inely honest man. But at this time he had no adequate conception of the great Lord Protector. This is the aspect which he presented to Carlyle when he was composing those Lectures: "The great savage Baresark: he could write no euphuistic Monarchy of Man; did not speak, did not work with glib regularity; has no straight story to tell for himself anywhere. But he stood bare, not cased in euphuistic coat of mail; he grappled like a giant, face to face, heart to heart, with the naked truth of things! That, after all, is the sort of man for one. I plead guilty to valuing such a man beyond all other sorts of men. Smoothshaven Respectabilities not a few one finds, that are not good for much. Small thanks to a man for keeping his hands clean, who would not touch the work but with gloves on."

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Now, "Respectability," even in the lower sense in which Carlyle here uses the word, is a very good thing; at least it involves the absence of some very bad things; and "clean hands" not at all undesirable. Carlyle's father was a man whom no one would style other than respectable. England, in the times when Cromwell lived, had no more respectable men than the three great Johns: John Hampden, John Eliot, and John Milton. John Wesley and his brother Charles were eminently respectable men; George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were in every way respectable. A more respectable man than the

Apostle Paul, measured by any standard, never trod the earth. We imagine that Thomas Carlyle would not thank any one who should describe him as any other than the very "respectable" person which he has always been, from Kirkcaldy School, through Craigenputtoch, to Cheyne Row, where, if he did not "keep a gig," he at least kept a horse for riding.

And when, after some four years of acquaintanceship at second or third hand with Cromwell, Carlyle came to know him better, he found him to be a very "respectable" sort of a man; so respectable, indeed, that it was not at all probable that he would like to be seen in company with sundry royal personages-Stuarts, Guelphs, and the like. A question was mooted touching which Carlyle shall speak: "Being myself questioned in reference to the new Houses of Parliament, ‘Shall Cromwell have a statue there?' I had to answer with sorrowful dubiety: Cromwell? Side by side with a sacred Charles the Second, sacred George the Fourth, and the other sacred Charleses, Jameses, Georges, and Defenders of the Faith-I am afraid he wouldn't like it! Let us decide provisionally, No.'"

The preparing of these volumes of Cromwell's "Letters and Speeches" was with Carlyle a labor of love. He wished to clear the memory of Oliver from the obloquy which had been cast upon it, by "presenting the authentic utterances of the man

himself," with such narrative and elucidation as would make them intelligible in these later days. "I have gathered them," he says, "from far and near; fished them up from foul Lethean quagmires where they lay buried. I have washed, or endeavored to wash, them clean from foreign stupidities, and the world shall now see them in their own shape." The following is Carlyle's description of the person of Cromwell as he appeared in 1653, not long after he had become Lord High Protector of the Commonwealth:

666

OLIVER CROMWELL'S APPEARANCE.

"His Highness,' says Whitelocke, 'was in a rich but plain suit-black velvet, with cloak of the same; about his hat a broad band of gold.'-Does the reader see him? A rather likely figure, I think. Stands some five feet ten or more; a man of strong, solid stature, and dignified, now partly military carriage; the expression of him valor and devout intelligence-energy and delicacy, on a basis of simplicity. Fifty-four years old, gone April last; brown hair and mustache are getting gray. A figure of sufficient impressiveness-not lovely to the manmilliner species, nor pretending to be so. Massive stature; big massive head, of somewhat leonine aspect; wart above the right eyebrow; nose of considerable blunt-aquiline proportions; strict yet copious lips, full of all tremulous sensibilities, and also, if need were, of all fiercenesses and rigors; deep, loving eyes-call them grave, call them stern-looking from under those craggy brows as if in lifelong sorrow, and yet not thinking it

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