are no Parliament! Some
of you are drunkards,' and his eye flashes on poor Mr Chalmer,
an official man of some value, addicted to the bottle; 'some of
you are'--and he glares into Henry Martin and the poor Sir
Peter, who rose to order, lewd livers both--'living in open
contempt of God's, commandments. Following your own greedy
appetites, and the devil's commandments. Corrupt, unjust
persons,' and here I think he glanced 'at Sir Bulstrode
Whitlocke, one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal, giving
him and others very sharp language, though he named them not.'
'Corrupt, unjust persons, scandalous to the profession of the
Gospel:' how can you be a Parliament for God's people? Depart,
I say, and let us have done with you. In the name, of God--go!

"The House is of course all on its feet--uncertain, almost,
whether not on its head: such a scene as was never seen before
in any House of Commons. History reports with a shudder that my
Lord General, lifting the sacred mace itself, said, 'What shall
we do with this bauble? Take it away!'--and gave it to a
musketeer. And now--'Fetch him down!' says he to Harrison,
flashing on the Speaker. Speaker Lenthall, more an ancient
Roman than any thing else, declares, He will not come till
forced. 'Sir,' said Harrison, 'I will lend you a hand;' on
which Speaker Lenthall came down, and gloomily vanished. They
all vanished; flooding gloomily, clamorously out, to their
ulterior businesses, and respective places of abode: the Long
Parliament is dissolved! 'It's you that have forced me to
this,' exclaims my Lord General, 'I have sought the Lord night
and day, that He would rather slay me than put me upon the
doing of this work.' 'At their going out, some say the Lord
General said to young Sir Harry Vane, calling him by his name,
That _he_ might have prevented this; but that he was a juggler,
and had not common honesty.' 'O Sir Harry Vane,' thou, with thy
subtle casuistries and abstruse hair-splittings, thou art other
than a good one, I think! 'The Lord deliver me from thee, Sir
Harry Vane!' 'All being gone out, the door of the House was
locked, and the key, with the mace, as I heard, was carried
away by Colonel Otley,' and it is all over, and the unspeakable
catastrophe has come, and remains."--(Vol. ii. p. 361