on of the catholic, who
had to secrete himself, as well as to suffer, was more adapted for
romantic adventures, than even the melancholy but monotonous story of
the protestants tortured in the cell, or bound to the stake. These
catholics, however, were attempting all sorts of intrigues; and the
saints and martyrs of Dodd, to the parliament of England, were only
traitors and conspirators!

Heylin, in his history of the _Puritans_ and the _Presbyterians_,
blackens them for political devils. He is the Spagnolet of history,
delighting himself with horrors at which the painter himself must have
started. He tells of their "oppositions" to monarchical and episcopal
government; their "innovations" in the church; and their "embroilments"
of the kingdoms. The sword rages in their hands; treason, sacrilege,
plunder; while "more of the blood of Englishmen had poured like water
within the space of four years, than had been shed in the civil wars of
York and Lancaster in four centuries!"

Neal opposes a more elaborate history; where these "great and good men,"
the puritans and the presbyterians, "are placed among the _reformers_;"
while their fame is blanched into angelic purity. Neal and his party
opined that the protestant had not sufficiently protested, and that the
reformation itself needed to be reformed. They wearied the impatient
Elizabeth and her ardent churchmen; and disputed with the learned James,
and his courtly bishops, about such ceremonial trifles, that the
historian may blush or smile who has to record them. And when the
_puritan_ was thrown out of preferment, and seceded into separation, he
turned into a _presbyter_. Nonconformity was their darling sin, and
their sullen triumph.

Calamy, in four painful volumes, chronicles the bloodless martyrology of
the two thousand silenced and ejected ministers. Their history is not
glorious, and their heroes are obscure; but it is a domestic tale. When
the second Charles was restored, the _presbyterians_, like every other
faction, were to be amused, if not courted. Some of the king's chaplains
were selected from among them, and preached once. Their hopes were
raised that they should, by some agreement, be enabled to share in that
ecclesiastical establishment which they had so often opposed; and the
bishops met the presbyters in a convocation at the Savoy. A conference
was held between the _high church_, resuming the seat of power, and the
_low church_, now prostrate; that is,