AN

Historical Romance.

EDITED

BY HORACE SMITH, ESQ.

AUTHOR OF

"BRAMBLETYE HOUSE."

Yet is the tale, true though it be, as strange,
As full, methinks, of wild and wondrous change,
As any that the wandering tribes require,
Stretched in the desert round their evening fire;
As any sung of old in hall or bɔwer

To minstrel harps at midnight's witching hour.

ROGERS'S Poems.

IN THREE VOLUM ES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:

HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,

GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

CROMWELL.

BOOK III.

There can be slain

No sacrifice to God more acceptable

Than an unjust and wicked king.

MILTON. (From Seneca.)

Remorse from power: and to speak truth of Cæsar,
I have not known when his affection swayed
More than his reason. But 'tis a common proof,

That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face,
But when he once attains the topmost round,

He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.

Julius Cæsar.

Two full years had gone round since the defeat of Naseby had paralyzed the efforts and destroyed the hopes of Charles Stuart's party