejudices of that period, that he should prefer the parliamentary to
the royal cause, will not appear extraordinary; since, even at present,
some men of sense and knowledge are disposed to think, that the
question, with regard to the justice of the quar* *rel, may be regarded
as doubtful and uncertain. The murder of the king, the most atrocious of
all his actions, was to him covered under a mighty cloud of republican
and fanatical illusions; and it is not impossible, but he might believe
it, as many others did, the most meritorious action that he could
perform. His subsequent usurpation was the effect of necessity, as well
as of ambition; nor is it easy to see how the various factions could
at that time have been restrained, without a mixture of military and
arbitrary authority. The private deportment of Cromwell, as a son, a
husband, a father, a friend, is exposed to no considerable censure, if
it does not rather merit praise. And, upon the whole, his character
does not appear more extraordinary and unusual by the mixture of so much
absurdity with so much penetration, than by his tempering such violent
ambition and such enraged fanaticism with so much regard to justice and
humanity.

Cromwell was in the fifty-ninth year of his age when he died. He was
of a robust frame of body, and of a manly, though not of an agreeable
aspect. He left only two sons, Richard and Henry; and three daughters;
one married to General Fleetwood, another to Lord Fauconberg, a third to
Lord Rich. His father died when he was very young. His mother lived till
after he was protector; and, contrary to her orders