"A wretched phantom of a Parliament appeared here on the 22nd of January. I would the king had not summoned it. We should leave it to the rebels, I think, to deal with shows and phantoms of real things, with their presumptuous talk of colonels and generals. I would his Majesty had not encountered their pretence of royal authority, with this pretence of Parliamentary debate. Sixty Lords and a hundred Commons, or thereabouts, moving helplessly about these old University streets, with no more power or life in them than the effigies of the saints and crusaders in the churches. Indeed far less, for the effigies are memorials of persons who once were alive, and this Parliament is nothing but a copy of the clothes and trappings of a power now living. The king does not consult them, and the nation does not heed them, and they only show how real the division is amongst us. The king himself calls them the 'mongrel Parliament.' His Majesty is so grand and majestic when he is grave, I feel one could give up anything to bring a happy smile over his sad and kingly countenance. But I would he did not make these jests. Many grave persons, I have noticed, when they set about jesting, are apt to do it rather cruelly. Their jests want feathers. They fall heavily, weighted with the gravity of their character, and instead of pleasantly pricking and stimulating, they wound. Therefore I wish His Majesty would not jest. Especially about Parliaments and the navy. People are apt not to see the wit of being called 'cats,' or 'water-rats,' or 'mongrel.' They only feel the sting. "_March_.--The Scottish General Leslie has led an army over the Borders. Traitor! When the king was so gracious as to create him Earl of Leven but a few years since. Oh, faithless Scottish men! Infatuated by a thing they call Presbytery, and treacherous to their compatriot and anointed king! "_June_, 1644.--Another summer within the walls of this old city. Another summer away from the woods at home. I am tempted sometimes to wish the war would end in any way. Politics perplex me more and more. So many people wishing the same thing, for contrary reasons. So many people wishing contrary things for the same reasons. So many on our side whom one hates; so many against us whom we honour. The best men doing the worst mischief by beginning the strife; and then dying, or doubting, and giving place to the worst men, who finish it--if ever it is to be finished. Hampden gone, and Lord Falkland; and the names one hears most of now, Prince Rupert and this Oliver Cromwell. They call him General now. What next? A country gentleman, none of the most notable or of the greatest condition, eking out his farming, some way, with brewing ale, at Huntingdon, until he was forty-two--and at forty-five, forsooth, General Cromwell, with men of condition capping to receive his orders. A fanatic, moreover, who preaches in the open-air to his men between the battles.