uting the people of England a
Commonwealth."

3. "The Act for subscribing the Engagement."

4. "The Act for renouncing and disannulling the title of Charles
Stuart" (September 1656).

5. "The Act for the security of the Lord Protector's person and
continuance of the Nation in peace and safety" (September 1656).

Three of these were burnt at Westminster and two at the Exchange.
Pepys, beholding the latter sight from a balcony, was led to
moralise on the mutability of human opinion. The strange thing is
that, when these Acts were burnt, the Act for the abolition of
the House of Lords (1649) appears to have escaped condemnation.
For its intrinsic interest, I here insert the words of the old
parchment:--

"The Commons of England assembled in Parliament, finding by too
long experience that the House of Lords is useless and dangerous
to the people of England to be continued, hath thought fit to
ordain and enact, and be it ordained and enacted by this present
Parliament and by the authority of the same: That from henceforth
the House of Lords in Parliament shall be and is hereby wholly
abolished and taken away; and that the Lords shall not from
henceforth meet and sit in the said house, called the Lords'
House, or in any other house or place whatsoever as a House of
Lords; nor shall sit, vote, advise, adjudge, or determine of any
matter or thing whatsoever as a House of Lords in Parliament:
Nevertheless, it is hereby declared, that neither such Lords as
have demeaned themselves with honour, courage, and fidelity to
the Commonwealth, nor their posterities (who shall continue so),
shall be excluded from the public councils of the Nation, but
shall be admitted thereunto and have their free vote in
Parliament, if they shall be thereunto elected, as other persons
of interest elected and qualified thereunto ought to have. And be
it further ordained and enacted by the authority aforesaid, That
no peer of this land (not being elected, qualified, and sitting
as aforesaid) shall claim, have, or make use of any privilege of
Parliament either in relation to his person, quality, or estate
any law, usage, or custom to the contrary
notwithstanding."[127:1]

How true a presentiment our ancestors had of the incompatibility
between an hereditary chamber and popular liberty is
conspicuously shown by the next book we read of as burnt; and
indeed there are few more instructive historical tracts than
Locke's _Letter from a Person of Qual