Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/76

 affirmative was then a great reproach to him; fit for Carrion Heath and others: it would be now, in our present strange condition of the Moral Law, one knows not what. With a Moral Law gone all to such a state of moonshine; with the hard Stone-tables, the god-given Precepts and eternal Penalties, dissolved all in cant and mealy-mouthed official flourishings,—it might perhaps, with certain parties, be a credit; the admirers and the censurers of Cromwell have alike no word to record on the subject.

Thursday, 29th October 1618. This morning, if Oliver, as is probable, were now in Town studying Law, he might be eye-witness of a great and very strange scene; the last scene in the Life of Sir Walter Raleigh. Raleigh was beheaded in Old Palaceyard; he appeared on the scaffold there ‘about eight o’clock’ that morning; ‘an immense crowd,’ all London, and in a sense all England, looking on. A cold hoarfrosty morning. Earl of Arundel, now known to us by his Greek Marbles; Earl of Doncaster (‘Sardanapalus’ Hay, ultimately Earl of Carlisle); these with other earls and dignitaries sat looking through windows near by; to whom Raleigh in his last brief manful speech appealed, with response from them. He had failed of finding Eldorados in the Indies lately; he had failed, and also succeeded, in many things in his time: he returned home ‘with his brain and his heart broken,’ as he said;—and the Spaniards, who found King James willing, now wished that he should die. A very tragic scene. Such a man, with his head grown gray; with his strong heart ‘breaking,’—still strength enough in it to break with dignity. Somewhat proudly he laid his old gray head on the block; as if saying, in better than words, ‘There then!’ The Sheriff offered to let him warm himself again, within doors again at a fire. ‘Nay, let us be swift,’ said Raleigh; ‘in few minutes my ague will return upon me, and if I be not dead before