in the Fourth Year of King Charles the First. the face of it more conformity to parliamentary usage, and to what seems probable to have been the course on such a day of excitement and uproar. But even among the manuscripts of this third class there are considerable variations, as will appear hereafter. Each has some peculiarities and some omissions : Lord Verulam's is, perhaps, the best of the whole. The printed authorities for this Session commence with a quarto pamphlet, printed in London in 1611, and entitled " The Diurnal Occurrences of every day's proceeding in Parliament since the beginning thereof, being Tuesday, the twentieth of January, which ended the tenth of March, Anno Dom. 1028. "With the arguments of the Members of the House then assembled." This pamphlet is simply a publication of the manuscript " True Relation " to which I have before alluded. Unfortunately, the manuscript which fell into the hands of the printer was not one of the most accurate or complete, and consequently the imprint is full of mistakes, which have thus made their way into all our histories. Fuller's Ephemeris Parliamentaria was printed from another MS of the "True Relation," very like; that in the Ilarleian MS. 0,'255, and in many respects extremely incomplete. Rushworth printed from the; ' Diurnal Occur- rences." The Parliamentary History is a compilation from the previously printed books, and from various manuscripts, which are all intermingled, first a passage from one and then from another, in a way which is destructive of both accuracy and authority. The Session of Parliament to which we are now alluding, although only of six weeks' duration, was of extreme importance, and full of incident. Since the previous adjournment, the Government had done many things to discredit the course taken by the House of Commons in the last Session Persons who had been attacked in that House had been singled out for promotion ; the royal con- sent to the Petition of Right had been printed inaccurately ; and proceedings had been taken respecting tonnage and poundage, and the impositions added by- King James, which were very likely to be deemed objectionable by Parliament. Here, then, was matter for ample discussion. Coke, the leader in the struggle of the previous Session Captain Coke, as he was termed by King James was absent ; but Pym, Eliot, Selden, and others of the band which had followed Coke in his leadership at once opened up a vigorous attack upon the Government. Lord Verulam's and the other similar MSS. correct many mistakes which have crept into the accounts of these proceedings. " Sir Francis Heymer," as Fuller prints him, stands here as "Sir Francis Seymour;" "Mr. Walter" comes out as
