Ireland was no sooner subjected by this unflinching and terrific severity, than the presence of the great general of the Commonwealth was needed in Scotland. The Scots had no predilection for a republic, no desire whatever for it; they were bent solely on their covenant, their covenant and a Stuart king. It was a combination very difficult to achieve. Nevertheless they took their oath to both, and marched into England to establish them both over the United Kingdom. Here was sufficient enthusiasm at all events; sufficient, and of the proper kind, one would think, to earn the sympathies of our editor. And he does look upon the Scots at this time as an "heroic nation." But, unfortunately, it is precisely the heroic nation that his own great hero is about to combat and subdue. He is compelled, therefore, upon his part, as the faithful bard and minstrel of his chosen champion, to give them up--them, and their covenant, and Stuart king--to merciless sarcasm. Indeed, he tells us, that the great, the sole fault of the Scots, was precisely this--that they did not produce a Cromwell. "With Oliver born Scotch," he says or sings, "one sees not but the whole world might have become Puritan!" However, he launches his Puritan hero against the godly and heroic nation with full sound of trumpet, not unmixed with a certain vague and solemn voice of prophecy. "In such spirit goes Oliver to the wars--a god-intoxicated man, as Novalis elsewhere phrases it. I have asked myself, if any where in modern European history, or even in ancient Asiatic, there was found a man practising this mean world's affairs with a heart more filled by the idea of the Highest? Bathed in the eternal splendours--it is so he walks our dim earth: this man is one of few. He is projected with a terrible force out of the Eternities, and in the Times and their arenas there is nothing that can withstand him. It is great; to us it is tragic; a thing that should strike us dumb! My brave one, thy noble prophecy _is_ divine; older than Hebrew David; old as the origin of man; and shall, though in wider ways than those supposed, be fulfilled."--(P. 172.)