The

authority of many tyrants centering in one, tho' the people are not become more free, yet the whole fyftem of domestic policy is entirely changed. Peace at home is better fecured, and the nation grown fitter to carry war abroad. governors of great provinces and of strong fortreffes have opposed their king, and taken arms against his authority and commiffion fince that time: but yet there is no more resemblance between the authority and pretenfions of thefe governors, or the nature and occafions of thefe difputes, and the authority and pretenfions of the vaffals of the crown in former days, or the nature and occafions of their disputes with the prince and with one another, than there is between the ancient and the present peers of France. In a word, the conftitution is fo altered, that any knowledge we can acquire about it, in the history that precedes this period, will ferve to little purpose in our ftudy of the history that follows it, and to lefs purpose still in affifting us to judge of what paffes in the prefent age. The kings of France fince that time, more mafters at home, have been able to exert themfelves more abroad: and they began to do fo immediately; for Charles VIII. fon and fucceffor of Lewis XI. formed great defigns of foreign conquefts, though they were disappointed by his inability, by the levity of the nation, and by other caufes. Lewis XII. and Francis I. but efpecially Francis, meddled deep in the affairs of Europe: and though the fuperior genius of Ferdinand called the Catholic, and the star of

Charles

Charles V. prevailed against them, yet the efforts they made, fhew fufficiently how the ftrength and importance of this monarchy were increased in their time. From whence we may date likewife the rivalship of the house of France, for we may reckon that of Valois and that of Bourbon as one upon this occafion, and the houfe of Auftria; that continues at this day, and that has coft fo much blood and fo much treasure in the course of it.

II. In ENGLAND,

THOUGH the power and influence of the nobility funk in the great change that began under Henry VII. in England, as they did in that which began under Lewis XI. in France; yet the new constitutions that these changes produced were very different. In France, the lords alone loft, the king alone gained; the clergy held their poffeffions and their immunities, and the people remained in a state of mitigated flavery. But in England, the people gained as well as the crown. The commons had already a fhare in the legiflature; so that the power and influence of the lords being broke by Henry VII. and the property of the commons increafing by the fale that his fon made of church-lands, the power of the latter increased of course by this change in a conftitution, the forms whereof were favourable to them. The Union of the Rofes put an end to the civil wars of York and Lancaster, that had fucceeded those we commonly call the Barons

K 4

Wars,

wars, and the humour of warring in France, that had lafted near four hundred years under the Normans and Plantagenets, for plunder as well as conqueft, was fpent. Our temple of Janus was fhut by Henry VII. We neither laid waste our own nor other countries any longer: and wife laws and a wife government changed infenfibly the manners, and gave a new turn to the fpirit, of our people. We were no longer the free-booters we had been. Our nation maintained her reputation in arms whenever the public intereft or the public authority required it; but war ceased to be, what it had been, our principal and almoft our fole profeffion. The arts of peace prevailed among us. We became husbandmen, manufacturers, and merchants, and we emulated neighbouring nations in lite

rature.

It is from this time that we ought to study the hiftory of our country, my Lord, with the utmost application. We are not much concerned to know with critical accuracy what were the ancient forms of our parliaments, concern→ ing which, however, there is little room for difpute from the reign of Henry III. at least; nor, in fhort, the whole fyftem of our civil conftitution before Henry VII. and of our ecclefiaftical conftitution before Henry VIII. But he who has not studied and acquired a thorough knowledge of them both, from these periods down to the present time, in all the variety of events by which they have been affected, will be very unfit to judge or to take care of either. Just as little are we concerned to know, in any nice detail,

what

what the conduct of our princes, relatively to their neighbours on the continent, was before this period, and at a time when the partition of power and a multitude of other circumftances rendered the whole political system of Europe fo vaftly different from that which has exifted fince. But he who has not traced this conduct from the period we fix, down to the present age, wants a principal part of the knowledge that every English minister of state should have. Ignorance in the respects here spoken of, is the lefs pardonable, because we have more and more authentic means of information concerning this, than concerning any other period. Anecdotes. enow to glut the curiofity of fome perfons, and to filence all the captious cavils of others, will never be furnished by any portion of history; nor indeed can they, according to the nature and courfe of human affairs: but he who is content to read and obferve like a fenator and a statesman, will find in our own and in foreign historians, as much information as he wants concerning the affairs of our island, her fortune at home, and her conduct abroad, from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth. I refer to foreign hiftorians, as well as to our own, for this feries of our own hiftory; not only because it is reasonable to fee in what manner the hiftorians of other countries have related the tranfactions wherein we have been concerned, and what judgment they have made of our conduct, domeftic and foreign; but for another reafon likewife. Our nation has furnished as ample and as important matter,

good

good and bad, for history, as any nation under the fun and yet we must yield the palm in writing history most certainly to the Italians and to the French; and, I fear, even to the Germans. The only two pieces of history we have, in any re spect to be compared with the ancient, are, the reign of Henry VII. by my lord Bacon, and the history of our Civil War in the last century by your noble ancestor my lord chancellor Clarendon. But we have no general history to be compared with fome of other countries: neither have we, which I lament much more, particular hiftories, except the two I have mentioned; nor writers of memorials, nor collectors of monuments and anecdotes, to vie in number or in merit with those that foreign nations can boaft; from Commines, Guicciardin, Du Bellay, Paolo, Davila, Thuanus, and a multitude of others, down through the whole period that I propofe to your Lordship. But although this be true, to our fhame; yet it is true likewise, that we want no neceffary means of information. They lie open to our industry and our difcernment. Foreign writers are, for the most part, scarce worth reading when they fpeak of our domestic affairs; nor are our English writers for the most part of greater value when they speak of foreign affairs. In this mutual defect, the writers of other countries are, I think, more excufable than ours: for the nature of our government, the political principles in which we are bred, our diftinct interefts as iflanders, and the complicated various interests and humours of our parties; all these are so pecu