his old battle-mate, coming to see him on some indispensable business, much
against his will,--Cromwell "follows him to the door," in a most fraternal,
domestic, conciliatory style; begs that he would be reconciled to him, his
old brother in arms; says how much it grieves him to be misunderstood,
deserted by true fellow-soldiers, dear to him from of old: the rigorous
Hutchinson, cased in his Republican formula, sullenly goes his way.--And
the man's head now white; his strong arm growing weary with its long work!
I think always too of his poor Mother, now very old, living in that Palace
of his; a right brave woman; as indeed they lived all an honest God-fearing
Household there: if she heard a shot go off, she thought it was her son
killed. He had to come to her at least once a day, that she might see with
her own eyes that he was yet living. The poor old Mother!--What had this
man gained; what had he gained? He had a life of sore strife and toil, to
his last day. Fame, ambition, place in History? His dead body was hung in
chains, his "place in History,"--place in History forsooth!--has been a
place of ignominy, accusation, blackness and disgrace; and here, this day,
who knows if it is not rash in me to be among the first that ever ventured
to pronounce him not a knave and liar, but a genuinely honest man! Peace
to him. Did he not, in spite of all, accomplish much for us? _We_ walk
smoothly over his great rough heroic life; step over his body sunk in the
ditch there. We need not _spurn_ it, as we step on it!--Let the Hero rest.
It was not to _men's_ judgment that he appealed; nor have men judged him
very well.


Precisely a century and a year after this of Puritanism had got itself
hushed up into decent composure, and its results made smooth, in 1688,
there broke out a far deeper explosion, much more difficult to hush up,
known to all mortals, and like to be long known, by the name of French
Revolution. It is properly the third and final act of Protestantism; the