LIX. There is more elegance and less pedantry in this letter than is usual with the writers of the first half of the seventeenth century. It has all the spirit of Euphuism without its pedantry, and all its ingenuity of compliment without its fulsome exaggera tion. James Howel to the Right Hon. Lady E. D. April 8 [1649]. Madam, There is a French saying that courtesies and favours are like flowers, which are sweet only while they are fresh, but afterwards they quickly fade and wither. I cannot deny but your favours to me might be compar'd to some kind of flowers (and they would make a thick Posie) but they should be to the flower call'd life everlasting; or that pretty Vermilion flower which grows at the foot of the Mountain Ætna in Sicily, which never loses anything of its first colour and scent. Those favours you did me thirty years ago in the life-time of your incomparable brother Mr. R. Altham, (who left us in the flower of his age) methinks are as fresh to me as if they were done yesterday. Nor were it any danger to compare courtesies done to me to other flowers, as I use them: for I distil them in the limbeck of my memory, and so turn them to essences. But, Madam, I honour you not so much for favours, as for that precious brood of virtues which shine in you with that brightness, but specially for those high motions whereby your soul soars up so often towards heaven; insomuch Madam, that if it were safe to call any Mortal a Saint, you should have that title from me, and I would be one of your chiefest Votaries; howsoever, I may without any superstition subscribe myself Your truly devoted Servant J. H. LX. In 1846, when the second edition of Mr. Carlyle's 'Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell' was published, an opportunity was given for the first time, of reading and understanding in their entirety authentic utterances which for two centuries had been coarsely handled and were found to be an agglomerate of opaque confusions-darkness on the back of darkness, thick and threefold.' Mr. Carlyle recommends everyone who would 'force a path for himself through that gloomy chaos called History of Seventeenth Century,' to read through this collection. With all his enthusiasm he is willing to admit that these letters are devoid of eloquence, elegance, and often of clearness of expression, but he considers them good of their kind. They were not written with any literary aim, but during the throes of revolutionary struggles. Each misprinted, mispunctuated, and musty document was once all luminous as a burning beacon, every word of it a live coal in its time; it was once a piece of the general fire and light of human life.' This announcement of the battle of Worcester is fairly characteristic of Cromwell's epistolary style. His extraordinary success on the anniversary of the victory at Dunbar was a turning-point in his career. Henceforth his aspirations increased, and it was not long before the wearer of Worcester's Laureat Wreath' became the chief magistrate of the English Commonwealth. Oliver Cromwell to the Honourable William Lenthall, Speaker of the Parliament of England. Worcester: Sept. 4, 1651. Sir, I am not able yet to give you an exact account of the great things the Lord hath wrought for this Commonwealth and for His People and yet I am unwilling to be silent; but, according to my duty, shall represent it to you as it comes to hand. This rattle was fought with various success for some hours, but still hopeful on your part; and in the end became an absolute victory,—and so full an one as proved a total defeat and ruin of the Enemy's Army; and a possession of the town, our men entering at the Enemy's heels, and fighting with them in the streets with very great courage. We took all their baggage and artillery. What the slain are, I can give you no account, because we have not taken an exact view; but they are very many, and must needs be so; because the dispute was long and very near at hand; and often at push of pike, and from one defence to another. There are about Six or Seven thousand prisoners taken here; and many officers and noblemen of very great quality : Duke of Hamilton, the Earl of Rothes, and divers other Noblemen,—I hear, the Earl of Lauderdale; many officers of great quality, and some that will be fit subjects for your justice. 1 Cromwell had on the previous day written to inform the Speaker that a victory had been gained. We have sent very considerable parties after the flying Enemy; I hear they have taken considerable numbers of prisoners, and are very close in the pursuit. Indeed, I hear the Country riseth upon them everywhere; and I believe the forces that lay, through Providence, at Bewdley, and in Shropshire and Staffordshire, and those with Colonel Lilburn were in a condition, as if this had been foreseen, to intercept what should return. A more particular account than this will be prepared for you as we are able. I hear they had not many more than a Thousand horse in their body that fled; and I believe you have near Four thousand forces following, and interposing between them and home; what fish they will catch, Time will declare. Their Army was about Sixteen thousand strong; and fought ours on the Worcester Side of the Severn almost with their whole, whilst we had engaged about half our army on the other side but with parties of theirs. Indeed it was a stiff business; yet I do not think we have lost Two-hundred men. Your new-raised forces did perform