the shouts of the apprentices of London represent the voice of 'the English people. The true England was silent as the true statesman. Yet Cromwell was troubled, when those shouts reached him in Whitehall. It is the unhappy consequence of a 'great man's playing a mean part, that mean men may become 'suddenly, though for a brief space, respected and respectable. A lion in the skin of an ass gives propriety and elevation to an ass in his own skin.' Other conspiracies soon followed in rapid succession; affording thereby fresh ground for hastening forward an open devolution of all authority upon the dictator of the day. The Instrument of Government appointed him to his sovereign office for life. Writs and commissions were to run in his name. He was the source of honors and magistracy; with a command over the military and naval forces, and a power to make peace or declare war. The army was limited to 10,000 cavalry, and 20,000 infantry. Parliaments were to be triennial, and to consist of 400 members for England and Wales, with thirty for Scotland, and thirty more for Ireland. An estate real or personal of £200 in value formed an electoral qualification. Until the meeting of the first session in September, 1654, the Protector and his Council might have power to raise money for the public defence, and make such laws and ordinances as the welfare of the nation should require.' This council, by the way, was to consist of not less than thirteen, nor more than twenty-one, and was of course so carefully composed of those on whom the Protector could depend, that its value as a substantial check to his autocracy was just nothing. Cromwell lost no time in removing all his family to the palace at Whitehall, and reviving the various forms of monarchy; such as issuing new patents to the judges, as on the occasion of a succession to the crown!

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He then nominated his cabinet and court. Lawrence, Thurloe, Frost, Meadowes, and Milton, were amongst those in office. The quarterly expenditure of his household was settled at £35,000. The laws relating to high treason underwent modification, so as to suit the new order of affairs. Henry Cromwell was sent into Ireland, and Monk into Scotland, to deal upon the spot with any defections. Troops were effectually transferred into districts where there appeared the slightest chance of resistance. He suppressed Gerrard's conspiracy with a promptitude and severity which overawed the disaffected; whilst, on the same day, and on the same scaffold, the brother of the Portuguese ambassador forfeited his head, for a murder in the metropolis, amidst the approving shouts of an immense crowd, who had 'gathered to witness the scene of terrible retribution.' The three kingdoms, as well as all Europe trembled. Representatives from foreign states thronged to the court of the protectorate; the saloons and anterooms of which were filled with their hopes and

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fears. No cost, or magnificence, or august ceremonial was spared on such occasions. His highness received them in his splendid Banqueting Room, where a chair of state was placed on a platform, raised with three steps above the floor. They were instructed to make three reverences, one at the entrance, the second in the midway, and the third at the lower step, to each of which Cromwell answered by a slight inclination of the head. When they had delivered their speeches, and received the reply of the Protector, the same ceremonial was repeated at their de6 parture. On one occasion, he was requested to permit the gentlemen attached to the embassy to kiss his hand; but he advanced to the upper step, bowed to each in succession, waved his hand, and withdrew.' One of the Dutch envoys narrates in a graphic manner the rejoicings throughout the capital on peace being declared with Holland. The lords of the United States were invited to dinner by his royal highness the Protector,' and were superbly entertained. The master of the ceremonies fetched them in two grand coaches to Whitehall, where twelve trumpeters 'were ready sounding against their coming. At the table, his 'highness sat on one side of it alone; and a band played all the time ' of the entertainment. Afterwards, the lord Protector had us into another room, where the lady-protectrice and others came to us, and we had also music and voices, and a psalm sung, which his 'highness gave us, and told us that it was yet the best paper that had been exchanged between us. And from thence we were had into a gallery next the river, where we walked with his highness about half an hour, and then took our leaves, and were 'conducted back again to our houses after the same manner as we were brought.' Oxford and Cambridge, moreover, wove their choicest flowers of Greek and Latin verse for the garland of victory on this occasion. Whichcote and Cudworth, Owen, Harmer, and Busby, South, and John Locke, all joined in the chorus to flatter Oliver Cromwell. The Cam poured forth its tribute, at his feet, in its Oliva Pacis ad illustrissimum celsissimumque Oliverum reipublicæ Angliæ, Scotia, et Hiberniæ Dominum Protectorem; nor was the Isis one whit behind in its adulation. The future author of the Essay on the Human Understanding, after comparing him to both Augustus and Julius Cæsar, breaks out into a fervor of praise:

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Tu bellum et pacem populis des, unus utrisque
Major es; ipse orbem vincis et ipse regis!'

On meeting his first parliament, he dwelt in the course of a verbose and cloudy oration upon the success of his foreign policy. The treaties with Holland, Sweden, and Denmark had bound up together the Protestant powers, besides opening most favorable

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channels of commerce to the capital and enterprise of England. In Portugal, no British merchant was now amenable to the Inquisition; whilst both France and Spain were ready to wait on his pleasure. The administration of justice, he reminded them, remained in the hands of men of known integrity and ability. A reformation, moreover, had been commenced in the Court of Chancery; so they had only to put the top-stone to the work, and make the nation happy.' Scarcely, however, were the first preliminaries over, than Bradshawe headed a fierce opposition resolved to probe to the bottom the entire Instrument of Government. On the fourth day Judge Hale proposed as a compromise that the legislative authority should be affirmed to be in the parliament of the people of England, and a single person quali'fied with such instructions as that assembly should authorise; that the military power for the present should be unequivocally 'given to the Protector; and that to avoid the perpetuity of parliaments, and other exorbitances in their claims of supremacy, 'this officer should be allowed such a co-ordination, as might 'serve for a check in those points.' The republicans agreed to the compromise, but Cromwell rejected it with scorn. He summoned the members to the painted chamber, there rated them severely for their contumacy, and then attempted to purge them on their return, by exacting from each a subscription to the Instrument of Government. Nearly three hundred ultimately signed, although many did so with no little mental reservation. Months of altercation ensued: and he formally dissolved them on the 22nd of January, 1655. No course now remained open but that of an absolute despotism. Plots in plenty exploded on all sides from the republican sections of the army, and the royalists of the northern and western counties. Cromwell crushed them one after another; making use of the agitation produced by them as an apology for his major generals. These were ten or twelve military officers, ostensibly having the management of the militia throughout their respective districts, into which England and Wales were now divided for that purpose. Their public instructions were to suppress insurrections and unlawful assemblies; to watch the Roman Catholics; to exact security for good behaviour from suspected householders; to register the names and circumstances of malignants and aliens; and generally to superintend the police, education, and good order of the counties, towns, and villages, between the Tweed and the Land's End! To superficial observers they seemed no more than a dozen hawks, with sharp eyes and strong talons, on the watch or wing against enemies to the public repose; whilst their genuine character will be better understood from a secret instruction transmitted to each, and signed with the protectoral autograph, to the following effect: And you are to observe and obey such direc

