We would speak first of the Puritans, the most remarkable body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced.  The odious and ridiculous parts of their character lie on the surface.  He that runs may read them; nor have there been wanting attentive and malicious observers to point them out.  For many years after the Restoration they were the theme of unmeasured invective and derision.  They were exposed to the utmost licentiousness of the press and of the stage, at the time when the press and the stage were most licentious.  They were not men of letters; they were, as a body, unpopular; they could not defend themselves; and the public would not take them under its protection.  They were therefore abandoned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists.  The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers.  But it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy of history is to be learned.  And he who approaches this subject should carefully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule which has already misled so many excellent writers.

     “Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio
        Che mortali perigli in se contiene: 
      Hor qui tener a fren nostro desio,
        Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene.”

Those who roused the people to resistance; who directed their measures through a long series of eventful years; who formed, out of the most unpromising materials, the finest army that Europe had ever seen; who trampled down King, Church, and Aristocracy; who, in the short intervals of domestic sedition and rebellion, made the name of England terrible to every nation on the face of the earth—­were no vulgar fanatics.  Most of their absurdities were mere external badges, like the signs of freemasonry or the dresses of friars.  We regret that these badges were not more attractive.  We regret that a body to whose courage and talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations had not the lofty elegance which distinguished some of the adherents of Charles the First, or the easy good-breeding for which the court of Charles the Second was celebrated.  But, if we must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious caskets which contain only the Death’s head and the Fool’s head, and fix on the plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure.