short time interrupted, in consequence of the receipt of a notice by the general, that it was the intention of the House to comply with the desires of the army. This was a mistake: the opposite party had indeed resolved to pass a bill of dissolution; not, however, the bill proposed by the officers, but their own bill containing all the obnoxious provisions, and to pass it that very morning, that it might obtain the force of law before their adversaries could have time to appeal to the power of the sword. While Harrison "most strictly and humbly" conjured them to pause before they took so important a step, Ingoldsby hastened to inform the lord-general at Whitehall. His resolution was immediately formed; and a company of musketeers received orders to accompany him to the House. At this eventful moment, big with the most important consequences, both to himself and his country, whatever were the workings of Cromwell's mind, he had the art to conceal them from the eyes of the beholders. Leaving the military in the lobby, he entered the House, and composedly seated himself on one of the outer benches. His dress was a plain suit of black cloth, with grey worsted stockings. For a while he seemed to listen with interest to the debate; but when the speaker was going to put the question, he whispered to Harrison, "This is the time: I must do it ;" and rising, put off his hat to address the House. At first his language was decorous, and even laudatory. Gradually he became more warm and animated; at last he assumed all the vehemence of passion, and indulged in personal vituperation. He charged the members with self-seeking and profaneness, with the frequent denial of justice, and numerous acts of oppression; with idolizing the lawyers, the constant advocates of tyranny, with neglecting the men who had bled for them in the field, that they might gain the Presbyterians, who had apostatized from the cause; and with doing all this in order to perpetuate their own power, and to replenish their own purses. But their time was come; the Lord had disowned them; he had chosen more worthy instruments to perform his work. Here the orator was interrupted by Sir Peter Wentworth, who declared that he had never heard language so unparliamentary; language, too, the more offensive because it was addressed to them by their own servant, whom they had too fondly cherished, and whom, by their unprecedented bounty, they had made what he was. At these words Cromwell put on his hat, and, springing from his place, exclaimed, "Come, come, sir, I will put an end to your prating." For a few seconds, apparently in the most violent agitation, he paced forward and backward, and then, stamping on the floor, added, "You are no Parliament; I say you are no Parliament; bring them in, bring them in." Instantly the door opened, and Colonel Worsley entered, followed by more than twenty musketeers. "This," cried Sir Henry Vane," is not honest. It is against morality and common honesty.""Sir Henry Vane," replied Cromwell, "O Sir Henry Vane! The Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane! He might have prevented this. But he is a juggler, and has not common honesty himself!" From Vane he directed his discourse to Whitelock, on whom he poured a torrent of abuse; then, pointing to Chaloner, "There," he cried, "sits

a drunkard;" next, to Marten and Wentworth, "There are two whoremasters;" and afterwards, selecting different members in succession, described them as dishonest and corrupt livers, a shame and scandal to the profession of the gospel. Suddenly, however, checking himself, he turned to the guard, and ordered them to clear the House. At these words, Colonel Harrison took the Speaker by the hand and led him from the chair; Algernon Sidney was next compelled to quit his seat; and the other members, eighty in number, on the approach of the military, rose and moved towards the door. Cromwell now resumed his discourse. "It is you," he exclaimed, "that have forced me to do this. I have sought the Lord both day and night, that he would rather slay me than put me on the doing of this work." Alderman Allan took advantage of these words, to observe, that it was not yet too late to undo what had been done; but Cromwell instantly charged him with peculation, and gave him into custody. When all were gone, fixing his eye on the mace, "What," said he, "shall we do with this fool's bauble? Here, carry it away." Then taking the act of dissolution from the clerk, he ordered the doors to be locked, and, accompanied by the military, returned to Whitehall.

