ON THE GOVERNMENT OF OLIVER CROMWELL. IT was the funeral day of the late man who made himself to be called protector. And though I bore but little affection, either to the memory of him, or to the trouble and folly of all publick pageantry, yet I was forced by the importunity of my company to go along with them, and be a spectator of that solemnity, the expectation of which had been so great, that it was said to have brought some very curious persons (and no doubt singular virtuosos) as far as from the Mount in Cornwall, and from the Orcades. I found there had been much more cost bestowed than either the dead man, or indeed death itself, could deserve. There was a mighty train of black assistants, among which, too, divers princes in the persons of their ambassadors (being infinitely afflicted for the loss of their brother) were pleased to attend; the hearse was magnificent, the idol crowned, and (not to mention all other ceremonies which are practised at royal interments, and therefore by no means could be omitted here) the vast multitude of spectators made up, as it uses to do, no small part of the spectacle itself. But yet, I know not how, the whole was so managed, that, methought, it somewhat represented the life of him for whom it was made; much noise, much tumult, much expence, much magnificence, much vainglory; briefly, a great show, and yet, after all this, but an ill sight. At last (for it seemed long to me, and, like his short reign too, very tedious) the whole scene passed by; and I retired back to my chamber, weary, and I think more melancholy than any of the mourners; where I began to reflect on the whole life of this prodigious man: and sometimes I was filled with horror and detestation of his actions, and sometimes I inclined a little to reverence and admiration of his courage, conduct, and success; till, by these different motions and agitations of mind, rocked as it were asleep, I fell at last into this vision; or, if you please to call it but a dream, I shall not take it ill, because the father of poets tells us, even dreams, too, are from God. But sure it was no dream; for I was suddenly transported afar off (whether in the body, or out of the body, like St. Paul, I know not), and found myself on the top of that famous hill in the island Mona, which has the prospect of three great, and not-long-since most happy, kingdoms. As soon as ever I looked on them, the "not-long-since" struck upon my memory, and called forth the sad representation of all the sins, and all the miseries, that |