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*** Such is Dunbar Battle; which might almost be called Dunbar Drove, for it was a frightful rout. Brought on by miscalculation; misunderstanding of the difference between substances and semblances;-by mismanagement and the chance of war.

Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, vol. iii., pp. 38, 41, 44-49.

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Wednesday, 20th April, 1653.-My Lord General is in his reception-room this morning, in plain black clothes and grey worsted stockings; he, with many Officers: but few Members have yet come, though punctual Bulstrode and certain others are there. Some waiting there is; some impatience that the Members would come. The Members do not come instead of Members, comes a notice that they are busy getting on with their Bill [for Parliamentary Reform] in the House, hurrying it double quick through all the stages. Possible, New message that it will be Law in a little while, if no interposition take place! Bulstrode hastens off to the House: my Lord General, at first incredulous, does now also hasten off,—nay orders that a company of Musketeers of his own regiment attend him. Hastens off, with a very high expression of countenance, I think; saying or feeling: Who would have believed it of them? "It is not honest; yea it is contrary to common honesty!"-My Lord General, the big hour is come!

Young Colonel Sidney, the celebrated Algernon, sat in the House this morning; a House of some Fifty-three. Algernon has left distinct note of the affair; less distinct we have from Bulstrode, who was also there, who seems in some points to be even wilfully wrong. Solid Ludlow was far off in Ireland, but gathered many details in after-years; and faithfully wrote them down, in the unappeasable indignation of his heart. Combining these three originals, we have, after various perusals and collations and considerations, obtained the following authentic, moderately conceivable account;

The Parliament sitting as usual, and being in debate upon 'the Bill, with the amendments, which it was thought would 'have been passed that day, the Lord General Cromwell came 'into the House, clad in plain black clothes and grey worstedstockings, and sat down, as he used to do, in an ordinary 'place.' For some time he listens to this interesting debate on the Bill; beckoning once to Harrison, who came over to him, and answered dubitatingly. Whereupon the Lord General sat still, for about a quarter of an hour longer. But now the question being to be put, That this Bill do now pass, he beckons again to Harrison, says, "This is the time I must do it!"and so 'rose up, put off his hat, and spake. At the first, 'and for a good while, he spake to the commendation of the 'Parliament for their pains and care of the public good; but 'afterwards he changed his style, told them of their injustice, delays of justice, self-interest, and other faults,'-rising higher and higher, into a very aggravated style indeed. An honourable Member, Sir Peter Wentworth by name, not known to my readers, and by me better known than trusted, rises to order, as we phrase it; says, "It is a strange language this; unusual within the walls of Parliament this! And from a trusted servant too; and one whom we have so highly honoured; and one "Come, come!" exclaims my Lord General, in a very high key. "We have had enough of this," and in fact my Lord General now blazing all up into clear conflagration, exclaims, "I will put an end to your prating," and steps forth into the floor of the House, and 'clapping on his hat,' and occasionally stamping the floor with his feet,' begins a discourse which no man can report! He says- -Heavens! he is heard saying: "It is not fit that you should sit here any longer! You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing lately. You shall now give place to better men!-Call them in!" adds he briefly, to Harrison, in word of command: and 'some twenty or thirty' grim musketeers enter, with bullets in their snaphances; grimly prompt for orders; and stand in some attitude of Carry-arms there. Veteran men: men of might and men of

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war, their faces are as the faces of lions, and their feet are swift as the roes upon the mountains;-not beautiful to honourable gentlemen at this moment.

"You call yourselves a Parliament," continues my Lord General, in clear blaze of conflagration: "You are no Parliament; I say, you are no Parliament! some of you are drunkards," and his eye flashes on poor Mr. Chaloner, an official man of some value, addicted to the bottle; "some of you are" and he glares into Harry Marten, and the poor Sir Peter, who rose to order, lewd livers both; "living in open contempt of God's Commandments. Following your own greedy appetites, and the Devil's Commandments. Corrupt, unjust persons.' And here, I think, he glanced at Sir 'Bulstrode Whitlocke, one of the Commissioners of the Great 'Seal, giving him and others very sharp language, though he 'named them not: "Corrupt, unjust persons; scandalous to the profession of the Gospel: how can you be a Parliament for God's People? Depart, I say; and let us have done with. you. In the name of God,-go!"

