of horse. On his way he met Lenthall, the Speaker, attended by a guard. He ordered that official to dismount, and on refusing, according to Clarendon, pulled him from his horse, and sent him to his own house. The soldiers, on the two parties meeting, at once coalesced, and the Rump was again dismissed. The officers at Wallingford House took upon themselves to annul Haselrig's votes of the last three days, and establish a provisional Committee of Safety of twenty-three members. There was a party amongst them for restoring Richard Cromwell, who came up from Hampshire escorted by three troops of horse; but this party was outvoted by a small majority, and he retired. Whilst these confused changes were taking place--eddies in the national affairs, but neither progress nor honour, Parliament having no power to restrain the army, nor the army any one man of a genius capable of controlling the rest,--there was at least one commander who was silently and reservedly watching the course of events, resolved to go with the strongest side, if such a side could be found. This was General Monk. He was originally a Royalist, and of a strongly Royalist family. His elder brother, with the rest of his relations, had always been zealously devoted to the king, and it is said that his wife was a most ardent advocate for the king's interest. These circumstances had caused Charles frequently to sound him by his emissaries; but though he received them courteously, and listened patiently to their statements, he gave no outward evidence that he was likely to comply with their entreaties. He was a man of deep and impenetrable secrecy and caution, of few words, and a gloomy, unimpassioned manner. Cromwell, during his life, was quite aware of the overtures and royal promises made to Monk, but could not discover the slightest thing in him to warrant a suspicion of his leaning in the smallest degree that way, and he therefore contented himself with jocularly remarking to him in a postscript in one of his letters, "'Tis said there is a cunning fellow in Scotland, called George Monk, who lies in wait there to serve Charles Stuart; pray use your diligence to take him, and send him up to me."