=Source.=--Carlyle, _Cromwell's Letters and Speeches_, September 12,
1654.
I pressed the Parliament, as a member, to period themselves--once,
and again, and again, and ten, nay twenty times over. I told
them--for I knew it better than any one man in the Parliament could
know it, because of my manner of life which led me everywhere up and
down the nation, thereby giving me to see and know the temper and
spirits of all men, and of the best of men,--that the nation loathed
their sitting. I knew it. And, so far as I could discern, when they
were dissolved, there was not so much as the barking of a dog, or any
general or visible repining at it! You are not a few here present
that can assert this as well as myself.
And that there was high cause for their dissolution, is most
evident; not only in regard there was a just fear of that Parliament
perpetuating themselves, but because it was their _design_. Had not
their heels been trod upon by importunities from abroad, even to
threats, I believe there never would have been thoughts of rising or
of going out of that room, to the world's end. I myself was sounded,
and by no mean persons tempted; and proposals were made to me to that
very end: that the Parliament might be thus perpetuated; that the
vacant places might be supplied by new elections;--and so continue
from generation to generation.