"I have," he said, "methinks, more than a common claim on you for that advice and information, which I believe no man can so well afford me; seeing that it was owing mainly to your exhortations, that I determined on embarking actively upon that stream of circumstances, which has all blindly swept me onward to this pass. Obedient-or, I should rather say, convinced by those your exhortations, I have been, as you know, a faithful and unflinching-if unimportant-actor in the events which have dethroned the King, abolished the established church, and, to conclude, laid the whole realm-laws, liberties, and lives of Englishmen at the precarious mercy of an armed and zealot multitude. In thus pursuing the dictates of your advice, not less than of my conscience, I devoted myself wholly to what I then believed my country's good. I have lost -sacrificed-every thing! I am alone among the ruins of my house-a sole and thunderstricken column left standing when its temple

hath for ever fallen. My father died at Naseby, my only consolation that he forgot our differences, and blessed me ere he passed away. My betrothed bride-you saw her once in our young days of hope and promise, and know her priceless worth is perishing by inches of a pined and broken heart. But this-ay! all this I could bear, were it not that dark fears have grown into my soul, till I doubt every thingalmost my own integrity and honour. A busy voice is whispering at my heart, that I have forfeited all that makes life a blessing-nay more, that I have aided in destroying all those most dear to me, and in the chase of a vain phantom! And more, yet more than this-that in the very chase, I have but been the sport and mockery of a falsehood! I feel, I see, that England has been deluged with the blood of her free sons-her valleys fattened with the corpses of her best and bravest-her wise and pious prelates driven from out their spheres of usefulness-her monarch, justly, I grant, but

fatally, held captive in the very palaces of his forefathers her constitution plunged into the wildest jeopardy! All this I feel-I see. The havoc and the misery, the desolation and the peril! But when I would look forward, all is blank and hopeless. The worst view, anarchy in the state, and persecution in the church! For government-an army of sectarians and schismatics, fanatical and ignorant and savage! for council-a small knot of officers, wild visionary madmen, like Harrison and Lilburneenthusiasts like Ireton-or hypocrites and mercenary knaves, like hundreds I could name, but need not! and for church-an austere, intolerant, morose, heart-chilling disciplineparalyzing every noble aspiration-condemning every innocent and lawful pleasure-hardening, and at the same time lowering, every heart— confounding every real standard, narrowing all distinctions between vice and virtue-convert. ing men into mere hypocrites-or worse, into mere misanthropes, and brutes! This is the

darker side the picture. Turn it!—and the best view-truly the more I look upon it, the more sure do I feel that it will come to pass-the best view is the resurrection of a stronger dynasty stronger, because supported by a standing army, founded upon a conquest, erected on the ruins of all that did oppose its predecessor, and cannot oppose it—a dynasty, with for its founder and its head, mightier and more dangerous a thousand fold than Charlesbecause more wise, more valiant, and more virtuous-start not, my friend, at what I am about to say with, for its tyrant, CROMWELL!"

"I have heard you without interruption," answered Milton in his rich persuasive tones, "but with attention, with sorrow, and with wonder! Sorrow that you have lain beneath the burthen of affliction, such as no fainting pilgrim of us all could bear and live, did we not know that such is but the test, which the Supreme Artificer applies to try the temper and the metal of our souls-the purgative-like fire

under the ores of the mine, by which he fits our corrupt bodies to put on incorruption !— Attention-for that, although I trust to show them baseless as the morning vapours which disappear before the all-pervading daylight, your prognostics are fraught deeply with the world's wisdom; and your views of the presbytery entirely sound and solid !-Wonder-that you should doubt, or anywise distrust, the purest and sincerest patriot-the most upright judge the stoutest man of war--the trustiest and most painstaking Christian, that the Lord hath raised up, since the old days of Israel's glory, to vindicate the liberties, and wipe away the sorrows of an oppressed and groaning people."

"I rejoice much," Edgar replied, "to hear that such is your opinion. I cannot say indeed that I so much distrust him, as I do the tide of circumstances, which seem to flow on irresistibly toward his elevation. Charles never can again