That afternoon the members of the council assembled in their usual place of meeting. Bradshaw had just taken the chair, when the lord-general entered, and told them, that if they were there as private individuals, they were welcome; but if as the Council of State, they must know that the Parliament was dissolved, and with it also the council. "Sir," replied Bradshaw, with the spirit of an ancient Roman, "we have heard what you did at the house this morning, and before many hours, all England will know it. But, sir, you are mistaken to think that the Parliament is dissolved. No power under Heaven can dissolve them but themselves; therefore, take you notice of that." After this protest, they withdrew. Thus, by the parricidal hands of its own children, perished the Long Parliament, which, under a variety of forms, had, for more than twelve years, defended and invaded the liberties of the nation. It fell without a struggle or a groan, unpitied and unregretted. The members slunk away to their homes, where they sought by submission to purchase the forbearance of their new master; and their partisans, if partisans they had, reserved themselves in silence for a day of retribution, which came not before Cromwell slept in his grave. The royalists congratulated each other on an event which they deemed a preparatory step to the restoration of the king; the army and navy, in numerous addresses, declared that they would live and die, stand and fall, with the lord-general; and in every part of the country, the congregations of the saints magnified the arm of the Lord, which had broken the mighty, that in lieu of the sway of mortal men, the fifth monarchy, the reign of Christ might be established on earth.

'It would, however, be unjust to the memory of those who exercised the supreme power after the death of the king, not to acknowledge that there existed among them men capable of wielding with energy the destinies of a great empire. They governed only four years; yet,

under their auspices, the conquests of Ireland and Scotland were achieved, and a navy was created, the rival of that of Holland, and the terror of the rest of Europe. But there existed an essential error in their form of government. Deliberative assemblies are always slow in their proceedings; yet the pleasure of Parliament, as the supreme power, was to be taken on every subject connected with the foreign relations, or the internal administration, of the country; and hence it happened, that among the immense variety of questions which came before it, those commanded immediate attention which were deemed of immediate necessity; while the others, though often of the highest importance to the national welfare, were first postponed, then neglected, and ultimately forgotten. To this habit of procrastination was perhaps owing the extinction of its authority. It disappointed the hopes of the country, and supplied Cromwell with the most plausible arguments in defence of his conduct.'-Vol. xi. 8vo. edition. p. 269.

Though no class of Charles I.'s subjects had suffered more in his cause than the Catholics, one third of five hundred gentlemen who lost their lives being reckoned of that persuasion, they did not altogether reject the hope of toleration, for which they had endured so much, when it shone, though with a faint uncertain ray, from an opposite quarter of the horizon. After the execution of the king, both the systematic tendency of the independent party, and especially of Cromwell, towards indulgence in religion, and the dangerous position of the new Commonwealth, led to an overture, which, as Dr Lingard at least expresses it, came from the government to the Catholic leaders.

The sentiments,' he says, ' of Sir Kenelm Digby and Sir John Winter were sounded, and conferences were held, through the agency of the Spanish ambassador, with O'Reilly and Quin, two Irish ecclesiastics. It was proposed that toleration should be granted for the exercise of the Catholic worship, without any penal disqualifications, and that the Catholics in return should disclaim the temporal pretensions of the Pope, and maintain ten thousand men for the service of the Commonwealth. In aid of this project, Digby, Winter, and the Abbé Montagu, were suffered to come to England under the pretence of compounding for their estates; and the celebrated Thomas White, a secular clergyman, published a work, entitled, "The Grounds of Obedience and Government," to show that the people may be released from their obedience to the civil magistrate by his misconduct; and that when once he is deposed, (whether justly or unjustly makes no difference,) it may be for the common interest to acquiesce, rather than attempt his restoration. That this doctrine was satisfactory to the men in power, cannot be doubted; but they had so often reproached the late king with a coalition with the papists, that they dared not to make the experiment; and, after some time, to blind perhaps the eyes of the people, severe votes were passed against Digby, Montagu, and

Winter, and orders were given for the apprehension of priests and Jesuits.'-Vol. xi. p. 32.

