For there in lofty air was seen to stand

The stern Protector of the conquer’d land;

Draw in that look with which he wept and swore,

Turn’d out the members and made fast the door,

Ridding the house of every knave¹ and drone,

Forced — though it grieved his soul — to rule alone.

THE FRANK COURTSHIP. — CRABBE.

Leaving Colonel Everard to his meditations², we follow the jolly cavalier, his companion, who, before mounting at the George, did not fail to treat himself to his morning-draught of eggs and muscadine, to enable him to face the harvest wind.

Although he had suffered himself to be sunk in the extravagant³ license⁴ which was practised by the cavaliers, as if to oppose their conduct in every point to the preciseness of their enemies, yet Wildrake, well-born and well-educated, and endowed with good natural parts, and a heart which even debauchery, and the wild life of a roaring cavalier, had not been able entirely⁵ to corrupt⁶, moved on his present embassy with a strange mixture of feelings, such as perhaps he had never in his life before experienced.

His feelings as a loyalist led him to detest⁷ Cromwell, whom in other circumstances he would scarce have wished to see, except in a field of battle, where he could have had the pleasure to exchange pistol-shots with him. But with this hatred⁸ there was mixed a certain degree of fear. Always victorious⁹ wherever he fought, the remarkable¹⁰ person whom Wildrake was now approaching had acquired that influence over the minds of his enemies, which constant success is so apt to inspire — they

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