singular good service; for which they deserve a very high estimation and acknowledgment; as also for their willingness thereunto, forasmuch as the same hath added so much to the reputation of your affairs. They are all despatched home again; which I hope will be much for the ease and satisfaction of the country; which is a great fruit of these successes. The dimensions of this mercy are above my thoughts. It is, for aught I know, a crowning mercy. Surely, if it be not, such a one we shall have, if this provoke those that are concerned in it to thankfulness; and the Parliament to do the will of Him who hath done His will for it, and for the Nation;-whose good pleasure it is to establish the Nation and the Change of the Government, by making the People so willing to the defence thereof, and so signally blessing the endeavours of your servants in this late great work. I am bold humbly to beg, That all thoughts may tend to the promoting of His honour who hath wrought so great salvation; and that the fatness of these continued mercies may not occasion pride and wantonness, as formerly the like hath done to a chosen Nation; but that the fear of the Lord, even for His mercies may 'But Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which G keep an authority and a people so prospered, and blessed, and witnessed unto, humble and faithful; and that justice and righteousness, mercy and truth may flow from you as a thankful return to our gracious God. This shall be the prayer of, Sir, Your most humble and obedient Servant OLIVER CROMWELL. Your Officers behaved themselves with much honour in this service; and the Person who is the bearer hereof was equal, in the performance of his duty, to most that served you that day. LXI. The genuineness of this letter has been doubted; but Mr. Carlyle is satisfied that the style sufficiently declares it to be perfectly genuine. The letter is unique in two respects. 'It is,' says Mr. Carlyle, the only one we have of Oliver Cromwell, the English Puritan King, to Giulio Mazarin, the SicilianFrench Cardinal, who are a very singular pair of correspondents brought together by the Destinies! It is also the one glimpse we have from Oliver himself of the subterranean spy-world, in which, by a hard necessity, so many of his thoughts had to dwell.' There are two other quite unimportant notes from the Protector to the Cardinal in the archives of the Foreign Office at Paris which Mr. Carlyle notices in his edition of 'Cromwell's Letters,' vol. v. pp. 264, 265. Protector Cromwell to Cardinal Mazarin. Whitehall: Dec. 26, 1656. The obligations, and many instances of affection, which I have received from your Eminency, do engage me to make returns suitable to your merit. But although I have this set home upon my spirit, I may not (shall I tell you, I cannot ?) at this juncture of time, and as the face of my affairs now stands, answer to your call for Toleration. I say, I cannot, as to a public Declaration of my sense in that point; although I believe that under my Government your Eminency, in the behalf of Catholics, has less reason for complaint as made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of his salvation.'-Deuteronomy xxxii. 15. to rigour upon mens' consciences than under the Parliament. For I have of some, and those very many, had compassion; making a difference. Truly I have (and I may speak it with cheerfulness in the presence of God, who is a witness within me to the truth of what I affirm) made a difference; and as Jude speaks 'plucked many out of the fire,'--the raging fire of persecution, which did tyrannize over their consciences, and encroached by an arbitrariness of power upon their estates. And herein it is my purpose, as soon as I can remove impediments, and some weights that press me down, to make a farther progress, and discharge my promise to your Eminency in relation to that. And now I shall come to return your Eminency thanks for your judicious choice of that Person to whom you have intrusted our weightiest affair; an affair wherein your Eminency is concerned, though not in an equal degree and measure with myself. I must confess that I had some doubts of its success, till Providence cleared them to me by the effects. I was, truly, and to speak ingenuously, not without doubtings; and shall not be ashamed to give your Eminency the grounds I had for much doubting. I did fear that Berkley would not have been able to go through and carry on that work; and that either the Duke would have cooled in his suit,2 or condescend to his brother. I doubted also that those instructions which I sent over with 2903 were not clear enough as to expressions; some affairs here denying me leisure at that time to be so particular as, in regard to some circumstances, I would. If I am not mistaken in his 'the Duke's' character, as I received it from your Eminency, that fire which is kindled between them will not ask bellows to blow it and keep it burning. But what I think farther necessary in this matter I will send to your Eminency by Lockhart. And now I shall boast to your Eminency my security upon a well-builded confidence in the Lord: for I distrust not but if this breach be widened a little more and this difference fomented, with a little caution in respect of the persons to be added to it,—I distrust not but that Party, which is already forsaken of God as to 'Sir John Berkeley, the Duke of York's tutor. 2 Allusion to Charles Stuart and his brother, the Duke of York. |