that
complaint. On Tuesday accordingly he quitted Hampton Court;--never to
see it more.

"His time was come," says Harvey; "and neither prayers nor tears could
prevail with God to lengthen out his life and continue him longer to us.
Prayers abundantly and incessantly poured out on his behalf, both
publicly and privately, as was observed, in a more than ordinary way.
Besides many a secret sigh,--secret and unheard by men, yet like the cry
of Moses, more loud, and strongly laying hold on God, than many spoken
supplications. All which,--the hearts of God's People being thus
mightily stirred up,--did seem to beget confidence in some, and hopes in
all; yea some thoughts in himself, that God would restore him."

"Prayers public and private:" they are worth imagining to ourselves.
Meetings of Preachers, Chaplains, and Godly Persons; "Owen, Goodwin,
Sterry, with a company of others, in an adjoining room"; in Whitehall,
and elsewhere over religious London and England, fervent outpourings of
many a loyal heart. For there were hearts to whom the nobleness of this
man was known; and his worth to the Puritan Cause was evident.
Prayers,--strange enough to us; in a dialect fallen obsolete, forgotten
now. Authentic wrestlings of ancient Human Souls,--who were alive then,
with their affections, awestruck pieties; with their Human Wishes, risen
to be _transcendent_, hoping to prevail with the Inexorable. All
swallowed now in the depths of dark Time; which is full of such, since
the beginning!--Truly it is a great scene of World-History, this in old
Whitehall: Oliver Cromwell drawing nigh to his end. The exit of Oliver
Cromwell and of English Puritanism; a great Light, one of our few
authentic Solar Luminaries, going down now amid the clouds of Death.
Like the setting of a great victorious Summer Sun; its course now
finished. "_So stirbt ein Held_," says Schiller, "So dies a Hero! Sight
worthy to be worshipped!"--He died, this Hero Oliver, in Resignation to
God; as the Brave have all done. "We could not be more desirous he
should abide," says the pious Harvey, "than he was content and willing
to be gone." The struggle lasted, amid hope and fear, for ten days....

On Monday August 30th, there roared and howled all day a mighty storm of
wind.... It was on this stormy Monday, while rocking winds, heard in the
sickroom and everywhere, were piping aloud, that Thurloe and an Official
person entered to enquire, Who, in case of the worst, was