We know not how to review a general history of England, except by adverting to some of the facts which are not contained, or which are differently related, in other books, and to some of the author's opinions on disputable points. It is asserted by Hume, whom Mr Brodie and several others have followed, that the ordinance of the Long Parliament in 1651, punishing incest and adultery with death, extended the same severity to fornication for the second offence. Mr Godwin has observed, and Dr Lingard, without referring to him, and perhaps without knowledge of what he had written, explains the ordinance in the same way, that the capital punishment is not annexed to fornication, but to the keeping of a brothel. On looking to Scobell's Collection of Ordinances during the Commonwealth, we think this admits of no doubt. But we have accidentally found a similar remark suggested in Daines Barrington's Observations on the Ancient Statutes, (p. 126,) though the learned author says, it was certainly otherwise understood under the Protectorate.' Why this was certain, he does not inform us, except by quoting the index to Scobell. But as an index is not usually thought sufficient authority to contradict the text of any book, especially of a statute, we must adhere to the plain meaning of the ordinance, which has been given by Messrs Godwin and Lingard. (Vide Scobell, anno 1650, c. 10.)

The story of Don Pantaleon Sa, brother to the Portuguese ambassador, who was beheaded on Tower Hill, for the murder of an English gentleman on the Exchange, is told in Dr Lingard's manner, with a sceptical balancing of authorities, but rather partially towards the criminal. That Pantaleon and his friends were armed, cannot be denied; was it for revenge? So it would appear, from the relation in Somers' Tracts, iii. 65, Whitelock, 569, and State Trials, v. 482. Was it solely for defence? Such is the evidence of Metham, (Thurloe, ii. 222,) and the assertion of Pantaleon at his death, (Whitelock, ii. '595.)' This is one of the instances where either an excess of hesitation, or a little bias towards a Catholic delinquent, has misled Dr Lingard. The plain facts are, that Pantaleon, having had a quarrel on the Exchange with a Mr Gerard, went there the next day, with a number of friends armed, where they killed a Mr Greenway, whom they mistook for the person they sought. What is there in this that looks like self-defence, or even a sudden fray? The account written at the time by Whitelock and others, as well as the evidence on the trial, represent it as one

of those violent outrages not unusual at that time in the south of Europe; nor do we recollect that the absolute justice of Pantaleon's execution has ever before been doubted, though it was made a question, how far he was protected by the law of nations, as being named, if the fact be such, in the ambassador's commission. The evidence of Metham, in Thurloe, which Dr Lingard vouches in defence, is that of a suspected accomplice; and admitting it to be all true, it does not overturn that on the contrary side. Nor is it quite correct to quote Whitelock for Pantaleon's assertion of innocence at his death. Whitelock's words are:- On the scaffold he spake something to those that under'stood him, in excuse of his offence, laying the blame of the quar' rel and murder on the English in that business.' This is rather different from an assertion that he went armed for the purpose of self-defence.

The predominant leaning of Dr Lingard's mind is very discoverable in his account of that event, which by Protestants ' has been called the massacre, by Catholics the rebellion of the Vaudois.' It amounts to this, that about the middle of the thirteenth (why not the twelfth) century, the peculiar doctrines of the poor men of Lyons' penetrated into the valleys of Piedmont; that they were exchanged,' at the Reformation, for those of Geneva; that the Dukes of Savoy repeatedly confirmed to the natives of the valleys the free exercise of their religion, so that they should not transgress their ancient limits; that they, however, abused this privilege, and formed settlements in the plains; that the Court of Turin referred the disputes that arose in consequence to the civilian Gastaldo, who, after a long and 'patient hearing, pronounced a definitive judgment, that Lucerne and some other places lay without the original boundaries, and that the intruders should withdraw, under the penalties of for'feiture and death,' but with the permission to sell the lands they had planted, though forfeited to the sovereign; that the Vaudois, being hardy half-civilized mountaineers, bound themselves by oath to stand by each other, sent messengers to the Swiss and French Protestants, and threw a garrison of six hundred men into La Torre. This was reduced by a military force sent from Turin; the lower valleys were occupied; but the inhabitants, which, it seems, was a heinous offence, had 'already retired to the mountains with their cattle and provi'sions; and the soldiers found no other accommodation than the bare walls. Quarrels soon followed between the parties; one ' act of offence was retaliated with another; and the desire of ' vengeance provoked a war of extermination. But the military were generally successful, and the natives found themselves

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