Colonel Alureds, and General Ludlows and Major-General Harrisons, and also the Charles Stuarts and Christian Kings;-and reflect once more what kind of task this of my Lord Protector's is, and whether he needs refractory Pedant Parliaments to worsen it for him!

SPEECH IV.

FINDING this Parliament was equal to nothing in the Spiritual way but tormenting of poor Heretics, receiving Petitions for a small advance towards coal and candle; and nothing in the Temporal, but constitutional air-fabrics and vigilant checkings and balancings,—under which operations such precious fruits at home and abroad were ripening,-Oliver's esteem for this Parliament gradually sank to a marked degree. Check, check,—like maladroit ship-carpenters hammering, adzing, sawing at the Ship of the State, instead of diligently caulking and paying it; idly gauging and computing, nay, recklessly tearing up and remodelling;— when the poor Ship could hardly keep the water as yet, and the Pirates and Sea-Krakens were gathering round! All which most dangerous, not to say half-frantic operations, the Lord Protector discerning well, and swallowing in silence as his hest was,-had for a good while kept his eye upon the Almanac, with more and more impatience for the arrival of the Third of February. That will be the first deliverance of the poor labouring Commonwealth, when at the end of Five Months we send these Parliament philosophers home to their countries again. Five Months by the Instrument they have to sit;-O fly, lazy Time; it is yet but Four Months and Somebody suggested, Is not the Soldier-month counted by Four Weeks? Eight-and-twenty days are a Soldier's Month: they have, in a sense, already sat five months, these vigilant Honourable Gentlemen!

Oliver Protector, on Monday morning, 22d of January 1654-5, surprises the Constitutioning Parliament with a message to attend him in the Painted Chamber, and leave Settling of the Government' for a while. They have yet voted no Supplies; nor meant to vote any. They thought themselves very safe till February 3d, at soonest. But my Lord Protector, from his high place, speaks, and dissolves.

Speech Fourth, ' printed by Henry Hills, Printer to his Highness the Lord Protector,' is the only one of these Speeches, con

cerning the reporting, printing or publishing of which there is any visible charge or notice taken by the Government of the time. It is ordered in this instance, by the Council of State, That nobody except Henry Hills or those appointed by him shall presume to print or reprint the present Speech, or any part of it. Perhaps an official precaution considered needful; perhaps also only a matter of copyright; for the Order is so worded as not to indicate which. At all events, there is no trace of the Report having been anywhere interfered with; which seems altogether a spontaneous one; probably the product of Rushworth or some such artist.1

The Speech, if read with due intensity, can be understood; and what is equally important, be believed; nay, be found to contain in it a manful, great and valiant meaning,—in tone and manner very resolute, yet very conciliatory; intrinsically not ignoble but noble. For the rest, it is, as usual, sufficiently incondite in phrase and conception; the hasty outpouring of a mind which is full of such meanings. Somewhat difficult to read. Practical Heroes, unfortunately, as we once said, do not speak in blank-verse; their trade does not altogether admit of that! Useless to look here for a Greek Temple with its porticoes and entablatures, and styles. But the Alp Mountain, with its chasms and cataracts and shaggy pine-forests, and huge granite masses rooted in the Heart of the World: this too is worth looking at, to some. I can give the reader little help; but will advise him to try.

GENTLEMEN,

I perceive you are here as the House of Parliament, by your Speaker whom I see here, and by your faces which are in a great measure known to me. [Doubtless we are here, your Highness!]

When I first met you in this room, it was to my apprehension the hopefullest day that ever mine eyes saw, as to the considerations of this world. For I did look at, as wrapt up in you together with myself, the hopes and the happiness of, though not of the greatest,-yet a very great 'People;' and the best People in the world. And truly and unfeignedly I thought 'it' so as a People that have the highest and clearest profession amongst them of the greatest glory, namely Religion: as a People that have been, like other Nations, sometimes up and sometimes down in our honour in the world, but yet never so low but we 1 See Burton's Diary.

might measure with other Nations:-and a People that have had a stamp upon them from God [Hah!]; God having, as it were, summed up all our former honour and glory in the things that are of glory to Nations, in an Epitome, within these Ten or Twelve years last past! So that we knew one another at home, and are well known abroad.

