that all the power,
and privilege, and splendour of royalty, should exist only to _protect_
the law, to secure the equal rights of all--that monarchy, retaining a
traditionary awe and majesty derived from remote times, should remain
amongst us to supply to a representative government that powerful,
constant, and impartial executive which, from the mere elements of a
republic, it is so difficult to extract? Who could have imagined that a
popular legislature, and the supremacy of the law, could have been so
fortunately combined and secured under the shadow of the monarchy?
Enlightened minds at that time could not have looked calmly towards a
Restoration; they probably thought, or would have been led to think,
that, in the position they then were, it was better to take the
constitution of Holland, than the government of France, for their model.

But the multitude--with what enthusiasm they welcomed the restoration of
the Stuarts! Very true. But the Protectorate was no antagonist to
monarchy. Republican pride was never called forth to contend in the
public mind against the feeling of loyalty, and an attachment to kings.
The Protectorate was itself a monarchy without its splendour, or the
prestige of hereditary greatness. It was a monarchy under the Geneva
gown. Was it likely that the populace would accept of this in lieu of
the crowned and jewelled royalty which was wont to fill its imagination?

However, the experiment--fortunately for us, as the result has turned
out--was never destined to be made. Cromwell dissolved the Long
Parliament. He now stood alone, he and the army, the sole power in the
state. His first measure, that of sending a summons in his own name, to
persons of his own choice, and thus, without any popular election
whatever, assembling what is called the Little Parliament, or Barebones
Parliament, shows a singular audacity, and proves how little trammelled
he was himself by traditionary or constitutional maxims. He who would
not allow the Long Parliament to recruit its numbers, and thus escape
the perils of a free election of an altogether new assembly, extricates
himself from the same embarrassment by electing the whole Parliament
himself. Some historians have represented this measure as having for its
very object to create additional confusion, and render himself, and his
own dictatorial power, more necessary to the state. It has not appeared
to us in this light. We see in it a bold but rude assay at gov