fterwards fell from the discussion of a whole constitution, to debates
apparently as warm, and as endless, upon poor Biddle the Quaker, and
other kindred subjects. Thus their allotted session of five months
passed; at the end of which time Cromwell dissolved them.

"I do not know what you have been doing," he tells them in his speech on
this occasion. "I do not know whether you have been alive or dead. I
have not once heard from you all this time--I have not--and that you all
know."

Cromwell's second parliament manifested a wiser industry, and a more
harmonious temper--thanks to one of the Protector's "little inventions."
Each member was to be provided with a certificate before entering the
house; "but near one hundred honourable gentlemen can get no
certificate--none provided for _them_--and without certificate there is
no admittance. Soldiers stand ranked at the door; no man enters without
his certificate!" The stiff republicans, and known turbalent persons,
are excluded. From this Parliament Cromwell accepts again the title of
Protector, and is installed with great state; things take a more legal
aspect; the major-generals are suppressed; a House of Lords is
instituted; and a settlement of the nation seems at last effected.

But the second session of this Parliament relapsed again into a restive
and republican humour. The excluded members had been admitted, and
debates arose about this "other house," as they were disposed to
nominate the Lords. So much confusion resulted in the country from this
unsettled state of the representative assembly, and so many
insurrectionary designs were fostered by it, that the Protector was
compelled abruptly to dissolve the Parliament. He tells them:--

"That which brought me into the capacity I now stand in, was
the petition and advice given me by you, who, in reference to
the ancient constitution, did draw me to accept the place of
Protector. _There is not a man living can say I sought it; no,
not a man nor a woman treading upon English ground._ But,
contemplating the sad condition of these nations, relieved from
an intestine war into a six or seven years' peace, I did think
the nation happy therein. But to be petitioned thereunto, and
to be advised by you to undertake such a government, a burden
too heavy for any creature--and this to be done by the House
which then had the legislative capacity--certainly I did look
th