And if I be not very much mistaken, we were arrived,—as I, and truly I believe as many others, did think,—at a very safe port; where we might sit down and contemplate the Dispensations of God, and our Mercies; and might know our Mercies not to have been like to those of the Ancients,—who did make out their peace and prosperity, as they thought, by their own endeavours; who could not say, as we, That all ours were let down to us from God Himself! Whose appearances and providences amongst us are not to be outmatched by any Story. [Deep silence; from the old Parliament, and from us.] Truly this was our condition. And I know nothing else we had to do, save as Israel was commanded in that most excellent Psalm of David: "The things which we have heard and known, and our fathers "have told us, we will not hide them from our children ; show66 ing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and His "strength, and His wonderful works that He hath done. For "He established a Testimony in Jacob, and appointed a Law in "Israel; which He commanded our fathers that they should "make known to their children; that the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born, "who should arise and declare them to their children: that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, "but keep His commandments."1

66

66

This I thought had been a song and a work worthy of England, whereunto you might happily have invited them,—had you had hearts unto it. [Alas!] You had this opportunity fairly delivered unto you. And if a history shall be written of these Times and Transactions, it will be said, it will not be denied, that these things that I have spoken are true! [No response from the Moderns: mere silence, stupor, not without sadness.] This talent was put into your hands. And I shall recur to that

1 Psalm lxxviii. 3-7.

which I said at the first: I came with very great joy and contentment and comfort, the first time I met you in this place. But we and these Nations are, for the present, under some disappointment !—If I had proposed to have played the Orator,— which I never did affect, nor do, nor I hope shall [Hear !],—I doubt not but upon easy suppositions, which I am persuaded every one among you will grant, we did meet upon such hopes as these.

I met you a second time here: and I confess, at that meeting I had much abatement of my hopes; though not a total frustration. I confess that that which damped my hopes so soon was somewhat that did look like a parricide. It is obvious enough unto you that the 'then' management of affairs did savour of a Not owning,-too-too much savour, I say, of a Not owning of the Authority that called you hither. But God left us not without an expedient that gave a second possibility-Shall I say possibility? It seemed to me a probability,—of recovering out of that dissatisfied condition we were all then in, towards some mutuality of satisfaction. And therefore by that Recognition [The Parchment we had to sign: Hum-m !], suiting with the Indenture that returned you hither; to which afterwards was also added your own Declaration, conformable to, and in acceptance of, that expedient:-thereby, 'I say,' you had, though with a little check, another opportunity renewed unto you to have made this Nation as happy as it could have been if everything had smoothly run on from that first hour of your meeting. And indeed, you will give me liberty of my thoughts and hopes, I did think, as I have formerly found in that way that I have been engaged in as a soldier, That some affronts put upon us, some disasters at the first, have made way for very great and happy successes;2 and I did not at all despond but the stop put upon you, in like manner, would have made way for a blessing from God. That Interruption being, as I thought, necessary to divert you from violent and destructive proceedings; to give time for better deliberations;-whereby leaving the Government as you found it, you might have proceeded to have made those

1 Commons Journals (vii. 368), 14th Sept. 1654.

2 Characteristic sentence, and sentiment ;-not to be meddled with.

good and wholesome Laws which the People expected from you, and might have answered the Grievances, and settled those other things proper to you as a Parliament: for which you would have had thanks from all that entrusted you. [Doubtful "Hum-m-m !” from the old Parliament.]

What hath happened since that time I have not taken public notice of; as declining to intrench on Parliament privileges. For sure I am you will all bear me witness, That from your entering into the House upon the Recognition, to this very day, you have had no manner of interruption or hindrance of mine in proceeding to what blessed issue the heart of a good man could propose to himself,-to this very day 'none.' You see you have me very much locked up, as to what you have transacted among yourselves, from that time to this. [“None dare report us, or whisper what we do."] But some things I shall take liberty to speak of to you.

As I may not take notice what you have been doing; so I think I have a very great liberty to tell you That I do not know what you have been doing! [With a certain tone; as one may hear I do not know whether you have been alive or dead. I have not once heard from you all this time; I have not: and that you all know. If that be a fault that I have not, surely it hath not been mine!—If I have had any melancholy thoughts, and have sat down by them,-why might it not have been very lawful for me to think that I was a Person judged unconcerned in all these businesses? I can assure you I have not so reckoned myself! Nor did I reckon myself unconcerned in you. And so long as any just patience could support my expectation, I would have waited to the uttermost to have received from you the issue of your consultations and resolutions.—I have been careful of your safety, and the safety of those that you represented, to whom I reckon myself a servant.—

But what messages have I disturbed you withal? What injury or indignity hath been done, or offered, either to your persons or to any privileges of Parliament, since you sat? I looked at myself as strictly obliged by my Oath, since your recognising the Government in the authority of which you were called hither and sat, To give you all possible security, and to