BEFORE THE RESTORATION.

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by his contemporaries. The vices of the old representative CH ] AP -

system, though by no means so serious as they afterwards-

became, had already been remarked by far-sighted men.Cromwell reformed that system on the same principles onwhich Mr. Pitt, a hundred and thirty years later, attemptedto reform it, and on which it was at length reformed in ourown times. Small boroughs were disfranchised even moreunsparingly than in 1832; and the number of county memberswas greatly increased. Very few unrepresented towns hadyet grown into importance. Of those towns the most con-siderable were Manchester, Leeds, and Halifax. Represen-tatives were given to all three. An addition was made to thenumber of the members for the capital. The elective fran-chise was placed on such a footing that every man of sub-stance, whether possessed of freehold estates in land or not,had a vote for the county in which lie resided. A fewScotchmen and a few of the English colonists settled in Ire-land, were summoned to the assembly which was to legislate,at Westminster, for every part of the British isles.

To create a House of Lords was a less easy task. Demo-cracy does not require the support of prescription. Monarchyhas often stood without that support. But a patrician order isthe work of time. Oliver found already existing a nobility,opulent, highly considered, and as popular with the com-monalty as any nobility has ever been. Had he, as King ofEngland, commanded the peers to meet him in Parliamentaccording to the old usage of the realm, many of them wouldundoubtedly have obeyed the call. This he could not do;and it was to no purpose that he offered to the chiefs of illus-trious families seats in his new senate. They conceived thatthey could not accept a nomination to an upstart assemblywithout renouncing their birthright and betraying their order.

The Protector was, therefore, under the necessity of fillinghis Upper House with new men who, during the late stirring