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Rh wanted to know about Cromwell, and the Protectorate, and Puritan England; yet to breathe again that dismal and decorous air we must go to church with John Evelyn, and see, instead of the expected rector, a sour-faced tradesman mount the pulpit, and preach for an hour on the inspiriting text, "And Benaiah … went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in time of snow." The pious and accomplished Mr. Evelyn does not fancy this strange innovation. Like other conservative English gentlemen, he has little leaning to "novices and novelties" in the house of God; and he is even less pleased when all the churches are closed on Christmas Day, and a Puritan magistrate speaks, in his hearing, "spiteful things of our Lord's Nativity." His horror at King Charles's execution is never mitigated by any of the successive changes which followed that dark deed. He is repelled in turn by the tyranny of Cromwell, the dissoluteness of Charles II., the Catholicity of James, and the heartlessness of Queen Mary, "who came to Whitehall jolly and laughing as to a wedding," without even a decent pretense of pity for her exiled father. He firmly