sent up one bill to the protector, nor took
any notice of him. Being informed that conspiracies were entered into
between the members and some malecontent officers, he hastened to
the dissolution of so dangerous an assembly. By the instrument of
government, to which he had sworn, no parliament could be dissolved
till it had sitten five months; but Cromwell pretended, that a month
contained only twenty-eight days, according to the method of computation
practised in paying the fleet and army. The full time, therefore,
according to this reckoning, being elapsed, the parliament was ordered
to attend the protector, who made them a tedious, confused, angry
harangue, and dismissed them.

{1655.} Were we to judge of Cromwell's capacity by this, and indeed
by all his other compositions, we should be apt to entertain no very
favorable idea of it. But in the great variety of human geniuses, there
are some which, though they see their object clearly and distinctly
in general, yet, when they come to unfold its parts by discourse or
writing, lose that luminous conception which they had before attained.
All accounts agree in ascribing to Cromwell a tiresome, dark,
unintelligible elocution, even when he had no intention to disguise his
meaning: yet no man's actions were ever, in such a variety of difficult
incidents, more decisive and judicious.

The electing of a discontented parliament is a proof of a discontented
nation: the angry and abrupt dissolution of that parliament is always
sure to increase the general discontent. The members of this assembly,
returning to their counties, propagated that spirit of mutiny which they
had exerted in the house. Sir Harry Vane and the old republicans, who
maintained the indissoluble authority of the long parliament, encouraged
the murmurs against the present usurpation; though they acted so
cautiously as to give the protector no handle against them. Wildman
and some others of that party carried still further their conspiracies
against the protector's authority. The royalists, observing this general
ill will towards the establishment, could no longer be retained in
subjection; but fancied that every one who was dissatisfied like
them, had also embraced the same views and inclinations. They did not
consider, that the old parliamentary party, though many of them were
displeased with Cromwell, who had dispossessed them of their power,
were still more apprehensive of any success to the royal cause;