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THE COMMONWEALTH. 421 |
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whose victorious arms have reduced me to it, as accessory to my guilt. Let it suffice, my Lord, that the calamity of the war hath made us poor: do not punish us for it. ... I beseech your Highness, put some bounds to the overthrow, and do not pursue the chase to the other world. Can your thunder be levell'd so low as our grovelling condition ? Can your towering spirit, which hath quarried upon kingdoms, make a stoop at us, who are the rubbish of these ruins ? Methinks I hear your former achievements interceding with you not to sully your glories with trampling upon the prostrate; nor clog the wheel of your chariot with so degenerous a triumph. The mo3t renowned heroes have ever with such tenderness cherished their captives, that their swords did but cut out work for their courtesies. . . . For the service of hi3 Majesty, if it be objected, I am so far from excusing it, that I am ready to alledge it in my vindication, I cannot conceit that my fidelity to my prince should taint me in your opinion; I should rather expect it should recommend me to your favour.... You see, my Lord, how much I presume upon the greatness of your spirit, that dare present my indictment with so frank a confession, especially in this, which I may so safely deny that it is almost arrogancy in me to own it; for the truth is, I was not qualified enough 'to serve him: all I could do was to bear a part in his sufferings, and to give myself to be crushed with his fall. . . . My Lord, you see my crimes; as to my defence, you bear it about you. I shall plead nothing in my justification but your Highness's clemency, which as it is the constant inmate of a valiant breast, if you graciously be pleased to extend it to your suppliant, in taking me out of this withering durance, your Highness will find that mercy will establish you more than power, though all the days of your life were as pregnant with victories as your twice auspicious third of September.—Your Highness's humble and submissive Petitioner." After his release, Cleveland came to London, " where he found a generous Maecenas," and being much admired among all persons of his pwn party, became a member of a club of wits and loyalists, which Butler, the author of JTudibras, frequented. He died a little before the Protector, from an epidemic intermitting fever.
To show how much Cromwell forgave in Cleveland, two extracts from his works ire subjoined. The first from The Character of a London Diurnal. " This Cromwell is never so valorous as when he is making speeches for the Association; which, nevertheless, he doth somewhat ominously, with his neck awry, holding up lis ear a3 if he expected Mahomet's pigeon to come and prompt him. He should be a bird of prey, too, by his bloody beak," &c. The second is Cleveland's Definition of a Protector:—
"What's a Protector ? He's a stately thing, An echo whence the royal sound doth come, That apes it in the nonage of a king; But just as barrel-head sounds like a drum •;
A tragic actor—Caesar in a clown : Fantastic image of the royal head, [tered :
He's a brass farthing stamped with a crown ; The brewer's with the King's arms quar-A bladder blown, with other breaths puff'd He is a counterfeited piece, that shows Not the Perillus, but Perillus' bull: [full; Charles his effigies with a copper nose: iEsop's proud ass veil'd in the lion's skin; In fine, he's one we must Protector call,— An outward saint lin'd with a devil within : From whom the King of kings protect us
Cleaveland's Revived Poems, p. 343, 8vo., 1687. all.] |
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