A perfect master of all the arts of dissimulation: who, turning up the whites of his eyes, and seeking the Lord with pious gestures, will weep and pray, and cant most devoutly, till an opportunity offers of dealing his dupe a knock-down blow under the short ribs.

Oliver Cromwell had certainly this afflatus. One that I knew was at the battle of Dunbar, told me that Oliver was carried on with a Divine impulse; he did laug…

To give the devil his due, he restored justice, as well distributive as commutative, almost to it's ancient dignity and splendour; the judges without covetousn…

The commonest charge against Cromwell is hypocrisy - and the commonest basis for that is defective chronology.

'I think I'd make a better president than George Bush. I'll tell you what, George Bush and Dick Cheney have been to jail more times than I have, and I used to …

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.

All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.