For its wise temper and good practical tendency let us praise this second Parliament; admit, nevertheless, that its history amounts to little—­that it handsomely did nothing, and left Oliver to do.  But it does propose to modify our constitution, increase the Protector’s powers—­make him, in fact, a king—­make also a second chamber.  To the perturbation of sundry officers.  Out of confusion of documents and speeches and conferences we extract this—­that his highness is not, on the whole, willing to be called king, because this will give offence to many godly persons, and be a cause of stumbling.

The petition being settled, Parliament is prorogued till January, 1658; when there will be a House of Lords (not the old Peers!), and the excluded members will be admitted.  May there not then be new troubles?  The Spanish Charles Stuart invasion plot is indeed afoot, and that union abroad of the Protestant powers for which we crave is by no means accomplished.  Therefore, says the Protector, you must be ready to fight on land as well as by sea.  No time this for disunion, trumpery quarrels over points of form.  Yet such debate has begun and continues.

After this dissolution speech, and a letter as to Vaudois persecution, there are no more letters or speeches.  On September 3, 1658, for him “the ugly evil is all over, and thy part in it manfully done—­manfully and fruitfully, to all eternity.”  Oliver is gone, and with him England’s Puritanism.

* * * * *

The Life of Friedrich Schiller

Carlyle was under thirty years of age, and was occupied as a private tutor, when he wrote the “Life of Friedrich Schiller; comprehending an examination of his works,” which had been commissioned by the “London Magazine.”  It was his first essay in the study of German literature, which he did so much to popularise in Britain.  It appeared in book form in 1825, and a second edition was published in 1845 in order to prevent piratical reprints.  In his introduction to the second edition, Carlyle pleads for the indulgence of the reader, asking him to remember constantly that “it was written twenty years ago.”  It has indeed been superseded by more temperate studies of Schiller, but its tone of enthusiasm gives it a great value of its own.

Schiller’s Youth (1759-1784)

Distinguished alike for the splendour of his intellectual faculties, and the elevation of his tastes and feelings, Friedrich Schiller has left behind him in his works a noble emblem of these great qualities.  Much of his life was deformed by inquietude and disease, and it terminated at middle age; he composed in a language then scarcely settled into form; yet his writings are remarkable for their extent, their variety, and their intrinsic excellence, and his own countrymen are not his only, or, perhaps, his principal admirers.