tions there is always a mixture of the ludicrous with the
tragic; but, except their modern brothers, no faction like the present
ever excited such a combination of extreme contempt and extreme horror.

Among the rival parties in 1659, the loyalists and the presbyterians
acted as we may suppose the Tories and the Whigs would in the same
predicament; a secret reconciliation had taken place, to bury in
oblivion their former jealousies, that they might unite to rid
themselves from that tyranny of tyrannies, a hydra-headed government;
or, as Hume observes, that "all efforts should be used for the overthrow
of the Rump; so they called the parliament, in allusion to that part of
the animal body." The sarcasm of the allusion seemed obvious to our
polished historian; yet, looking more narrowly for its origin, we shall
find how indistinct were the notions of this nickname among those who
lived nearer to the times. Evelyn says that "the Rump parliament was so
called as containing some few rotten members of the other." Roger Coke
describes it thus: "You must now be content with a piece of the Commons
called 'the Rump.'" And Carte calls the Rump, "the carcass of a house,"
and seems not precisely aware of the contemptuous allusion. But how do
"rotten members" and "a carcass" agree with the notion of "a Rump?"
Recently the editor of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson has conveyed a
novel origin. "The number of the members of the Long Parliament having
been by seclusion, death, &c., very much reduced,"--a remarkable &c.
this! by which our editor seems adroitly to throw a veil over the
forcible transportation by the Rumpers of two hundred members at one
swoop,--"the remainder was compared to the _rump of a fowl which was
left_, all the rest being eaten." Our editor even considers this to be
"a coarse emblem;" yet "the rump of a fowl" could hardly offend even a
lady's delicacy! Our editor, probably, was somewhat anxious not to
degrade _too lowly_ the anti-monarchical party, designated by this
opprobrious term. Perhaps it is pardonable in Mrs. Macaulay, an
historical lady, and a "Rumper," for she calls the "Levellers" a "brave
and virtuous party," to have passed over in _her_ history any mention of
the offensive term at all, as well as the ridiculous catastrophe which
they underwent in the political revolution, which, however, we must beg
leave not to pass by.

This party-coinage has been ascribed to Clement Walker, their bitter
antagonist;