tions as you shall from time to time receive from ourself!' Here lay the anguis in herbâ: and a very peculiar kind of serpent it turned out to be.

One Charles Stuart had lost his life for tyranny, and lo! here rose up a dozen tyrants in his stead. Those evil spirits possessed them, which had been exorcised by the Long Parliament, when it cast down the High Commission Court and the Star Chamber. They carried forward persecuting and cruel inquisitions into any man's life or estate, at their own will and pleasure! They were armed justices, without either juries or assessors, except selfishness, revenge, and rapine might be termed such. Cleaveland, for instance, the royalist poet, had offended the Protector, by opposing him fifteen years before as a candidate for Cambridge, and was now living in obscure but quiet poverty, the change of times having swallowed up his property. The military despot, in whose division Norwich lay, where this ornament of our literature then resided, lost no time in wreaking vengeance upon such an acceptable victim. The famous Jeremy Taylor fared no better: and hundreds of other instances occurred of equal or superior iniquity. Meanwhile Cromwell attempted to stifle every rising complaint by soothing the national pride. Louis the Fourteenth had been but too glad to purchase his alliance, and induce him to break with Spain, by offering him Dunkirk, and the banishment of the Stuarts from Paris. Cromwell therefore equipped the noble fleet for sea, which the Commonwealth had formed for him, upon the principle, as it turned out, of Sic vos non vobis. He was moreover very desirous of engaging in active employment Blake, and Pen, and Venables, officers full of patriotism and ability, and not at all disposed to be the passive tools of despotism at home, like his major-generals. The metropolitan pulpits resounded with announcements that Babylon was to be overthrown; so convenient for political purposes has the clamor about No Popery been in all ages. Jamaica was the prize of this expedition; to which island, the Protector, foreseeing the value of his acquisition, ordered his son Henry to transport a thousand Irish girls for the purpose of population! Meanwhile Blake triumphantly cleared the Mediterranean from pirates, and chastised the Deys of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. Reparation was also obtained from the Grand Duke of Tuscany, to the extent of £60,000, on behalf of British merchants, who had been formerly fleeced under the auspices of that petty potentate, acting under an erroneous idea as to who were the weakest, and who must go to the wall! He then entered upon the still nobler task of avenging the Waldenses. Savoy was obliged to grant them an amnesty for the past, together with a full confirmation of all their ancient privileges for the future. No wonder that the Canton of Zurich appealed to him as the natural guardian of all Protestant states;

for he interfered in favor of some French Huguenots at Nismes, with Cardinal Mazarine, not less effectually than he had done for the Vaudois. The Vaivode of Transylvania solicited his aid against the Turks; the King of Poland against Russia; whilst the Genoese honored the Protectoral court with a special embassy of thanks for the protection and safety afforded to maritime commerce. An old debt of £50,000 was about the same time exacted from Don John at Lisbon: and Captain Staynes falling in with a squadron of Spanish vessels, destroyed four, captured two, and disabled the remainder. One of the two taken proved a galleon, laden with golden ingots and other treasures, estimated at £200,000!

The Protector, however, found it impossible to go forward much longer without a parliament; so he summoned one to meet on the 17th of December, 1656. Vane now published his Healing Question, which produced immense excitement, and lodged its gallant author in custody. Cromwell then met the representatives of the nation, addressed them in a grave homily, and thus concluded his appeal:

I say, look up to God; have peace among yourselves. Know assuredly that if I have interest, I am by the voice of the people, the supreme magistrate; and it may be, I know somewhat that may satisfy my conscience, if I stood in doubt. But it is an union, really it is an union between you and me, and both of us united in faith and love to Jesus Christ, and to his peculiar interest in the world, that must ground this work of government; and in that, if I have any peculiar interest that is personal to myself, that it is not subservient to the public end, it were no extravagant thing for me to curse myself, because I know God will curse me, if I have.'-Vol, ii. p. 333.

And God had cursed him; for now so thoroughly had he deluded all, that himself was no longer an exception. Let his hypocrisy stand by the side of that which Charles Stuart habitually practised, and the only difference perceptible will be one not of nature, but of stature ! The king was a dwarf; the Protector a giant! At the very moment he was avowing his extraordinary course to be free from personal or peculiar motives, his conduct gave the lie to such an assertion. At the very moment he was discoursing of faith and love to Jesus Christ, he was incarcerating and persecuting his most chosen servants. the very moment he was presenting himself as the sovereign of popular election, his soldiers were surrounding the House of Commons, to exclude a hundred members, which they did upon that very day. All that followed was the element of order struggling with that of chaos; for the principle of truth had withdrawn, which could alone have said, 'Let there be light!' Questions thout beginning or end; infamous cruelties against Quakerism