Morning Star

The Mother of Oliver Cromwell.

This lady who is said to have been an undoubted descendant of the royal family of the Stuarts, possessed a higher distinction in her own virtues. Mr. Forester, in his Statesmen of the Commonwealth of England, pays this beautiful tribute to her worth :

"An interesting person, indeed, was this mother of Oliver Cromwell—a woman with the glorious faculty of self-help when other assistance failed her : ready for the demands of fortune in its extremest adverse time—of spirit and energy equal to her mildness and patience ; who, with the labor of her own hands, gave dowries to five daughters, sufficient to marry them into families as honorable, but more wealthy than their own ; whose single pride was honesty, and whose passion love ; who preserved in the gorgeous palace at Whitehall the simple tastes that distinguished her in the old brewery at Huntingdon ; whose only care, amid all her splendors, was for the safety of her beloved son in his dangerous eminence; finally, whose closing wish, when that anxious care had outworn her strength,—accorded with her whole modest and tender history, for she implored a simple burial in some country church-yard, rather than the ill-suited trappings of state and ceremony where-with she feared, and with reason feared, that his Highness, the Lord Protector of England, would have her carried to some royal tomb! There is a portrait of her at Hinchinbrook, which, if that were possible, would increase the interest she inspires, and the respect she claims. The mouth, so small and sweet, yet full and firm as the mouth of a hero ; the large, "melancholy eyes ; the light, pretty hair ; the expression of a quiet affectionateness suffused over the face, which is so modestly enveloped in a white satin hood; the simple beauty of the velvet cardinal she wears, and the richness of the small jewel that clasps it. seem to present before the gazer her living and breathing character."