Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/190

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Cromwell
184
Cromwell

of God, and we shall serve our generations. Our rest we expect elsewhere: that will be durable’ (Carlyle, Letter lxvii.)

[I. The earliest lives of Cromwell were either brief chronicles of the chief events of his life or mere panegyrics. Of these the following may be mentioned: ‘A more exact Character and perfect Narrative of the late right noble and magnificent Lord O. Cromwell, written by T. l’W. (Thomas le Wright) of the Middle Temple, London, for the present perusal of all honest patriots,’ 1668, 4to; ‘The Portraiture of His Royal Highness Oliver, late Lord Protector, in his Life and Death,’ 1658, 12mo; ‘The Idea of His Highness Oliver, Lord Protector, with certain brief Reflections on his Life’ (by Richard Flecknoe), 1669, 12mo; ‘History and Policy reviewed in the heroic Actions of His Most Serene Highness Oliver, Lord Protector, from his Cradle to his Grave, as they are drawn in lively parallels to the Ascents of the great Patriarch Moses in Thirty Degrees to the Height of Honour, by H. D.’ (Henry Dawbeney), 1669; ‘History of the Life and Death of Oliver, Lord Protector,’ by S. Carrington, 1669. But the only early life of any value is ‘The Perfect Politician, or a full View of the Life and Actions, Military and Civil, of O. Cromwell,’ 8vo, 1660 (by Henry Fletcher). The edition of 1680 is that quoted in this article. The Restoration was followed by a series of lives written in a royalist spirit, of which the chief is James Heath’s ‘Flagellum, or the Life and Death, Birth and Burial of Oliver Cromwell, by S. T., Gent.,’ 8vo, 1663; an abridgment of this is reprinted in the ‘Harleian Miscellany,’ i. 279, ed. Park. Cowley’s ‘Vision concerning His late Pretended Highness, Cromwell the Wicked,’ was published in 1661, and Perrinchief’s ‘Agathocles, or the Sicilian Tyrant,’ in the same year. Fairer, though by no means favourable, was the popular ‘Life of Cromwell,’ of which several editions were published by Richard Burton at the end of the seventeenth century; and there was also published in 1698 ‘A Modest Vindication of Oliver Cromwell from the Unjust Accusations of Lieutenant-General Ludlow in his “Memoirs,” ’ 4to (reprinted in the ‘Somers Tracts,’ vi. 416). Biographies of Cromwell were very numerous during the eighteenth century, and became more and more favourable. First appeared, in 1724, ‘The Life of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, impartially collected,’ by Kimber, which reached five or six editions. This was followed by ‘A Short Critical Review of the Political

Life of Oliver Cromwell, by a Gentleman of the Middle Temple’ (John Banks), 1739, 8vo, which reached a third edition in 1760. In 1740 the Rev. Francis Peck published his ‘Memoirs of the Life and Actions of Oliver Cromwell, as delivered in three Panegyrics of him written in Latin;’ Peck also published various papers relating to Cromwell in his ‘Desiderata Curiosa,’ 1732–6. More valuable was ‘An Account of the Life of Oliver Cromwell’ after the manner of Bayle, by William Harris, D.D., published in 1762, and forming the third volume of the collection of lives by Harris published in 1814. In 1784 appeared Mark Noble’s ‘Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell,’ ‘a kind of Cromwellian biographical dictionary’ Carlyle terms it, the third edition of which, dated 1787, is here referred to. The nineteenth century opened with the publication of ‘Memoirs of the Protector, Oliver Cromwell, and of his sons Richard and Henry, illustrated by original Letters and other Family Papers,’ by Oliver Cromwell [q. v.], a descendant of the family. The author was a great-grandson of Henry Cromwell, and his last descendant in the male line. His avowed object was to vindicate the character of the Protector, and his work is valuable as containing copies of original letters and authentic portraits in the possession of the Cromwell family. These papers were in 1871 in the possession of Mrs. Prescott (Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. 97). Forster’s ‘Life of Cromwell,’ 1839, which forms two volumes of the series of ‘Lives of Eminent British Statesmen’ in Lardner’s ‘Cabinet Cyclopaedia,’ is a work of considerable research, but written too much from the standpoint of the republican party. The vindication of Cromwell’s character which his descendant had attempted was achieved by Carlyle in ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches,’ 1845, but as an account of Cromwell’s government and policy Carlyle’s work is far from complete. Of later English lives the only one deserving mention is that by J. A. Picton, ‘Oliver Cromwell, the Man and his Mission,’ 1883. Foreign lives are numerous, but of little value. Galardi’s ‘La Tyrannie Heureuse, ou Cromwell Politique,’ 1671, is mainly based on Heath, and the lives by Raguenet (1691) and Gregorio Leti (1692) are interesting as works of imagination. The first foreign life of any value is that of Villemain (1819). The last, ‘Oliver Cromwell und die puritanische Revolution,’ by Moritz Brosch, 1886, contains the results of some recent researches in Italian archives. Guizot’s ‘Histoire de la République d’Angleterre et de Cromwell’ (translated, 2 vols. 1864), Ranke’s ‘History of England’ (translated, 6 vol. 1875), and Mason’s ‘Life of Milton’ (6 vols. 1867–80) are indispensable for the history of Cromwell’s government, and Gardiner’s ‘History of England’ (10 vols. 1883–4) and ‘History of the Great Civil War,’ 1886, for Cromwell’s earlier career Godwin’s ‘History of the Commonwealth of England’ (4 vols. 1824–8) is still valuable from the author’s knowledge of the pamphlet literature of the period.

II. Of the authorities valuable for special portions of Cromwell’s life the following may be mentioned. The evidence relating to Cromwell’s life up to 1642 is collected in Sanford’s ‘Studies and Illustrations of the Great Rebellion,’ 1868. For the first civil war Rushworth’s ‘Collections,’ vols. v. vi.; Sprigge’s ‘Anglia Rediviva,’ 1647; the ‘Fairfax Correspondence,’ vols. iii. iv. ed. Boll, 1849; the ‘Letters of Robert Baillie,’ ed. Laing,