remain its distinguishing name for ever in English History. The Scottish Presbyterians had another nickname for it. Immediately after its dissolution they spoke of it as the "Daft Little Parliament." Yet, these nicknames notwithstanding, it was a very memorable Parliament, a convention. of really enormous consequence. In a body of 144 persons, consisting of the most forward spirits, the most Cromwellian spirits, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, there had been publicly raised, as the paramount questions even then for the entire community of the British Islands, those questions of Disestablishment, Disendowment, and the utter abolition of a State-clergy, or even a Professional Clergy, which have maintained an existence, though a smothered one, in British politics ever since, and of which we have not yet seen the final explosion. About one-half of that little Assembly of politicians in the year 1653 were prepared, there and then, for Disestablishment to the utmost, or at least for a policy tending generally in that direction; and it was because the other half shuddered at the prospect, and some of those who had voted for it began also to shudder on second thoughts, that the Assembly was broken up, and stronger hands were called to the helm.1 What followed the dissolution of the Little Parliament is soon told. The Council of Officers having been summoned by Cromwell as the only power de facto, there were dialogues and deliberations, ending in the clear conclusion that the method of headship in a "Single Person" for his whole life must now be tried in the Government of the Commonwealth, and that Cromwell must be that "Single Person." The title of King was actually proposed; but, as there were objections to that, Protector was chosen as a title familiar in English History, and of venerable associations. Accordingly, Cromwell having consented, and all preparations having been made, he was, on Friday, Dec. 16, in a great assembly of civic, judicial, and military dignitaries, solemnly sworn and installed in the Chancery Court, Westminster Hall, as LORD PROTECTOR 1 Cromwell's subsequent speeches; Commons Journals, Dec. 12, 1653; Parl. Hist. III. 1414-1416; Godwin, III. 578-592; Blair's Life, 311. OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND. There were some of his adherents hitherto who did not like this new elevation of their hero, and forsook him in consequence, regarding any experiment of the Single Person method in Government as a treason to true Republicanism and Cromwell's assent to it as unworthy of him. Among these was Harrison. Lambert, on the other hand, had been the main agent in the change, and took a conspicuous part in the installation-ceremony. In fact, pretty generally throughout the country, and even among the Presbyterians, the elevation of Cromwell to some kind of sovereignty had come to be regarded as an inevitable necessity of the time, the only possible salvation of the Commonwealth from the anarchy, or wild and experimental idealism, in matters civil and religious, which had been the visible drift at last of the Barebones or Daft Little Parliament.1 1 Carlyle's Cromwell, II. 369-372; Baillie, III. 289. CHAPTER II. MILTON'S LIFE AND SECRETARYSHIP FROM APRIL 20 TO DEC. 16, 1653. MILTON'S APPROVAL OF CROMWELL'S COUP D'ETAT: A PRINTED STITUTE: FOUR MORE STATE LETTERS OF MILTON (NOS. THAT Milton approved of Cromwell's coup d'état of April 20, 1653, dissolving the Rump of the Long Parliament, appears abundantly from the sequel of his life, but seems to have been attested expressly at the time. Among the pamphlets of approbation that immediately came out in London was one in twenty pages with this title: "A Letter to a Gentleman in the Country, touching the Dissolution of the late Parliament and the Reasons thereof... London, printed by F. Leach, for Richard Baddeley, at his shop within the Middle Temple Gate, 1653." The Letter itself is dated "London, May 3, 1653," and signed merely "N. LL."; but in the Thomason copy of the tract in the British Museum, where " May 6" is inscribed as the date of publication, the words "By Mr. John Milton," are also written on the title-page. This, though going a good way towards proof, would not be decisive, as in several other cases Thomason was led by rumour to credit Milton with tracts which were not really his. Let us look at the tract itself. It begins : Sir,-Yours of the 27th past came safe, and with it your admiration of this great change which hath happened in the dissolution of the late Parliament; which I do not at all wonder at: for, as this Island hath afforded the greatest Revolutions that I think any memory affords us, of any time or place, so I believe this to be the greatest of them,—and so much the greater that it was done, in a manner, in an instant, without contestation, without effusion of blood, and, for anything I can perceive, without the least resentment of those whom it generally concerns. But, when I shall put you in remembrance of what I have often enforced to you,-or, to say better, discoursed, for the other is needless,-that the ways of Providence are unscrutable, and such as, though they seem to us unexpected and temerarious, yet are carried on with such a strange and supreme kind of design, it will be easy for an humble and an acquiescing mind to see that by several invisible degrees they bring forth their last and proposed intendments, yea with those instruments which seem and intend to do the contrary. What man could have supposed, after the dissolution of the Parliament preceding this last [the Short Parliament, dissolved May 1840], to have had another so soon? And, for this last, who could have imagined that by Act it should have continued, much more have gloriously undertaken the defence of an injured People by open arms against 1 In the gap there is this motto from Seneca : "Senec. Troa?. Quæris quo jaceas post obitum loco? an oppressor, and that these undertakings, with admirable variety of success, should have been crowned with the extirpation of tyranny and the decollation of the person of a tyrant: that that great Omniscience should so bless the endeavours of a Commonwealth, now, as I may say, in its very swaddling-clouts, as by them. absolutely to reduce these dominions in three years, which a series of proud and lusty monarchs could not in six centuries do,-besides that naval opposition so fortunately and gloriously made against the greatest maritime enemy in Europe, or, to speak with due acknowledgment, on the Earth? Yet are these men, after all these vigorous and happy actions, suddenly dispersed like down blown off a thistle, and their power devolved into such hands which, as God hath made instrumental in these strange emanations of His Divine Will, so He intends to make further use of, to the finishing of that great work which by such visible signs He hath made appear He hath in hand for the glory of His name, the felicity of these nations, and, I believe, for the blessed alteration of all Europe." Proceeding in this strain, the writer considers-"first, the "manner of Government by the late Parliament; then, the "Right of Obedience to superior Powers; and, lastly, the "effects or events that may come upon the late change." Under each of the three heads his argument is in defence of Cromwell's bold act. The late Parliament, though it had done miracles, had degenerated. The members had become "so familiar with "each other that, what by their ordinary at Whitehall, and "what by their conferences at the Speaker's Chamber before "the sitting of the House, little was determined but out of 'design and faction": business was in arrear; poor creditors and petitioners were unattended to unless they could employ solicitors; there was jobbing and self-seeking of all kinds. He comes then to the point. "I know your objection before"hand,-that the action of the Lord General in the dis"solution was somewhat rough and barbarous; and I shall not "trouble you with a long answer. As to his person, as he "hath in the field declared himself one of the noblest assertors "of our Liberty, and as great an enlarger of our territories as "ever was, so, as far as any particular designs of his own in |