298 
last parliament was occupied during a part 
of the first session chiefly on matters of a 
private, but often of a very interesting cha- 
racter—the whole of the discussion relative 
to Nayler, the crazy quaker, are of the most 
instructive kind. About the middle of the 
session was detected the conspiracy by Sex- 
by, Sindercomb, &c., against Cromwell’s 
life; and from that period was started the 
project for making the Protector king. The 
remainder of the session was in consequence 
taken up in arranging the terms of the 
“ Humble Petition and Advice,’’ by which 
Cromwell was to be invested with the name 
and attributes of royalty, and empowered to 
name another house, consisting of 70 mem- 
bers. When presented for his acceptance, 
the articles of this “ Petition and Advice” 
were, in many respects, distasteful to the 
Protector, and underwent, in consequence, 
a long and minute revision ; and finally, as 
every body knows, he found it expedient to 
reject the dazzling offer, but accepted the 
powers (which indeed he exercised before) 
conferred by the new instrument, under his 
- old title of Protector, and appointed another 
house. A new inauguration took place, 
amidst a most splendid ceremonial. 
When the period of prorogation expired, 
the parliament re-assembled, and among 
the members re-appeared as many of the 
93, who had been excluded at the begin- 
ning of the former session, as had not be- 
fore, by one means or other, procured their 
re-admission. Some of these were men of 
the most resolute, spirits, and, above all, 
Harlerigge. He had been nominated to 
the other house, but insisted on taking his 
seat in the Commons. 'Tumultuous scenes 
of debate followed, chiefly on the name 
and powers of the other house—the Com- 
mons refused to acknowledge them as peers, 
and at the end of a fortnight—all hopes of 
accommodation being despaired of—they 
were abruptly and angrily dissolved. 
. On the assembling of Richard’s parlia- 
ment, the same resolute persons re-appeared 
—and besides, Vane, Ludlow, and others ; 
and the same determination was shewn to 
resist the usurping authority of the other 
house—the “ negative voice upon the peo- 
ple of England’’—augmented now by the 
little respect or dread they felt for the old 
protector’s feeble successor. The Commons 
immediately questioned his right to the 
*¢ succession’’—day after day was the ques- 
tion keenly and fiercely debated; and when 
at length the point was conceded, others of 
equal interest sueceeded—the privileges of 
the other house—the Scotch and Irish mem- 
bers—the militia, &c., for full three months, 
till, finally, by the cabals of Wallingford 
House—sanctioned by Fleetwood, the dupe 
of more designing men—Richard was in-- 
duced to dissolve, and, in a few weeks, him- 
self to resign. ; 
The debates of Riehard’s parliament oc- 
cupy two of the volumes, and are detailed 
at greater length, and with greater care than 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
[Serr. 
those of the preceding one—there is more 
vigour and interest, both in the matter and 
manner. 
Independently of all historical value, and 
that is incaleulable—these volumes furnish 
amass of colloquial phraseology, a body of 
sound and vernacular English, that con- 
trasts most advantageously with the more 
laboured and artificial writings of the period 
—shews how little is ovr real imprevement 
—and often puts to shame the stilting, pa- 
rading, balancing elaborations of our own 
days. 
Salmonia, or the Days of Fly-Fishing =; 
1828.—A volume of dialogues on the art 
and mystery of fly-fishing—written in stu- 
died imitation of Isaac Walton’s fantastic 
but not unamusing book, and, like most 
other imitations, with scarcely an atom of 
the original spirit. Indeed, the very at- 
tempt at imitation seems to involve a con— 
sciousness of the lack of independent and 
distinctive power ; for surely no man, pos- 
sessed of it, would think of servilely track- 
ing the path of another—he would insen- 
sibly pursue the impulses of his own soul. 
One man of genius, it is true, cried out, on 
contemplating a picture, ‘I tooam a paint- 
er!’ and proved it too—but not by imi- 
tating the artist, whose performances had 
aroused his own latent energies. 
The author of the little volume before us 
—no less a personage than Sir Humphrey 
Davy—has not, we repeat, a spark of Isaac’s 
fire about him; though excelling him, no 
doubt, in extent of positive facts, and per- 
haps in sagacity of inference—and yet, for 
the apparent abundance of his facts, we may 
trace him to well-known sources. 
Excepting as a record of certain facts, the 
whole concern—particularly the machinery 
of it-. is stupid and pedantic to a most into- 
lerable degree. The characters chosen te 
support the conversations are—Halieus, an: 
accomplished fly-fisher ; Ornither, generally 
fond of the sports of the field, though not a 
finished master of the art of angling; 
Poietes, an enthusiastic lover of nature, and 
partially acquainted with the mysteries of 
fly-fishing ; and Physicus, who knows no- 
thing of angling, but is fond of inquiries in 
natural history and philosophy. The sen- 
timents of each are of course meant to be 
characteristic. But Halieus—the aceom- 
plished, the finished fly-fisher—he is prime 
talker, as well as director and performer. 
He is aw fait in all departments. The rest 
of the dialoguists are insignificant, and the 
poet a fool. 
The introductory dialogue is occupied in 
rebutting the squeamish charge of cruelty, 
and in finding out—a more diffieult task, 
and a very superfluous one—the moral ad- 
vantages of fly-fishing. For the first, the 
fishing in question is fly-fishing, and with 
the artificial fly—so much for the bait ; and 
as to the fish—its nervous system, it seems, 
and that indeed of all cold-blooded animals, 
