Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 06.djvu/231

Rh ‘There would never be a good time in England till we had done with the Lords.’ But the most appalling report that now circulates in the world is this, of his saying once, ‘If he met the King in battle, he would fire his pistol at the King as at another’;—pistol, at our poor semi-divine misguided Father fallen insane: a thing hardly conceivable to the Presbyterian human mind!

‘It is now a time to speak, or for ever hold the tongue. The important occasion now, is no less than To save a Nation, out of a bleeding, nay almost dying condition: which the long continuance of this War hath already brought it into; so that without a more speedy, vigorous and effectual prosecution of the War,—casting off all lingering proceedings like “those of” soldiers-of-fortune beyond sea, to spin out a war,—we shall make the kingdom weary of us, and hate the name of a Parliament.

‘For what do the Enemy say? Nay, what do many say that were friends at the beginning of the Parliament? Even this, That the Members of both Houses have got great places and commands, and the sword into their hands; and, what by interest in Parliament, what by power in the Army, will perpetually continue themselves in grandeur, and not permit the War speedily to end, lest their own power should determine with it. This “that” I speak here to our own faces, is but what others do utter abroad behind our backs.