well exist, which strangely and deeply connect themselves, even at this distance of time, with those solemn scenes. A vast number of swords are scattered round the neighbourhood, bearing on their hilts the initials O. C. They have descended from the farmers and labourers of the times we are retracing, to the possession of their present owners. For in 1641, when the sky foretold the imminent storm, a large supply of swords was sent to the district of St. Ives, marked with those initials, for which, some few months after, the sum of 100l. was voted to Cromwell, in acknowledgment of the outlay and the zeal. With the Bible he had before given them in one hand, and the sword he then gave them in the other, those old tenants and labourers of St. Ives afterwards formed part of that immortal phalanx which was never known to yield or be beaten in battle.*

Meanwhile the farm itself was any thing but prosperous. It was probably, however, the last part of Cromwell's care; and therefore the sneers of the royalist biographers and historians on this point fall harmlessly enough. "The long prayers," writes Hume," which he said to his family in the morning, and again in the afternoon, consumed his own time and that of his ploughmen; and he reserved no leisure for the care of his. temporal affairs." His health, more than his temporal

*We owe this curious fact respecting the swords to Mr. Noble, who incidentally mentions the discovery, in some doubt of their origin. Mr. Noble tells us, also, that, at the time he wrote, a large barn which Cromwell built, still went by his name, and that the farmer who then rented the lands which he occupied, marked his sheep with the identical irons which Oliver used, and which have upon them the letters, O. C.

†The ingenious Mr. Heath also gives his usual scurril version of these incidents, in Cromwell's History. But his estate still decaying, he betook himself at last to a farm, being parcel of the royalty of St. Ives, where he intended to husband it, and try what could be done by endea vour, since nothing (as yet) succeeded by design: and accordingly took servants, and bought him all utensils and materials, as ploughs, carts, &c.; and the better to prosper his own and his men's labour, every morning, before they stirred out, the family was called together to prayer, at which exercise, very often, they continued so long, that it was nine of the clock in the morning before they began their work; which awkward beginning of their labour sorted with a very sorry issue; for the effect of those prayers was, that the hinds and ploughmen, seeing this zeal of their master, which dispensed with the profitable and most commodious part of the day for their labour, thought they might borrow the other part for their VOL. VI.

E

affairs, troubled him at this time. The cold and damp air of St. Ives never thoroughly agreed with him; and his appearance almost every Sunday in the parish church was long remembered and adverted to by the inhabitants of that place, after his fame had directed all eyes towards him, and made him the argument of every tongue. They described him walking up the aisle in an illarranged dress, and with a piece of red flannel * fastened round his throat to protect him from the frequent inflammations to which the sharp cold and excessive moisture of the air had painfully exposed him.

Other memories, too, Cromwell left behind him among the people of St. Ives. More friendly to the true religion than to its professed ministers in whose communion he, nevertheless, seems up to this time to have remained he was remembered as the friend of the poor or the oppressed in conscience; as a man of wonderfully fervent piety, ever zealous to promote good works and to reward good men. One of his letters, written during his residence at St. Ives, is fortunately preserved in the British Museum, and corroborates in all respects this report of his character. It is addressed to his " very lovinge friend Mr. Storie, at the sign of the Dogg in the Royal Exchange, London." The object of it appears to have been to secure the continuance of " a man of goodnesse, and industrie, and abilitie every way," in a lectureship which Mr. Storie and others had instituted in St.

pleasure and therefore commonly they went to plough with a pack of cards in their pockets, and having turned up two or three furrows, set themselves down to game till dinner time; when they returned to the second part of their devotion, and measured out a good part of the afternoon with dinner, and a repetition of some market lecture that had been preached the day before. And that little work that was done, was done so negligently and by halves, that scarce half a crop ever reared itself upon his grounds; so that he was (after five years time) glad to abandon it, and get a friend of his to be the tenant for the remainder of his time."

*The clerk of the parish of St. Ives, who is a very intelligent old man, and much superior to his station (having been bred an attorney), told me, that he had been informed by old persons who knew Mr. Cromwell when he resided at St. Ives, that he usually frequented divine service at church, and that he generally came with a piece of red flannel round his neck, as he was subject to an inflammation in his throat. It appears by Mercurius Elencticus, that Oliver's neck was awry-surely it was a disorder incident to heroes."- Noble's Memoirs of the Protectoral House.

Ives.

Its spirit is that of a generous and disinterested earnestness, and it is not without its characteristic touches.

