began to persecute him, and learning to commence his great and irreconcileable enemy; for his master, honestly and severely observing that, and others his faults (which like weeds sprung out of his rank and uncultivable nature), did, by correction, hope to better his manners; and with a diligent hand, and careful eye, to hinder the thick growth of those vices which were so predominant and visible in him. Yet, though herein he trespassed upon that respect and lenity due and usual to children of his birth and quality, he prevailed nothing against his obstinate and perverse inclination. The learning and civility he had, coming upon him like fits of enthusiasme, now a hard student for a week or two, and then a truant or otioso for twice as many months, — of no settled constancy.

"Amongst the rest of those ill qualities," continues this impartial biographer, "which fructuated in him at this age, he was very notorious for robbing of orchards; a puerile crime, and an ordinary trespass, but grown so scandalous and injurious by the frequent spoyles and damages of trees, breaking of hedges and inclosures, committed by this apple-dragon, that many solemn complaints were made, both to his father and master, for redress thereof, which missed not their satisfaction and expiation out of his hide; on which so much pains were lost that that very offence ripened in him afterwards to the throwing down of all boundaries of law or conscience. From this he passed unto another more manly theft, the robbing of dove-houses, stealing the young pidgeons, and eating and merchandizing of them, and that so publiquely, that he became dreadfully suspect to all the adjacent country."

Nor are his offences of youth limited by charges of this kind. Other gross imputations against his good taste and refinement such as the boy-days of Louis XIV. were not altogether free from—received general acceptation before his eminence, and were not altogether contradicted by his occasional practices after it. The diligent Mr. Noble thus supplies one of those stories from

various writers." Sir Oliver was a worthy knight, loved hospitality, and always kept up old customs. Accordingly, at Christmas, his doors were thrown open to all, who were not only feasted, but entertained with music, dancing, and the usual sports of the age and place. Amongst the relations and friends of sir Oliver came his nephew and godson, by invitation, to partake of the festivity of one of those seasons: but he so far forgot himself that, to humour a depraved taste, he besmeared his clothes and gloves with the most nauseous filth, and accosts the Master of Misrule in the frequent turnings of a frisking dance, as well as every other person that came in his way, so that the company could scarce bear the room. The Master of Misrule, discovering that our young Oliver was the offender, seized, and ordered him to undergo a severe ducking in a pond adjoining to the house; sir Oliver, his uncle, permitting the sentence to be carried into full execution, as a punishment for his dirty behaviour. Perhaps I ought to apologize for relating so filthy a tale; but, as this was the occasion of Oliver's losing his uncle's good opinion, I thought its particular relation could not be dispensed with.' There is possibly great exaggeration in the story, but, in after years, the protector's turn for pleasantry was

"

*The learned Dr. Bates, who attended the protector in his last illness, has given his authority to this incident (Elenchi Mot. pars. prima.) And Heath, in his "Flagellum," relates it thus :-"By these lewd actions he had so alienated the affections of his uncle and godfather Sir Oliver Cromwell, that he could not endure the sight of him, having, in his own presence in the great hall of his house, where he magnificently treated king James at his assumption to the crown of England, in a Christmas time (which was always highly observed by him by feasting and keeping open house), played this unhandsome and unseemly trick or frolick, with the relation of which the reader will be pleased to indulge me, because I have seen it raccounted by a worthy and learned hand. It was sir Oliver's custome in that festival, to entertain in his house a Master of Misrule, or the Revels, to make mirth for the guests, and to direct the dances and the music, and generally all manner of sports and gambols; this fellow Cromwell, having besmeared his own clothes and hands with surreverence, accosts in the midst of a frolicking dance, and so grimed him and others upon every turn, that such a stink was raised, that the spectators could hardly endure the room; whereupon the said Master of Misrule, perceiving the matter, caused him to be laid hold on, and by his command to be thrown into a pond adjoyning to the house, and there to be sous'd over head and ears, and rinced of that filth and pollution sticking to him; which was accordingly executed, sir Oliver suffering his nephew to undergo the punishment of his unmannerly folly."

now and then oddly developed, as we shall have occasion to show; and what, in those youthful days, might have equally deserved a ducking in a horse-pond on a cold Christmas night, was received as the greatest favour and condescension by ladies of birth and breeding.

