Colonel Ingoldsby informed Cromwell, that the Parliament was sitting, and had come to a resolution not to dissolve themselves, but to fill up the House by new elections, and was at that very time engaged in deliberations with regard to this expedient. Cromwell, in a rage, immediately hastened to the house, and carried a body of three hundred soldiers along with him. Some of them he placed at the door, some in the lobby, some on the stairs. He first addressed himself to his friend St. John, and told him, that he had come with a purpose of doing what grieved him to the very soul, and what he had earnestly, with tears, besought the Lord not to impose upon him. But there was a necessity, in order to the glory of God and good of the nation. He then sat down for some time, and heard the debate. He beckoned Harrison, and told him, that he now judged the Parliament ripe for a dissolution. "Sir," said Harrison, "the work is very great and dangerous: I desire you seriously to consider before you engage in it.""You say well,” replied the general; and thereupon sat still about a quarter of an hour. When the question was ready to be put, he said again to Harrison, "This is the time; I must do it." And suddenly starting up, he loaded the Parliament with the vilest reproaches, for their tyranny, ambition, oppression, and robbery of the public. Then stamping with his foot, which was a signal for the soldiers to enter; "For shame," said he to the Parliament; "get you gone; give place to honester men; to those who will more faithfully discharge their trust. You are no longer a Parliament. I tell you, you are no longer a Parliament. The Lord has done with you: he has chosen other instruments for carrying on his work.” Sir Harry Vane exclaiming against this proceeding, he cried with a loud voice, "O Sir Harry Vane, Sir Harry Vane, the Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane." Taking hold of Martin by the cloak, "Thou art a whoremaster," said he. another, "Thou art an adulterer." To a third, "Thou art a

To

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drunkard and a glutton. And thou an extortioner," to a fourth. He commanded a soldier to seize the mace. do with this bauble? here, take it away. It is you," said he, addressing himself to the house, "that have forced me upon this. I have sought the Lord day and night, that he would rather slay me than put me upon this work." Having commanded the soldiers to clear the hall, he himself went out the last, and, ordering the doors to be locked, departed to his lodging in Whitehall.'

In this furious manner, which so well denotes his genuine character, did Cromwell (says Hume) without the least opposition, or even murmur, annihilate that famous assembly which had filled all Europe with the renown of its actions, and with astonishment at its crimes, and whose commencement was not desired more ardently by the people than was its final dissolution. All parties now reaped successively the melancholy pleasure of seeing the injuries which they had suffered revenged on their enemies; and that, too, by the same arts which had been practised against them. The King had, in some instances, stretched his prerogative beyond its just bounds; and, aided by the church, had well nigh put an end to all the liberties and privileges of the nation. The Presbyterians checked the progress of the court and clergy, and excited, by cant and hypocrisy, the populace, first to tumults, then to war, against the King, the Peers, and all the Royalists. No sooner had they reached the pinnacle of grandeur, than the Independents, under the appearance of still greater sanctity, instigated the army against them, and reduced them to subjection. The Independents, amidst their empty dreams of liberty, or rather of dominion, were oppressed by the rebellion of their own servants, and found themselves at once exposed to the insults of power and the hatred of the people.We may add here a reflection, that by recent, as well as all ancient example, it has become evident that illegal violence,

with whatever pretences it may be covered, and whatever objects it may pursue, must inevitably end at last in the arbitrary and despotic government of a single person.

One of the first measures of Cromwell was to call a Parliament of his own. In this assembly there were some persons of the rank of gentlemen; but the far greater part were low mechanics; fifth-monarchy-men, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Independents; the very dregs of the fanatics. They began with seeking the Lord with prayer. This office was performed by eight or ten gifted men of the assembly; and with so much success, that, according to the confession of all, they had never before, in any of their devotional exercises, enjoyed so much of the holy spirit as was then communicated to them. Among the fanatics of the House, there was an active member, much noted for his long prayers, sermons, and harangues, who took upon himself the appeliation of Praise God Barebone. This ridiculous name, which one would almost imagine had been chosen by some wicked wit to suit so ridiculous a personage, struck the fancy of the people; and they commonly affixed to this assembly the appellation of Barebone's Parliament.

After setting about four months, without passing any extraordinary laws, except that which established the legal solemnization of marriage by the civil magistrate alone, without the interposition of the clergy, this Parliament, with Rouse their Speaker at their head, waited on Cromwell, and formally assigned their authority into his hands. Some of them remained behind in the house, and wanted to protest against this act of the majority, but they were interrupted by Colonel White, with a party of soldiers, who asked them what they did there?" We are seeking the Lord," said they. "Theu you may elsewhere," replied he: "for to my certain knowledge he has not been here these many years."

Cromwell was now proclaimed Lord Protector, and invested with all the regal prerogatives. He had the absolute direction

of the army and navy, the appointment of officers: he coined money with his effigy; summoned a Parliament; created Peers; and in all things acted like a crowned head, though, in all public deeds, the name of the commonwealth was still preserved.

The writers, attached to the memory of Cromwell, make his character, with regard to abilities, bear the air of the most extravagant panegyric: his enemies form such a representation of his moral qualities as resembles the most virulent invective. Both of them, it must be confessed, are supported by such striking circumstances in his conduct and fortune as bestow on their representation a great air of probability. "What can be more extraordinary," says Cowley, " than that a person of private birth and education, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which have sometimes no shining talents of mind, which have often raised men to the highest dignities, should have the courage to attempt, and the abilities to execute, so extraordinary a design as the subverting one of the most ancient and best established monarchies in the world? that he should have the power and boldness to put his prince and master to an infamous death? should banish that numerous and strongly allied family? cover all these temerities under seeming obedience to Parliament, in whose service he pretended to be retained? trample too upon that Parliament in their turn, and scornfully expel them so soon as they gave him ground of dissatisfaction: erect in their place the dominion of the saints, and give reality to the most visionary idea, which the heated imagination of any fanatic was ever able to entertain? suppress again that monster in its infancy, and openly set himself up above all things that were ever called sovereign in England? overcame, first, all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice? serve all parties patiently for a while, and command them victoriously at last? overrun each corner of the three nations, and subdue,

with equal facility, both the riches of the south, and the poverty of the north? be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and be adopted a brother to the gods of the earth? call together Parliaments with a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of his mouth? reduce to subjection a warlike and discontented nation, by means of a mutinous army? command a mutinous army by means of seditious and factious officers? be humbly and daily petitioned, that he would be pleased, at the rate of a million a-year, to be hired as master of those who had hired him before to be their servant? have the estates and lives of three nations as much at his disposal as was once the little inheritance of his father, and be as noble and liberal in the spending of them? and, lastly, (for there is no end of enumerating every particular of his glory) with one word bequeath all his power and splendor to his posterity? be buried among kings, and with more than regal solemnity? and leave a name behind him not to be extinguished but with the whole world; which as it was too little for his praise, so it might have been for his conquests, if the short line of his mortal life could have stretched out to the extent of his immortal designs."

On the death of Cromwell, on the 3d of September, 1658, his eldest son Richard succeeded him in the Protectorship, and received addresses of congratulation from all parts of the kingdom. Historians have represented him as a man of a gentle, humane, and generous disposition, without the least tincture of his father's dissimulation or spirit. The republican party, whom the firmness of Oliver had repressed, now began to form cabals, and, joining with the factious officers of the army, voted a remonstrance, lamenting that the good old cause was entirely neglected. Richard, who was no fanatic, disregarded this remonstrance; and soon after gave them additional grounds of discontent, for murmurs being thrown out against some promotions he had made, "Would you have