The most superficial observers cannot have overlooked the general resemblances in the fortunes and character of Cromwell, and of him who, more recently and upon an ampler theatre, has struck nations with wonder and awe. But the parallel may be traced more closely than perhaps has hitherto been remarked. Both raised to power by the only merit which a revolution leaves uncontroverted and untarnished, that of military achievements, in that reflux of public sentiment, when the fervid enthusiasm of democracy gives place to disgust at its excesses and a desire of firm government. The means of greatness the same to both, the extinction of a representative assembly, once national, but already mutilated by violence, and sunk by its submission to that illegal force into general contempt. In military science or the renown of their exploits, we cannot certainly rank Cromwell by the side of him, for whose genius and ambition all Europe seemed the appointed quarry; but it may be said that the former's exploits were as much above the level of his contemporaries, and more the fruits of an original uneducated capacity. In civil government, there can be no adequate parallel between one who had sucked only the dregs of a besotted fanaticism, and one to whom the stores of reason and philosophy were open. But it must here be added that Cromwell, far unlike his antitype, never showed any signs of a legislative mind, or any desire to fix his renown on that noblest basis, the amelioration of social institutions. Both were eminent masters of human nature, and played with inferior capacities in all the security of powerful minds. Though both, coming at the conclusion of a struggle for liberty, trampled upon her claims, and sometimes spoke disdainfully of her name, each knew how to associate the interests of those who had contended for her with his own ascendancy, and made himself the representative of a victorious revolution. Those who had too much philosophy or zeal for freedom to give way to popular admiration for these illustrious usurpers, were yet amused with the adulation that lawful princes showered on them, more gratuitously in one instance, with servile terror in the other. Both too repaid in some measure this homage of the pretended great by turning their ambition towards those honours and titles which they knew to be so little connected with high desert. A fallen race of monarchs, which had made way for the greatness of each, cherished hopes of restoration by their power till each, by an inexpiable act of blood, manifested his determination to make no compromise with that line. Both possessed a certain coarse good nature and affability that covered the want of conscience, honour, and humanity; quick in passion, but not vindictive, and averse to unnecessary crimes. Their fortunes in the conclusion of life were indeed very different; one forfeited the affections of his people, which the other, in the character at least of their master, had never