The House is of course all on its feet,-uncertain almost whether not on its head: such a scene as was never seen before in any House of Commons. History reports with a shudder that my Lord General, lifting the sacred Mace itself, said, "What shall we do with this bauble? Take it away! -and gave it to a musketeer. And now, "Fetch him down!" says he to Harrison, flashing on the Speaker. Speaker Lenthall, more an ancient Roman than anything else, declares, He will not come till forced. "Sir," said Harrison, “I will lend you a hand;" on which Speaker Lenthall came down, and gloomily vanished. They all vanished; flooding gloomily, clamorously out, to their ulterior business, and respective places of abode: the Long Parliament is dissolved! "It's you, 'that have forced me to this," exclaims my Lord General: ""I have sought the Lord night and day, that He would rather 'slay me than put me upon the doing of this work." At their 'going out, some say, the Lord General said to young Sir 'Harry Vane, calling him by his name, that he might have

prevented this; but that he was a juggler, and had not com'mon honesty.' "O, Sir Harry Vane, thou with thy subtle casuistries, and abstruse hair-splittings, thou art other than a good one, I think! The Lord deliver thee from me, Sir Harry Vane!" All being gone out, the door of the House ' was locked, and the Key with the Mace, as I heard, was carried away by Colonel Otley;'-and it is all over, and the unspeakable Catastrophe has come, and remains.

Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, vol. iii., p. 252.

THE BAREBONES PARLIAMENT.

Concerning this Puritan Convention of the Notables, which in English History is called the Little Parliament, and derisively Barebones's Parliament, we have not much more to say. They are, if by no means the remarkablest Assembly, yet the Assembly for the remarkablest purpose who have ever met in the Modern World. The business is, No less than introducing of the Christian Religion into real practice in the Social Affairs of this Nation. Christian Religion, Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments: such, for many hundred years, has been the universal solemnly recognised Theory of all men's Affairs; Theory sent down out of Heaven itself: but the question is now that of reducing it to Practice in said Affairs; -a most noble, surely, and most necessary attempt; which should not have been put off so long in this Nation! We have conquered the Enemies of Christ; let us now, in real practical earnest, set about doing the Commandments of Christ, now that there is free room for us! Such was the purpose of this Puritan Assembly of the Notables, which History calls the Little Parliament, or derisively Barebones's Parliament.

It is well known they failed: to us, alas! it is too evident they could not but fail. Fearful impediments lay against that effort of theirs: the sluggishness, the slavish half-and-halfness, the greediness, the cowardice, and general opacity and falsity of some ten million men against it; alas, the whole world, and

what we call the Devil and all his angels, against it! Considerable angels, human and other: most extensive arrangements, investments to be sold off at a tremendous sacrifice; in general the entire set of luggage-traps and very extensive stock of merchant-goods and real and floating property, amassed by that assiduous Entity above-mentioned, for a thousand years or more! For these, and also for other obstructions, it could not take effect at that time; and the Little Parliament became a Barebones's Parliament, and had to go its ways again.

Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, vol. iii., p. 300.

CONSPIRACIES.

To see a little what kind of England it was, and what kind of incipient Protectorate it was, take, as usual, the following small and few fractions of Authenticity, of various complexion, fished from the doubtful slumber-lakes, and dust vortexes, and hang them out at their places in the void night of things. They are not very luminous; but if they were well let alone, and the positively tenebrific were well forgotten, they might assist our imaginations in some slight measure.

Sunday, 18th December, 1653. A certain loud-tongued, loudminded Mr. Feak, of Anabaptist-Leveller persuasion, with a Colleague seemingly Welsh, named Powel, have a PreachingEstablishment, this good while past in Blackfriars; a Preaching-Establishment every Sunday, which on Monday Evening becomes a National-Charter Convention as we should now call it: there Feak, Powel and Company are in the habit of vomiting forth from their own inner-man, into other inner-men greedy of such pabulum, a very flamy fuliginous set of doctrines, such as the human mind, superadding Anabaptistry to Sansculottism, can make some attempt to conceive. Sunday the 18th, which is two days after the Lord Protector's Installation, this Feak-Powel Meeting was unusally large; the FeakPowel inner-man unusually charged. Elements of soot and fire really copious; fuliginous flamy in a very high degree!