Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/127

 Painters usually do; Oliver never lived there, but only his Mother’s cousins! Two years ago this House in Ely stood empty; closed finally up, deserted by all the Pages, as ‘the Commutation of Tithes’ had rendered it superfluous: this year (1845), I find it is an Alehouse, with still some chance of standing. It is by no means a sumptuous mansion; but may have conveniently held a man of three or four hundred a year, with his family, in those simple times. Some quaint air of gentility still looks through its ragged dilapidation. It is of two stories, more properly of one and a half; has many windows, irregular chimneys and gables. Likely enough Oliver lived here; likely his Grandfather may have lived here, his Mother have been born here. She was now again resident here. The tomb of her first husband and child, Johannes Lynne and poor little Catharina Lynne, is in the Cathedral hard by. ‘Such are the changes which fleeting Time procureth.’—

The Second extant Letter of Cromwell’s is dated Ely, October 1638. It will be good to introduce, as briefly as possible, a few Historical Dates, to remind the reader what o’clock on the Great Horologe it is, while this small Letter is a-writing. Last year in London there had been a very strange spectacle; and in three weeks after, another in Edinburgh, of still more significance in English History.

On the 30th of June 1637, in Old Palaceyard, three men, gentlemen of education, of good quality, a Barrister, a Physician and a Parish Clergyman of London were set on three Pillories; stood openly, as the scum of malefactors, for certain hours there; and then had their ears cut off,—bare knives, hot brandingirons,—and their cheeks stamped ‘S. L.,’ Seditious Libeller; in the sight of a great crowd, ‘silent’ mainly, and looking ‘pale.’ The men were our old friend William Prynne,—poor Prynne, who had got into new trouble, and here lost his ears