dreamt that his native country might emulate the graceful refinement of the Athenian, and the sterner virtue of the Roman.
Evelyn expected nothing from Richard Cromwell; but he believed that good might grow out of evil; and the very weakness which would throw the power into the people's hands, might by them be so used as to lay the foundations of a more secure and free government than had yet been known. Moreover, he held any ill lighter than the return of the Stuarts to that throne for which long experience had shown their house to be so unfitted,
"The parliament," thought Evelyn, "will feel their strength, and the past has surely taught them how to use it."
Perhaps the great charm of a republic to the young mind is, the career which it seems to lay open to all, and whose success depends upon personal gifts; while their exercise seems more independent when devoted to the people rather than to the monarch. They forget that tyranny and caprice are the attributes of the many as well as of the one,—that the ingratitude of the mob is as proverbial as that of the court; and that an equal subserviency is required by either. But the poetry of the afar off is around the patriotism of the classic ages, and its record is left on the most glorious
