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below, and that he would have to put on his clothes, and come down.

Allen's Letter to the Lord Protector, from Sand in Somersetshire, we rather reluctantly withhold, for want of room. A stubborn, sad, stingily respectful piece of writing: Wife and baby terribly ill off at Sand; desires to be resigned to the Lord, before whom both of us shall ere long nakedly appear;'-petitions that at least he might be allowed to attend ordinances;' which surely would be reasonable ! Are there not good horses that require to be ridden with a dextrous bridle-hand, — delicate, and yet hard and strong? Clearly a strenuous Anabaptist, this Allen; a rugged, true-hearted, not easily governable man; given to Fifth-Monarchy and other notions, though with a strong head to control them. Fancy him duly cashiered from the Army, duly admonished and dismissed into private life. Then add the Colonel Overtons and 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!

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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 Soldiermonth 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,

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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, concerning 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: 1 See Burton's Diary.

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this too is worth looking at, to some.
little help; but will advise him to try.

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GENTLEMEN,

I can give the reader

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 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

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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

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things which we have heard and known, and our fa"thers have told us, we will not hide them from our chil "dren; shewing 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 Tes"timony 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 com"mandments."1

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.]

? Psalm lxxviii. 3-7.

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