communion; but even from that of princes who perfecuted their proteftant fubjects with great violence. Enough has been said, I think, to fhew your lordship how little need there is of going up higher than the beginning of the fixteenth century in the study of history, to acquire all the knowledge neceffary at this time in ecclefiaftical policy, or in civil policy as far as it is relative to this. Hiftorical monuments of this fort are in every man's hand, the facts are fufficiently verified, and the entire fcenes lie open to our obfervation: even that scene of folemn refined banter exhibited in the council of Trent, impofes on no man who reads PAOLO, as well as PALLAVICINI, and the letters of VARGAS.

A

A view of the civil government of Europe in the beginning of the fixteenth century.

I. In France.

A VERY little higher need we go, to obferve those great changes in the civil constitutions of the principal nations of Europe, in the partition of power among them, and by confequence in the whole system of European policy, which have operated fo ftrongly for more than two centuries, and which operate ftill. I will not affront the memory of our HENRY the seventh so much as to compare him to LEWIS the eleventh: and yet I perceive some resemblance between them; which would perhaps appear greater, if PHILIP of Commines had wrote the history of HENRY as well as that of LEWIS; or if my lord BACON had wrote that of LEWIS as well as that of HENRY.

This

prince came to the crown of England a little before the clofe of the fifteenth century and LEWIS began his reign in France about twenty years fooner. These reigns make remarkable periods in the hiftories of both nations. To reduce the power, privileges, and poffeffions of the nobility, and to increase the wealth and authority of the crown, was the principal object of both. In this their fuccefs was fo great, that the conftitutions of the two governments have had, since that time, more resemblance, in name and in form than in reality, to the constitutions that prevailed before. LEWIS the eleventh was the firft, fay the French, qui mit les rois hors de page. The independency of the nobility had rendered the ftate of his predeceffors very dependant, and their power precarious. They were the fovereigns of great vaffals; but these vaffals were fo powerful, that one of them was sometimes able, and two or three of them always, to give law to the fove

reign. Before LEWIS came to the crown, the English had been driven out of their poffeffions in France, by the poor character of HENRY the fixth, the domestic troubles of his reign, and the defection of the house of Burgundy from his alliance, much more than by the ability of CHARLES the feventh, who seems to have been neither a greater hero nor a greater politician than HENRY the fixth; and even than by the vigour and union of the French nobility in his fervice. After LEWIS came to the crown, EDWARD the fourth made a fhew of carrying the war again into France; but he foon returned home, and your lordship will not be at a lofs to find much better reasons for his doing fo, in the fituation of his affairs and the characters of his allies, than thofe which PHILIP of Commines draws from the artifice of LEWIS, from his good cheer and his penfions. Now from this time our pretenfions on France were in effect given up and CHARLES the bold,

the last prince of the houfe of Burgundy, being killed, LEWIS had no vaffal able to moleft him. He re-united the dutchy of Burgundy and Artois to his crown, he acquired Provence by gift, and his fon Britany by marriage: and thus France grew in the course of a few years into that great and compact body which we behold at this time. The hiftory of France, before this period, is like that of Germany, a complicated history of several states and feveral interefts; fometimes concurring like members of the fame monarchy, and fometimes warring on one another. Since this period, the hiftory of France is the history of one state under a more uniform and orderly government; the history of a monarchy wherein the prince is possesfor of fome, as well as lord of all the great fieffes: and, the authority of many tyrants centring 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 fse

cured,