Page:Life of Oliver Cromwell.pdf/20

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same courted that young gentlewoman there, my lady's woman, and cannot prevail. I was therefore humbly praying her ladyship to intercede for me." Oliver affecting to believe every word he said, turned to the wating maid, and angrily said, "What is the meaning of this, hussey? He is my friend, and expect you will treat him as such. The damsel, thinking this a fair windfall, and Jerrey by no means a man to be sneered at, replied, with a low curtsey, "If Mr White, sir, intends me that honbur, I shall not deny him." "Well, well, call Goodwin," said Oliver, "this business shall be done presently, and before I leave this room?" Jerrey could not retreat. Goodwin appeared, and they were instantly joined in the hands oh holy wedlock; the bride, at the same time, receiving £500 from the Protector.

To this brief account of his singular man, we shall now add a sketch of his personal appearance, aud the domestic economy of his etablishment, when Protector of England.

Cromwell was of middling stature, but rather till than otherwise; of a stout athletic form. His features over irregular, but boldly defined; his countenance coarse, but strongly marked and singularly expressive of that great energy of character for which he was so remarkable. His nose, which was particularly prominent, and which had, during the latter years of his life, become extremely rubicund, was made the subject of many witticisms, both in prose and verse, by the royalists and cavaliers of the period. Walker says, at the time Cromwell ordered the soldiers to fire in the insurrection of the London apprentices, "his nose looked prodigiously upon you as a comet." Speaking of the government's making treason no treason, he adds, "That should the Parliament