Amidst the passions and prejudices of that period, that he should prefer the parliamentary to the royal cause, will not appear extraordinary; since, even at present, some men of sense and knowledge are disposed to think, that the question, with regard to the justice of the quar* *rel, may be regarded as doubtful and uncertain.

The murder of the king, the most atrocious of all his actions, was to him covered under a mighty cloud of republican and fanatical illusions; and it is not impossible, but he might believe it, as many others did, the most meritorious action that he could perform.

His subsequent usurpation was the effect of necessity, as well as of ambition; nor is it easy to see how the various factions could at that time have been restrained, without a mixture of military and arbitrary authority.

The private deportment of Cromwell, as a son, a husband, a father, a friend, is exposed to no considerable censure, if it does not rather merit praise.

And, upon the whole, his character does not appear more extraordinary and unusual by the mixture of so much absurdity with so much penetration, than by his tempering such violent ambition and such enraged fanaticism with so much regard to justice and humanity.
Cromwell was in the fifty-ninth year of his age when he died.