once asks him for a correct Report of a certain Speech, spoken some days before: he declares, “He cannot remembe four lines of it." It appears also that his meaning, much as Dryasdust may wonder, was generally very well understood by his audience : -it was not till next generation, when the owl-droppings already lay thick, and Human Stupor had decidedly set in, that the cry of Unintelligibility was much heard of. Tones and looks do much ; -yes, and the having a meaning in you is also a great help! Indeed, I fancy he must have been an opaque man to whom these utterances of such a man, all in a blaze with such a conviction of heart, had remained altogether dark.

The printed state of this Speech, and still more of some others, will impose hard duties on an Editor; which kind readers must take their share of. In the present case, it is surprising how little change has been needed, beyond the mere punctuation, and correct division into sentences. Not the slightest change of meaning has, of course, anywhere seemed, or shall anywhere seem, permissible; nor indeed the twentieth part of that kind of liberty which a skilful Newspaper Reporter takes with every speech he commits to print in our day.

A certain Critic, whom I sometimes cite from, but seldom without some reluctance, winds up his multifarious Commentaries on the present Speech in the following extraordinary way:

'Intelligent readers,' says he, 'have found intelligibility in this 'Speech of Oliver's: but to one who has had to read it as a pain'ful Editor, reading every fibre of it with magnifying-glasses, has 'to do, it becomes all glowing with intelligibility, with cred'ibility; with the splendour of genuine Veracity and heroic 'Depth and Manfulness;-and seems in fact, as Oliver's Speeches 'generally do, to an altogether singular degree, the express image 'of the soul it came from!--Is not this the end of all speaking, ' and wagging of the tongue in every conceivable sort, except the 'false and accursed sorts? Shall we call Oliver a bad Speaker, 'then; shall we not, in a very fundamental sense, call him a good 'Speaker?

'Art of Speech? Art of Speech? The Art of Speech, I take 'it, will first of all be the art of having something genuine to 'speak! Into what strange regions has it carried us, that same 'sublime "Art," taken up otherwise! One of the saddest bewil'derments, when I look at all the bearings of it, nay properly the

1 Burton's Diary. Postea, Speech XVII.

' fountain of all the sad bewilderments, under which poor mortals 'painfully somnambulate in these generations. "I have made an 'excellent Speech about it, written an excellent Book about it,”' and there an end. How much better, hadst thou done a mode'rately good deed about it, and not had anything to speak at 'all! He who is about doing some mute veracity has a right to be 'heard speaking, and consulting of the doing of it; and properly 'no other has. The light of a man shining all as a paltry phos'phorescence on the surface of him, leaving the interior dark, 'chaotic, sordid, dead-alive, was once regarded as a most mournful ' phenomenon!

False Speech is probably capable of being the falsest and 'most accursed of all things. False Speech; so false that it has 'not even the veracity to know that it is false,-as the poor com'monplace liar still does! I have heard Speakers who gave rise 'to thoughts in me they were little dreaming of suggesting! Is 'man then no longer an "Incarnate Word," as Novalis calls him, -sent into this world to utter out of him, and by all means to 'make audible and visible what of God's-Message he has; sent 'hither and made alive even for that, and for no other definable 'object? Is there no sacredness, then, any longer, in the miracu'lous tongue of man? Is his head become a wretched cracked 'pitcher, on which you jingle to frighten crows, and make bees 'hive? He fills me with terror, this two-legged Rhetorical Phan'tasm! I could long for an Oliver without Rhetoric at all. I 'could long for a Mahomet, whose persuasive-eloquence, with wild'flashing heart and scimitar, is: "Wretched mortal, give up that; 'or by the Eternal, thy Maker and mine, I will kill thee! Thou blasphemous scandalous Misbirth of Nature, is not even that the 'kindest thing I can do for thee, if thou repent not and alter, in 'the name of Allah?"'—1

1["Even such sonorous oracles as these do not altogether escape the guilt of rhetoric. As if, after all, there might not be just as much of shain, phantasm, emptiness and lies, in action as in rhetoric. . . . It is not a question between action and rhetoric, but the far profounder question alike in word and in deed, between just and unjust, rational and short-sighted, cruel and humane." Morley's Cromwell, 297.]

VOL. II.-20

LETTERS CLXXXIX.-CXCI

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 Testament: 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.

Read these three Letters, two of them of small or no significance as to it or its affairs; and then let us hasten to the catastrophe.1

1[See also letters in Supplement, Nos 80-82.]

LETTER CLXXXIX

THE Little Parliament has now sat some seven weeks; the dim old world of England, then in huge travail-throes, and somewhat of the Lord General's sad and great reflections thereon, may be dimly read here.

'For the Right Honourable Lieutenant-General Fleetwood, Commanderin-Chief of the Forces in Ireland: These'

DEAR CHARLES,

'Cockpit,' 22d August 1653.

Although I do not so often as is desired by me acquaint you how it is with me, yet I doubt not of your prayers in my behalf, that, in all things, I may walk as becometh the Gospel.

Truly I never more needed all helps from my Christian friends than now! Fain would I have my service accepted of the saints (if the Lord will), but it is not so. Being of different judgments, and of each sort most seeking to propagate their own, that spirit of kindness that is1 to them all, is hardly accepted of any. I hope I can say it, my life has been a willing sacrifice, and I hope,— for them all. Yet it much falls out as when the two Hebrews were rebuked: you know upon whom they turned their displeasure. 3

But the Lord is wise, and will, I trust, make manifest that I am no enemy. Oh, how easy is mercy to be abused: Persuade friends with you to be very sober. If the day of the Lord be so near (as some say), how should our moderation appear. If every one (instead of contending) would justify his form of judgment ' by love and meekness, Wisdom would be justified of her children.

1'in me' modestly suppressed.

2 [Word omitted, a space left.]

And he,' the wrongdoer of the Two, said unto Moses, Who made thee a Prince and a Judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian!" (Exodus, ii. 14.)

But, alas, I am, in my temptation, ready to say, Oh, would I had wings like a dove, then would I, &c. :1 but this, I fear, is my haste. I bless the Lord I have somewhat keeps me alive, some sparks of the light of His countenance, and some sincerity above man's judgment. Excuse me thus unbowelling myself to you: pray for me, and desire my friends to do so also. My love to thy dear Wife, whom indeed I entirely love, both naturally, and upon the best account; and my blessing (if it be worth anything) upon thy little babe.

Sir George Ayscough having occasions with you, desired my letters to you on his behalf: if he come or send, I pray you show him what favour you can. Indeed his services have been considerable for the State, and I doubt he hath not been answered with suitable respect. Therefore again I desire you and the Commissioners to take him into a very particular care, and help him so far as justice and reason will anyways afford.

Remember my hearty affections to all the officers. The Lord bless you all. So prayeth

Your truly loving father,

OLIVER CROMWELL.

'P.S.' All here love you, and are in health, your children and all.*

1'then would I fly away and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, ' and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the windy storm ' and tempest !' (Psalm lv. 6, 7, 8.)

*Harleian MSS. no. 7502, f.13 [Add. MSS. 5015*, f. 27]: Copyed from the 'Original in ye hands of Mrs. Cook (Grandaughter to Lieutenant-General Fleetwood) of Newington, Midsex: Nov 5, 1759. By A. Gifford.' Printed, without reference, incorrectly, in Annual Register for 1761, p. 49; in Gentleman's Magazine, &c.— Appendix, No. 27.