Excerpt from Oliver Cromwell, Vol. 1 of 3: An Historical Romance In the realization of his patriotic boast that he would cause the name of a Briton to be as much respected throughout the world as ever was that of an antique Roman - in raising England from the prostration and contempt in which he found her, and into which she so quickly relapsed after his death, to a condition of greater power and dignity than she had ever attained under the most fortunate of her lawful sovereigns; and above all, in enforcing religious toleration, a lofty obj ect, of which, notwithstanding the great peril of its maintenance, in an age of sectarian bigotry, he was ever the steady and uncom promising champion. If this be an inordinate ambition, where shall we look for a patriotism sufficiently pure and restricted to merit our unqualified applause 7. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.