THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER: DEVOTED TO EVERY DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE AND THE FINE ARTS. Au gré de nos desirs bien plus qu'au gré des vents. _Crebillon's Electre_. As _we_ will, and not as the winds will. RICHMOND: T. W. WHITE, PUBLISHER AND PROPRIETOR. 1835-6. {605} SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. VOL. II. RICHMOND, SEPTEMBER, 1836. NO. X. T. W. WHITE, PROPRIETOR. FIVE DOLLARS PER ANNUM. CROMWELL. BY EDWARD LYTTON BULWER.[1] [Footnote 1: This Tragedy is now in the press of Messieurs Saunders and Otley, (with whom Mr. Bulwer has made an exclusive arrangement for the issuing of his works here simultaneously with their appearance in England,) and will be published forthwith. We are indebted to the attention of these gentlemen for Act I, in anticipation, copied from the original MS.] ACT I. SCENE I.—A Room in Whitehall. At the back, folding doors hung with black crape. Henry Martin—Harrison—Ireton. IRETON. Does the crowd gather still? HARRISON. Ay! Round the door The godless idle cluster; nor with ease Can our good guards—the tried men of the Lord— Ward off the gapers, that, with thirsty mouths, Would drink, as something sacred, the mute air Circling the dust of him that _was_ a king. MARTIN. Ev'n as I passed the porch, a goodly cit, Round and tun-bellied, plucked me by the robe: ‘Sir, can I see the king?’ quoth he. I frowned:— ‘There is no king!’ said I. ‘The man called Charles Is the same clay as yours and mine. Lo! yonder Lies, yet unburied, a brave draper's corpse; Go ye and gaze on that!’ And so I passed. Still the crowd murmured—‘We would see the king!’ IRETON. Ay, round the vulgar forms of royalty, Or dead or quick, the unthinking millions press; They love the very mummery of their chains, And graceless walks unsceptred Liberty To their coarse gaze. 'Twas a bold deed, that death! HARRISON. A deed we ne'er had had the souls to do, But for the audible mandates of the Lord. I did not sleep seven nights before my hand Signed that red warrant; and e'en now, methinks Midnight seems darker and more sternly still Than it was wont to do! IRETON. A truce with this. When saw ye last the General? MARTIN. Scarce an hour Hath joined the Past, since I did leave him praying. IRETON. The pious Cromwell!—'Tis a blessed thing To have a lodge above, and, when the air Grows dim and rank on earth, to change the scene, And brace the soul in thoughts that breathe of Heaven. He bears him bravely then, that virtuous man? MARTIN. Bravely; but with a graver, soberer mien Than when we councilled on the deed now done.