But, Puritan as he was, we can admire Cromwell. Every great man, in whatever times, or in whatever part of the world he has made his appearance, has earned his title to fame and distinction, not by qualities peculiar to the sect or religion to which he may have belonged, but qualities which, though connected with his own especial faith or tenets, are recognised as the common property of mankind; he has been great not as Catholic, as Puritan, as Pagan, as Mahometan, but as _man_; he has been great, because he was pious, brave, patriotic, sagacious, resolute, and has achieved great enterprises on the theatre of life. The greatness of Cromwell was indeed allied to Puritanism, inasmuch as his mind grew up under this peculiar form of religion; but what we, and all posterity must admire in Cromwell, is by no means the puritan. His steadiness of purpose, his unshaken resolution, his military prowess, his eminent talent to govern and command, and his religious sense of duty to the Supreme, might all have existed under other modes of religion. In our admiration we entirely separate these qualities from that least gainly and least wholesome of the forms of Christian piety with which they are here found connected. History gives us examples of every kind of virtue, and every kind of talent, united with every species of fanaticism that has afflicted civilised life. It follows not that we applaud the fanaticism. The early caliphs were several of them distinguished by exalted virtues, temperance, self-denial, justice, patriotism: we praise these virtues, we acknowledge, too, that they are here linked with the profession of the faith of Islam; but for all this we do not admire the religion of Mahomet, nor that fanaticism which writ its texts upon the sword. We insist upon this obvious distinction, because, whilst agreeing--_to a certain extent_--in Mr Carlyle's view of the character of Cromwell, we beg not to be implicated in that esteem and reverence which he professes to entertain for Puritanism, or the Puritans as a body. And this brings us to the extraordinary part of Mr Carlyle's performance--his ardent sympathy, nay his acquiescence with, and adherence to the Puritans, to that point that he adopts their convictions, their feelings, and even some of their most grotesque reasonings. Their violence and ferocity, we were prepared to see Mr Carlyle, in his own sardonic fashion, abet and encourage; his sympathy is always with the party _who strikes_; but that he should identify himself with their mumming thoughts, their "plentiful reasons," their gloomiest superstitions, was what no one could have anticipated. On this subject we must quote his own words; our own would not be credited; they would seem to any one who had not read his work to be scandalous misrepresentations. The extravagance runs through the whole book, but we have it perhaps more concentrated in the Introduction.