And if, in the black catalogue of high malefactors, few can be found that have lived more to the affliction and disturbance of mankind than your Highness hath done; yet your greatest enemies will not deny, but there are likewise as few that have expired more to the universal benefit of mankind, than your Highness is like to do. To hasten this great good is the chief end of my writing this paper, and if it have the effects I hope it will, your Highness will be quickly out of reach of men's malice and your enemies will only be able to wound you in your memory, which strokes you will not feel. That your Highness may speedily be in this security, is the universal wish of your grateful country; this is the desire and prayer of the good and of the bad, and, it may be, is the only thing wherein all sects and factions do agree in their devotions, and is our only Common Prayer. But amongst all that put in their requests and supplications for your Highness's speedy deliverance from all earthly troubles, none is more assiduous, nor more fervent than he that (with the rest of this nation) hath the honour to be, may it please your Highness, Your Highness's present slave and vassal, W. A. CHARACTER OF CROMWELL. =Source.=--_Sir Philip Warwick's Memoirs_, 1701. P. 247. I have no mind to give an ill character of Cromwell; for in his conversation towards me he was ever friendly; tho' at the latter end of the day finding me ever incorrigible, and having some inducements to suspect me a tamperer, he was sufficiently rigid. The first time that ever I took notice of him, was in the very beginning of the Parliament held in November, 1640, when I vainly thought myself a courtly young Gentleman: (for we Courtiers valued our selves much upon our good clothes). I came one morning into the House well clad, and perceived a Gentleman speaking (whom I knew not) very ordinarily apparelled; for it was a plain cloth suit, which seemed to have been made by an ill country-tailor; his linen was plain, and not very clean; and I remember a speck or two of blood upon his little band, which was not much larger than his collar; his hat was without a hat-band: his stature was of a good size, his sword stuck close to his side, his countenance swoln and reddish, his voice sharp and untunable, and his eloquence full of fervour; for the subject matter would not bear much of reason; it being in behalf of a servant of Mr. Prynne's, who had dispersed libells against the Queen for her dancing and such innocent and courtly sports; and he aggravated the imprisonment of this man by the Council Table unto that height, that one would have believed the very Government itself had been in great danger by it. I sincerely profess it lessened much my reverence unto that great council; for he was very much hearkened unto. And yet I lived to see this very Gentleman, whom out of no ill will to him I thus describe,--by multiplied good successes, and by real (but