"MR. STORIE,-Amongst the catalogue of those good workes which your fellow citycenes and our countrie men have donn, this will not be reckoned for the least, that they have provided for the feedinge of soules. Buildinge of hospitals provides for mens bodyes; to build materiall temples is indyed a work of pietye; but they that procure spirituall food, they that build up spirituall temples, they are the men trulye charitable, trulye pious. Such a work as this was your erectinge the lecture in our cuntrie, in the which you placed Dr. Welles, a ınan of goodnesse, and industrie, and abilitie every way, not short of any I knowe in England; and I am perswaded that sithence his cominge, the Lord by him hath wrought much good amongst us. It only remains now that he whoe first moved you to this, put you forward to the continewance thereof: it was the Lord, and therefore to him lift we up our harts that he would perfect itt. And surely, Mr. Storie, it were a piteous thinge to see a lecture fall in the handes of so manie able and godly men, as I am perswaded the founders of this are, in these times wherein we see they are suppressed with too much hast and violence by the enemies of God his truth; far be it that soe much guilt should sticke to your hands, who live in a citye so renowned for the clere shininge light of the Gospell. You knowe, Mr. Storie, to withdrawe the pay is to lett fall the lecture, for whoe goethe to warfare at his own cost? I beseech you therefore in the bowells of Christ Jesus put itt forward, and let the good man have his pay. The soules of God his children will bless you for it; and so shall I, and ever rest your lovinge friend in the Lord, OLIVER CROMWELL. Commende my hearty love,' he adds in a postscript, "to Mr. Busse, Mr. Beadley, and my other good friends. I would have written to Mr. Busse, but I was loath to trouble him with a longe letter, and I feared I should not receive an

answer from him: from you I expect one soe soon as conveniently you may. Vale."

This letter is dated "St. Ives, 11th January, 1635;" and in the following year he left that place, to take possession of a property of some little value in and near Ely, which just then fell to him by the will of his maternal uncle, sir Thomas Steward. * In the month of June, 1636, we find him domiciled at the glebe-house, near St. Mary's churchyard, in the city of Ely.

property here, though respectable in amount, was not very considerable, for it consisted less of any extensive freehold or independent possession, than of long leases and tythes held under the dean and chapter; whom he found, however, not unwilling to accommodate his wishes, and so, as they may have fancied, purchase his forbearance or esteem, by renewing the greater part of his leases for one and twenty years. † They appointed him, also, to the trusteeship of some important charities in the city.

Here it was, however while living, as he told his own parliament in 1654, neither in any considerable

*See antè, p. 31.

"After a residence of between four and five years at St. Ives, by the death of his maternal uncle, sir Tho. Steward, in the beginning of Jan. 1635-6, without issue, he became possessed of very considerable estates in and near Ely, part of which consisted of a lease of land and tythes belonging to the parishes of Trinity and St. Mary, in Ely, held under the dean and chapter; this caused him to seat himself in that city. He resided in the glebe-house, near to St. Mary's church-yard, now occupied by Mr. Page, the present lessee; he certainly had removed to Ely so early as June 7, in that year, as he had then signed an acquittance for 102. given by the attorney-general Noy, and received of the executors of sir Tho. Steward. He was chosen, Aug. 30, in this year, a trustee of Parson's charity, together with the right rev, father in God, Fra. lord bishop of Ely, Will. Fuller, D.D. and dean of Ely, Anth. Page, of Ely, gent. and. Will. Austin, of Ely, yeoman; and, by the charter of incorporation granted by K. Cha. I. Jan. 16, 1633, no one could be a feoffee unless he was actually an inhabitant of that city. The dean and chapter of Ely, Oct. 20, following, renewed his lease for 21 years of the tythes of the parishes of Trinity and St. Mary in that city.-The dean and chapter of Ely, Oct. 27, 1637, granted to him, jointly with the bishop of that see, Will. March, John Goodricke, Anth. Page, esqrs. Henry Goodricke, and others, feoffees, therein named, a lease of Denver's-Holt, near Stuntney. During the following year, there are several memorandums preserved respecting Parson's charity, in which his name is mentioned; and, Oct. 29, in this year, he received from the dean and chapter of Ely, two leases, one of Mullicourt manor, the other of Beele closes, each for 21 years."-. "Noble's Memoirs of the Protectoral House.

that one of his worst reported to have seized

height, nor yet in obscurity * hypochondriacal distempers is him. It was natural that it should have done so, even as on those melancholy days we have described, following the dissolution of the parliament he first sat in. The threatening thunder of the impending political tempest ́was now again heard along the sky, louder and more imminent than ever. The outrages on the people on life, on liberty, on conscience, on all that gave life value, or could endear it even to its native land - those horrible ontrages which had now for nearly twelve long and dreary years been endured, without an apparent prospect of redress, were at last approaching their fearful hour of consummation and retribution. All this, in its minute detail, has already been described†, and need not be repeated here. Now, with the sure sense of what such events were swiftly urging on, they must have struck with their deepest force on Cromwell. His most melancholy and distempered state of religious metaphysics would as surely descend with them. If he had horrible visions of the slit noses and earless heads and bloody human mutilations going on in the pillories of Laud, be sure that he had visions too, which pressed yet more terribly upon him, of the oceans of blood that lay between these days and the days of liberty, and that were nevertheless to be passed, amidst the singings of psalms and expoundings of prayer, without a thought for suffering or sorrow. Cromwell's

most intense manifestations of religion, it is to be invariably observed, preceded his greatest resolves, and went hand in hand with his greatest deeds. No wonder, then, they pressed fearfully upon him in these three years at Ely. No wonder, when he saw, as he described it in after years, thousands of his "brethren forsake their native country to seek their bread from strangers,

"I was by birth a gentleman, living neither in any considerable height, nor yet in obscurity."-Words spoken to his Parliament, Sept. 12. 1654. + In Lives of Eliot and Pym.

To the parliament of 1654-in dissolving it.