From the grammar-school of Huntingdon, on the 23d of April, 1616, when Cromwell was within two days of completing his seventeenth year, he was entered a fellowcommoner of Sydney Sussex college, Cambridge*; and seems to have carried all his school propensities, in the most lively and flourishing state, along with him to the university. "In his youth," says sir William Dugdale, "he was for some time bred up in Cambridge, where he made no proficiency in any kind of learning; but then and afterwards sorting himself with drinking companions, and the under sort of people (being of a rough and blustering disposition), he had the name of a RovSTER amongst most that knew him." This is borne out by Heath, who accompanies it with other details. "The relation of a father," he observes, "and one so sterne and strict an examiner of him (he being in his nature of a difficult disposition and great spirit, and one that would have due distances observed towards him from all persons, which begat him reverence from the countrypeople) kept him in some awe and subjection, till his translation to Cambridge; where he was placed in Sydney college, more to satisfy his father's curiosity and desire, than out of any hopes of compleating him in his studies, which never reached any good knowledge of the Latine tongue. During his short residence here, where he was more famous for his exercises in the fields than in the schools, (in which he never had the

* The following is an extract from the register of Sydney Sussex :-"A festo Anunciationis, 1616. Oliverius Cromwell Huntingdoniensis admissus ad commeatum Sociorum Aprilio vicessimo tertio; Tutore Mro. Ricardo Howlett." Between this entry however and the next, it is amusing to observe that there is crowded in, in a smaller hand or letter, the underwritten character. "Hic fuit grandis ille impostor, carnifex perditissimus, qui pientissimo rege Carolo 1o nefaria cæde sublato, ipsum usurpavit thronum, et tria regna, per 5 ferme annorum spatium, sub protectoris nomine indomita tyrannide vexavit."

honour of, because no worth and merit to, a degree,) being one of the chief match-makers and players at football, cudgells, or any other boysterous sport or game,his father, Mr. Robert Cromwell, died, leaving him to the scope of his own inordinate and irregular will, swayed by the bent of very violent and strong passions." It is significant of much to discover, in these notices of Cromwell's boyish irregularities, that his father was as strict and stern to the lad as his mother was affectionate and indulging.*

*

There is no reason to question the irregularities themselves. They are such as thousands committed even in those times, and tens of thousands have committed since, whom obscurity in after life-has dismissed, with all their vices and all their virtues, to a happy oblivion. It is worth while to observe, however, that the supposition of Cromwell's having left the university only as wise, in point of learning, as he went there, is by no means so credible.

Cromwell's learning in after years, which there is no reason to doubt he acquired at this time, was of a fair average character. His sincere respect for men of greater learning, and his anxious desire to elevate and promote the claims of literature at all times, has never been questioned save by the meanest and least scrupulous of his detractors. A good knowledge of Latin it is quite certain he possessed, though bishop Burnet tells us of it with a sneer. "He had no foreign language, but the little Latin that stuck to him from his education, which he spoke very vitiously and scantily." The most learned of the ambassadors he received during the protectorate do not, on the other hand, seem to have discovered these defects in his Latin. Beveringe writes to Jongstall at the Hague †, that "last Saturday I had a discourse with his excellency Cromwell above two hours,

*Heath begins his narrative with a statement that "from his infancy to his childhood he was of a cross and peevish disposition, which being hu moured by the fondness of his mother, made that rough and intractable temper more robust and outrageous in his juvenile years."

+12th of August, 1653.

In

without any body being present with us. His excellency spoke his own language so distinctly that I could answer him. He (Cromwell) answered again in Latin.” various incidents of a similar sort, related in the records of the commonwealth, it is difficult to discover any grounds of truth for Burnet's reproach; and it is worth adding, that the royalist friend of Waller, who prefixed a life of the poet to the first edition of his works, takes occasion to tell his readers that "Cromwell loved, or affected to love, men of wit: Mr. Waller frequently waited on him, being his kinsman; and, as he often declared to me, observed him to be very well read in the Greek and Roman story. Other opportunities may occur for adverting to this subject; but there exists, in one of the ambassadorial addresses to Cromwell, a passage of eloquence bearing upon it, and now known to have proceeded from Milton's hand, which seems to me to decide the question completely, and to say all that need be said concerning it in the finest possible manner. Don Juan Roderiguez de Saa Meneses, Conde de Penaguaia, addressed to Cromwell in Latin an idea of a perfect hero Milton having discharged himself of a portion of his ever lofty admiration of Cromwell by composing it at the request of that illustrious foreigner.

*It is certain, too, that he had made it his care in life to become master of a noble library. An authority exists for saying this- than which no better could be urged-in the life of the famous and most learned Dr. Manton. "When Cromwell took on him the protectorship, in the year 1653, the very morning the ceremony was to be performed, a messenger came to Dr. Manton to acquaint him that he must immediately come to Whitehall the doctor asked him the occasion; he told him he should know that when he came there. The protector himself, without any previous notice, told him what he was to do, i. e. to pray upon that occasion. The doctor laboured all he could to be excused, and told him it was a work of that nature which required some time to consider and prepare for it. The protector replied, that he knew he was not at a loss to perform the service he expected from him; and opening his study-door, he put him in with his hand, and bid him consider there, which was not above half an hour. The doctor employed that time in looking over his books, which he said was a noble collection." Manton, as Dr. Harris emphatically says, was a judge. Let us add here, that in his days of power, Cromwell showed an invariable regard and respect for the Alma Mater of his boyhood. We find an order of his, dated July 1, 1652, directed to all officers and soldiers under his command, forbidding them to quarter any officer or soldier in any of the colleges, halls, or other houses belonging to Cambridge university, or to offer any injury or violence to any of the students, or members of it; and this at their peril.