If he seduced the military fanatics, it is to be considered, that their interests and his evidently concurred; that their ignorance and low education exposed them to the grossest imposition; and that he himself was at bottom as frantic an enthusiast as the worst of them; and, in order to obtain their confidence, needed but to display those vulgar and ridiculous habits which he had early acquired, and on which he set so high a value.

An army is so forcible, and at the same time so coarse a weapon, that any hand which wields it, may, without much dexterity, perform any operation, and attain any ascendant, in human society.
The domestic administration of Cromwell, though it discovers great abilities, was conducted without any plan either of liberty or arbitrary power: perhaps his difficult situation admitted of neither.

His foreign enterprises, though full of intrepidity, were pernicious to national interest, and seem more the result of impetuous fury or narrow prejudices, than of cool foresight and deliberation.

An eminent personage, however, he was in many respects, and even a superior genius; but unequal and irregular in his operations.

And though not defective in any talent, except that of elocution, the abilities which in him were most admirable, and which most contributed to his marvellous success, were the magnanimous resolution of his enterprises, and his peculiar dexterity in discovering the characters, and practising on the weaknesses, of mankind.
If we survey the moral character of Cromwell with that indulgence which is due to the blindness and infirmities of the human species, we shall not be inclined to load his memory with such violent reproaches as those which his enemies usually throw upon it.