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142 the puritans, as it seemed to him, with noble phrase in his last advices to his son.

This is the nobler tone of Strafford’s spirit. That more habitual to him is heard in his presumptuous joy before entering the parliament, into which he went as a conqueror, and came out a prisoner. His confidence is not noble to us, it is not that of Brutus or Van Artevelde, who, knowing what is prescribed by the law of right within the breast, can take no other course but that, whatever the consequences; neither like the faith of Julius Cæsar or Wallenstein in their star, which, though less pure, is not without religion; but it is the presumption of a strong character