Page:Books and men.djvu/220

 210 contrasting the dissoluteness of Prince Rupert's horse with the restraint of Cromwell's pikemen. A deep, enjoying nature finds in him no sympathy. He has no tears for that warm life, no tenderness for that extinct mirth. The ignorance of the Cavaliers, too, moves his wrath: 'They were ignorant of what every schoolgirl knows.' Their loyalty to their sovereign is the devotion of the Egyptians to the god Apis: 'They selected a calf to adore.' Their non-resistance offends the philosopher; their license is commented on in the tone of a precisian. Their indecorum does not suit the dignity of the narrator. Their rich, free nature is unappreciated; the tingling intensity of their joy is unnoticed. In a word, there is something of the schoolboy about the Cavalier; there is somewhat of a schoolmaster about the historian."

That the gay gentlemen who glittered in the courts of the Stuarts were enviably ignorant of much that, for some inscrutable reason, we feel ourselves obliged to know to-day may be safely granted, and scored at once to the account of their good fortune. It is probable