character to Maidston’s; a ‘Groom of the Bedchamber,’ whose name one at length dimly discovers to be Harvey,[1] not quite unknown otherwise; is also well worth listening to on this matter. He, in 1659, a few months before Maidston wrote, had published a credible and still interesting little Pamphlet, Passages concerning his late Highness’s last Sickness; to which, if space permit, we shall elsewhere refer. In these two little off-hand bits of writing, by two persons qualified to write and witness, there is a clear credibility for the reader; and more insight obtainable as to Oliver and his ways than in any of the express Biographies.
That anonymous Life of Cromwell, which Noble very ignorantly ascribes to Bishop Gibson, which is written in a neutral spirit, as an impartial statement of facts, but not without a secret decided leaning to Cromwell, came out in 1724. It is the Life of Cromwell found commonly in Libraries;[2] it went through several editions in a pure state; and I have seen a ‘fifth edition’ with foreign intermixtures, ‘printed at Birmingham in 1778, on gray paper, seemingly as a Book for Hawkers. The Author of it was by no means ‘Bishop Gibson,’ but one Kimber, a Dissenting Minister of London, known otherwise as a compiler of books. He has diligently gathered from old Newspapers and other such sources; narrates in a dull, steady, concise, but altogether unintelligent manner; can be read without offence, but hardly with any real instruction. Image of Cromwell’s self there is none, express or implied, in this Book; for the man himself had none, and did not feel the want of any: nay in regard to external facts also, there are inaccuracies enough,—here too, what is the general rule in these books, you can find as many
- ↑ The ‘Cofferer,’ elsewhere called ‘Steward of the Household, is ‘Mr. Maidston’: ‘Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, Mr. Charles Harvey, Mr. Underwood.’ Prestwick’s Funeral of the Protector (reprinted in Forster’s British Statesmen, v. 436, etc.).
- ↑ The Life of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth; impartially collected, etc. London, 1724. Distinguished also by a not intolerable Portrait.
