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had overwhelmed them these twenty years. And I wept bitterly for two or three hours; and, when my present stock of moisture was all wasted, I fell asighing for an hour more; and, as soon as I recovered from my passion the use of speech and reason, I broke forth, as I remember (looking upon England) into this complaint:

Ah, happy isle, how art thou chang'd and curs'd,
Since I was born, and knew thee first!

When peace, which had forsook the world around
(Frighted with noise, and the shrill trumpet's sound)
Thee for a private place of rest,
And a secure retirement, chose

Wherein to build her halcyon nest;

No wind durst stir abroad, the air to discompose :

When all the riches of the globe beside

Flow'd in to thee with every tide e; When all, that nature did thy soil deny, The growth was of thy fruitful industry; When all the proud and dreadful sea, And all his tributary streams,

A constant tribute paid to thee;

When all the liquid world was one extended Thames:

When plenty in each village did appear,

And bounty was its steward there;

When gold walk'd free about in open view,
Ere it one conquering party's prisoner grew ;

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When the religion of our state

Had face and substance with her voice,

Ere she, by her foolish loves of late,

Like Echo (once a Nymph) turn'd only into noise:

When men to men respect and friendship bore,
And God with reverence did adore ;

When upon earth no kingdom could have shown
A happier monarch to us, than our own :

And yet his subjects by him were
(Which is a truth will hardly be
Receiv'd by any vulgar ear,

A secret known to few) made happier ev❜n than he.

Thou dost a Chaos, and Confusion, now,

A Babel, and a Bedlam, grow;

And, like a frantick person, thou dost tear

The ornaments and clothes which thou shouldst wear,

And cut thy limbs; and, if ́we see

(Just as thy barbarous Britons did)
Thy body with hypocrisy

Painted all o'er, thou think'st thy naked shame is hid.

The nations, which envied thee erewhile,

Now laugh (too little 't is to smile);

They laugh, and would have pitied thee, alas!

But that thy faults all pity do surpass,

Art thou the country, which didst hate
And mock the French inconstancy?

And have we, have we seen of late

Less change of habits there, than governments in thee?

Unhappy isle! no ship of thine at sea

Was ever tost and torn like thee.

Thy naked hulk loose on the waves does beat,
The rocks and banks around her ruin threat:
What did thy foolish pilots ail,

To lay the compass quite aside?
Without a law or rule to sail,

And rather take the winds, than heavens, to be their guide!

Yet, mighty God! yet, yet, we humbly crave,
This floating isle from shipwreck save;
And though, to wash that blood which does it stain,
It well deserve to sink into the main ;

Yet, for the royal martyr's prayer
(The royal martyr prays, we know)
This guilty, perishing vessel spare;

Hear but his soul above, and not his blood below!

I think I should have gone on, but that I was interrupted by a strange and terrible apparition; for there appeared to me (arising out of the earth, as I conceived) the figure of a man, taller than a giant, or indeed than the shadow of any giant in the evening. His body was naked; but that nakedness adorned, or rather deformed, all over, with several figures, after the manner of the ancient Britons, painted upon it and I perceived that most of them were the representation of the late battles in our civil wars, and (if I be not much mistaken) it was

the battle of Naseby that was drawn upon his breast. His eyes were like burning brass; and there were three crowns of the same metal (as I guessed), and that looked as red-hot too, upon his head. He held in his right hand a sword, that was yet bloody, and nevertheless the motto of it was "Pax quæritur bello;" and in his left hand a thick book, upon the back of which was written in letters of gold, Acts, Ordinances, Protestations, Covenants, Engagements, Declarations, Remonstrances, &c.

Though this sudden, unusual, and dreadful object might have quelled a greater courage than mine; yet so it pleased God (for there is nothing bolder than a man in a vision) that I was not at all daunted, but asked him resolutely and briefly, "What art thou?" And he said, "I am called the northwest principality, his highness, the protector of the commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dominions belonging thereto; for I am that angel, to whom the Almighty has committed the government of those three kingdoms, which thou seest from this place." And I answered and said, "If it be so, Sir, it seems to me that for almost these twenty years past your highness has been absent from your charge: for not only if any angel, but if any wise and honest man, had since that time been our governor, we should not have wandered thus long in these laborious and endless labyrinths of confusion, but either not have entered at all into them, or at least have returned back ere we had ab

solutely lost our way; but, instead of your highness, we have had since such a protector, as was his predecessor Richard the third to the king his nephew ; for he presently slew the commonwealth, which he pretended to protect, and set up himself in the place of it a little less guilty indeed in one respect, because the other slew an innocent, and this man did but murder a murderer. Such a protector we have had, as we would have been glad to have changed for an enemy, and rather received a constant Turk, than this every month's apostate; such a protector, as man is to his flocks which he sheers, and sells, or devours himself; and I would fain know, what the wolf, which he protects him from, could do more. Such a protector-" and as I was proceeding, methought, his highness began to put on a displeased and threatening countenance, as men use to do when their dearest friends happen to be traduced in their company; which gave me the first rise of jealousy against him, for I did not believe that Cromwell among all his foreign correspondences had ever held any with angels. However, I was not hardened enough yet to venture a quarrel with him then and therefore (as if I had spoken to the protector himself in Whitehall) I desired him "that his highness would please to pardon me, if I had unwittingly spoken any thing to the disparagement of a person, whose relations to his highness I had not the honour to know."

At which he told me " that he had no other con

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