might be brought into such a state as would enable the King to keep a standing military establishment.  In 1640 Charles had supported an army in the northern counties by lawless exactions.  In 1641 he had engaged in an intrigue, the object of which was to bring that army to London for the purpose of overawing the Parliament.  His late conduct had proved that, if he were suffered to retain even a small body-guard of his own creatures near his person, the Commons would be in danger of outrage, perhaps of massacre.  The Houses were still deliberating under the protection of the militia of London.  Could the command of the whole armed force of the realm have been, under these circumstances, safely confided to the King?  Would it not have been frenzy in the Parliament to raise and pay an army of fifteen or twenty thousand men for the Irish war, and to give to Charles the absolute control of this army, and the power of selecting, promoting, and dismissing officers at his pleasure?  Was it not probable that this army might become, what it is the nature of armies to become, what so many armies formed under much more favourable circumstances have become, what the army of the Roman republic became, what the army of the French republic became, an instrument of despotism?  Was it not probable that the soldiers might forget that they were also citizens, and might be ready to serve their general against their country?  Was it not certain that, on the very first day on which Charles could venture to revoke his concessions, and to punish his opponents, he would establish an arbitrary government, and exact a bloody revenge?

Our own times furnish a parallel case.  Suppose that a revolution should take place in Spain, that the Constitution of Cadiz should be reestablished, that the Cortes should meet again, that the Spanish Prynnes and Burtons, who are now wandering in rags round Leicester Square, should be restored to their country.  Ferdinand the Seventh would, in that case, of course repeat all the oaths and promises which he made in 1820, and broke in 1823.  But would it not be madness in the Cortes, even if they were to leave him the name of King, to leave him more than the name?  Would not all Europe scoff at them, if they were to permit him to assemble a large army for an expedition to America, to model that army at his pleasure, to put it under the command of officers chosen by himself?  Should we not say that every member of the Constitutional party who might concur in such a measure would most richly deserve the fate which he would probably meet, the fate of Riego and of the Empecinado?  We are not disposed to pay compliments to Ferdinand; nor do we conceive that we pay him any compliment, when we say that, of all sovereigns in history, he seems to us most to resemble, in some very important points, King Charles the First.  Like Charles, he is pious after a certain fashion; like Charles, he has made large concessions to his people after a certain fashion.  It is well for him that he has had to deal with men who bore very little resemblance to the English Puritans.