The Works of Thomas Carlyle/Volume 6/Letter 67
Monro with the rearward of Hamilton’s beaten Army did not march ‘straight back’ to Scotland, as Turner told us, but very obliquely back; lingering for several weeks on the South side of the Border; collecting remnants of English, Scotch, and even Irish Malignants, not without hopes of raising a new Army from them,—cruelly spoiling those Northern Counties in the interim. Cromwell, waiting first till Lambert with the forces sent in pursuit of Hamilton can rejoin the main Army, moves Northward, to deal with these broken parties, and with broken Scotland generally. The following Thirteen Letters bring him as far as Edinburgh: whither let us now attend him with such lights as they yield.
Oliver St. John, a private friend, and always officially an important man, always on the Committee of Both Kingdoms, Derby-House Committee, or whatever the governing Authority might be, finds here a private Note for himself; one part of which is very strange to us. Does the reader look with any intelligence into that poor old prophetic, symbolic Deathbed-scene at Preston? Any intelligence of Prophecy and Symbol in general; of the symbolic Man-child Mahershalal-hashbaz at Jerusalem, or the handful of Cut Grass at Preston;—of the opening Portals of Eternity, and what last departing gleams there are in the Soul of the pure and just?—Mahershalal-hashbaz (‘Hasten-to-the-spoil,’ so-called), and the bundle of Cut Grass are grown somewhat strange to us! Read; and having sneered duly, consider
FOR MY WORTHY FRIEND OLIVER ST. JOHN, ESQUIRE, SOLICITOR-GENERAL: THESE, AT LINCOLN’S INN
Dear Sir,—I can say nothing; but surely the Lord our God is a great and glorious God. He only is worthy to be feared and trusted, and His appearances particularly to be waited for. He will not fail His People. Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord!—
Remember my love to my dear brother H. Vane: I pray he make not too little, nor I too much, of outward dispensations:—God preserve us all, that we, in simplicity of our spirits, may patiently attend upon them. Let us all be not careful what men will make of these actings. They, will they nill they, shall fulfil the good pleasure of God; and we—shall serve our generations. Our rest we expect elsewhere: that will be durable. Care we not for tomorrow, nor for anything. This Scripture has been of great stay to me: read Isaiah Eighth, 10, 11, 14;—read all the Chapter.[1]
I am informed from good hands, that a poor godly man died in Preston, the day before the Fight; and being sick, near the hour of his death, he desired the woman that cooked to him, To fetch him a handful of Grass. She did so; and when he received it, he asked Whether it would wither or not, now it was cut? The woman said, “Yea.” He replied, “So should this Army of the Scots do, and come to nothing, so soon as ours did but appear,” or words to this effect; and so immediately died.———
My service to Mr. W. P., Sir J. E., and the rest of our good friends. I hope I do often remember you. Yours,
My service to Frank Russel and Sir Gilbert Pickering.[2]
‘Sir J. E.,‘ when he received this salutation, was palpable enough; but has now melted away to the Outline of a Shadow! I guess him to be Sir John Evelyn of Wilts; and, with greater confidence, ‘Mr. W. P.‘ to be William Pierpoint, Earl of Kingston’s Son, a man of superior faculty, of various destiny and business, ‘called in the Family traditions, Wise William‘; Ancestor of the Dukes of Kingston (Great-grandfather of that Lady Mary, whom as Wortley Montagu all readers still know); and much a friend of Oliver, as we shall transiently see.
- ↑ Yes, the indignant symbolic ‘Chapter,’ about Mahershalal-hashbaz, and the vain desires of the wicked, is all worth reading: here are the Three Verses referred to, more especially: ‘Take counsel together,’ ye unjust, ‘and it shall come to naught; speak the word, and it shall not stand. For God is with us.—Sanctify the Lord of Hosts; and let Him he your fear, and let Him be your dread. And He shall be for a sanctuary:—but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the Houses of Israel; for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem! And many among them shall stumble and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.’ This last verse, we find, is often in the thoughts of Oliver.
- ↑ Ayscough MSS. 4107, f. 94; a Copy by Birch.