he fifty or sixty Rump
Members on the other, it was suddenly told Cromwell that the Rump in its
despair _was_ answering in a very singular way; that in their splenetic,
envious despair, to keep-out the Army at least, these men were hurrying
through the House a kind of Reform Bill--Parliament to be chosen by the
whole of England; equable electoral division into districts; free
suffrage, and the rest of it! A very questionable, or indeed for _them_
an unquestionable, thing. Reform Bill, free suffrage of Englishmen? Why,
the Royalists, themselves, silenced indeed but not exterminated, perhaps
out_number_ us; the great numerical majority of England was always
indifferent to our cause, merely looked at it and submitted to it. It is
in weight and force, not by counting of heads, that we are the majority!
And now with your Formulas and Reform Bills, the whole matter sorely won
by our swords, shall again launch itself to sea; become a mere hope, and
likelihood, _small_ even as a likelihood? And it is not a likelihood; it
is a certainty, which we have won, by God's strength and our own right
hands, and do now hold _here_. Cromwell walked down to these refractory
Members; interrupted them in that rapid speed of their Reform
Bill;--ordered them to begone, and talk there no more.--Can we not
forgive him? Can we not understand him? John Milton, who looked on it
all near at hand, could applaud him. The Reality had swept the Formulas
away before it. I fancy, most men who were realities in England might
see into the necessity of that.

The strong daring man, therefore, has set all manner of Formulas and
logical superficialities against him; has dared appeal to the genuine
Fact of this England, Whether it will support him or not? It is curious
to see how he struggles to govern in some constitutional way; find some
Parliament to support him; but cannot. His first Parliament, the one
they call "Barebones' Parliament," is, so to speak, a _Convocation of
the Notables_. From all quarters of England the leading Ministers and
chief Puritan Officials nominate the men most distinguished by religious
reputation, influence, and attachment to the true cause: these are
assembled to shape-out a plan. They sanctioned what was past; shaped as
they could what was to come. They were scornfully called _Barebones'
Parliament_, the man's name, it seems, was not _Barebones_, but
Barbone--a good enough man. Nor was it a jest, their work; it was a most
serious