This noble and sober wisdom had its reward. If he did not carry
the banners of the Commonwealth in triumph to distant capitals,
if he did not adorn Whitehall with the spoils of the Stadthouse
and the Louvre, if he did not portion out Flanders and Germany
into principalities for his kinsmen and his generals, he did not,
on the other hand, see his country overrun by the armies of
nations which his ambition had provoked. He did not drag out the
last years of his life an exile and a prisoner, in an unhealthy
climate and under an ungenerous gaoler, raging with the impotent
desire of vengeance, and brooding over visions of departed glory.
He went down to his grave in the fulness of power and fame; and
he left to his son an authority which any man of ordinary
firmness and prudence would have retained.

But for the weakness of that foolish Ishbosheth, the opinions
which we have been expressing would, we believe, now have formed
the orthodox creed of good Englishmen. We might now be writing
under the government of his Highness Oliver the Fifth or Richard
the Fourth, Protector, by the grace of God, of the Commonwealth
of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the dominions thereto
belonging. The form of the great founder of the dynasty, on
horseback, as when he led the charge at Naseby or
on foot, as when he took the mace from the table of the Commons,
would adorn our squares and over look our public offices from
Charing Cross; and sermons in his praise would be duly preached
on his lucky day, the third of September, by court-chaplains,
guiltless of the abomination of the surplice.

But, though his memory has not been taken under the patronage of
any party, though every device has been used to blacken it,