a lowness of power as can hardly be parallelled in any other cafe: and PHILIP the fourth was obliged at laft to conclude a peace, on terms repugnant to his inclination, to that of his people, to the interest of Spain, and to that of all Europe, in the Pyrenean treaty.

As to France; this aera of the entire fall of the Spanish power is likewise that from which we may reckon that France grew as formidable as we have seen her to her neighbours in power and pretenfions. HENRY the fourth meditated great defigns, and prepared to act a great part in Europe in the very beginning of this period, when RAVAILLAC stabbed him. His defigns died with him, and are rather gueffed at than known; for furely those which his hiftorian PEREFIXE and the compilers of SULLY's memorials afcribe to him, of a chriftian commonwealth, divided into fifteen states, and of a senate to decide all differences, and to maintain

this new constitution of Europe, are too chimerical to have been really his but his general defign of abafing the house of Austria, and establishing the fuperior power in that of Bourbon, was taken up about twenty years after his death by RICHELIEU, and was purfued by him and by MAZARIN with fo much ability and fuccefs, that it was effected entirely by the treaties of Weftphalia and by the Pyrenean treaty; that is, at the end of the second of those periods I have prefumed to propofe to your lordship.

WHEN the third, in which we now are, will end, and what circumstances will mark the end of it, I know not: but this I know, that the great events and revolutions, which have happened in the course of it, intereft us still more nearly than those of the two precedent periods. I intended to have drawn up an elenchus or fummary of the three, but I doubted on further reflection, whe

ther my memory would enable me to do it with exactness enough: and I saw that if I was able to do it, the deduction would be immeasurably long. Something of this kind however it may be reasonable to attempt, in fpeaking of the laft period which may hereafter occafion a further trouble to your lordship.

BUT to give you fome breathing-time, I will poftpone it at present, and am in the mean while,

My LORD,

Your, &c.

LET

A fketch of the state and hiftory of Europe from the Pyrenean treaty in one thousand fix hundred and fifty-nine, to the year one thousand fix hundred and eighty-eight.

T

HE firft obfervation I shall make on this third period of modern history is, that as the ambition of CHARLES the fifth, who united the whole formidable power of Auftria in himself, and the restless temper, the cruelty and bigotry of PHILIP the fecond, were principally objects of the attention and folicitude of the councils of Europe, in the first of these periods; and as the ambition of FERDINAND the fecond, and the third, who aimed at nothing less than extirpating the proteftant intereft, and under that pretence fubduing the liberties of Germany, were objects of the fame

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kind

kind in the fecond: fo an oppofition to the growing power of France, or to speak more properly to the exorbitant ambition of the house of Bourbon, has been the principal affair of Europe, during the greatest part of the present period. The design of aspiring to univerfal monarchy was imputed to CHARLES the fifth, as foon as he began to give proofs of his ambition and capacity. The fame defign was imputed to LEWIS the fourteenth, as foon as he began to feel his own ftrength, and the weakness of his neighbours. Neither of these princes was induced, I believe, by the flattery of his courtiers, or the apprehenfions of his adverfaries, to entertain fo chimerical a defign as this would have been, even in that falfe fenfe wherein the word univer fal is fo often understood: and I mistake very much if either of them was of a character, or in circumftances, to undertake it. Both of them had strong defires to raise their families higher, and to ex

tend