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 christian commonwealth, divided into fifteen states,' and of a fenate to decide all differences, and to maintain this new conftitution of Europe, are too chimerical to have been really his but his general defign of abafing the house of Auftria, 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 so much ability and fuccefs, that it was effected entirely by the treaties of Westphalia and by the Pyrenean treaty; that is, at the end of the fecond of those periods I have prefumed to propose 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 N 2 have 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, whether my memory would enable me to do it with exactness enough: and I faw that, if I was able to do it, the deduction would be immeafurably 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 prefent, and am in the mean while, My LORD, Your, &c. LET LETTER VII. A fketch of the ftate 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. TH HE firft obfervation I fhall 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 restlefs 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 second, and the third, who aimed at nothing lefs N 3 than than extirpating the proteftant interest, and under that pretence fubduing the liberties of Germany, were objects of the fame 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 prefent period. The defign of afpiring to univerfal monarchy was imputed to CHARLES the fifth, as foon as he began to give proofs of his ambition and capacity. The fame design was imputed to LEWIS the fourteenth, as foon as he began to feel his own strength, 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 design as this would have been,, even in that false sense wherein the word univerfal is fo often understood: and I mistake very much if either of them was of a character, or in circumstances, to undertake it. Both of them had strong defires to raise their families higher, and to extend their dominions farther; but neither of them had that bold and adventurous ambition which makes a conqueror and and an hero. These apprehenfions however 1 |