We laugh while they tremble." * Sir Philip Warwick.
The gloomy enthusiasm which prevailed among the parliamentary party, is surely the most curious spectacle presented by any history; and the most instructive, as well as entertaining, to a philosophical mind.
All recreations were in a manner suspended by the rigid severity of the Presbyterians and Independents.

Horse-races and cock-matches were prohibited as the greatest enormities.[*] * Killing no Murder Even bear-baiting was esteemed heathenish and unchristian: the sport of it, not the inhumanity, gave offence.

Colonel Hewson, from his pious zeal, marched with his regiment into London, and destroyed all the bears which were kept there for the diversion of the citizens.

This adventure seems to have given birth to the fiction of Hudibras.

Though the English nation be naturally candid and sincere, hypocrisy prevailed among them beyond any example in ancient or modern times.