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's 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's
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 reality,--a trial on the part of these Puritan Notables how
far the Law of Christ could become the Law of this England. There
were men of sense among them, men of some quality; men of deep piety I
suppose the most of them were. They failed, it seems, and broke down,
endeavoring to reform the Court of Chancery! They dissolved themselves,
as incompetent; delivered up their power again into the hands of the
Lord General Cromwell, to do with it what he liked and could.

What _will_ he do with it? The Lord General Cromwell,
"Commander-in-chief of all the Forces raised and to be raised;" he
hereby sees himself, at this unexampled juncture, as it were the one
available Authority left in England, nothing between England and utter
Anarchy but him alone. Such is the undeniable Fact of his position and
England's, there and then. What will he do with it? After deliberation,
he decides that he will _accept_ it; will formally, with public
solemnity, say and vow before God and men, "Yes, the Fact is so, and
I will do the best I can with it!" Protectorship, Instrument of
Government,--these are the external forms of the thing; worked out and
sanctioned as they could in the circumstances be, by the Judges, by the
leading Official people, "Council of Officers and Persons of interest in
the Nation:" and as for the thing itself, undeniably enough, at the pass
matters had now come to, there _was_ no alternative but Anarchy or that.
Puritan England might accept it or not; but Puritan England was, in real
truth, saved from suicide thereby!--I believe the Puritan People did,
in an inarticu