The power of the monarchs of France had At this tumultuous period, when we have never been defined by any written law. seen almost all the thrones of ChristenCharles V. Louis IX., and perhaps a very dom trembling to their foundation; we few other wise and temperate princes, did have witnessed the British constitution, like not conceive their power to be above the the British oak, confirmed and rooted by the laws, but approved of those moderating max- shaking of that tremendous blast, which has ims which had become, by degrees, the re-stripped kingdoms of their crowns, levelled ceived usages of the state, and which, while the fences and inclosures of law, laid waste they seemed, in some measure, a constitu- the best earthly blessings of mankind, and tional check upon the absolute power of the involved in desolation a large part of the civcrown, formed also a guard against that pop-ilized world. When we have beheld absoular licentiousness, which, in a pure despo- lute monarchies, and republican states, alike tism, appears to be the only resource left to ravaged by the tempest, shall we not learn the people. But France has had few mon- still more highly to prize our own unparalarchs like Charles V. and still fewer like leled political edifice, built with such fair Louis IX. Henry IV seems to have found proportions, on principles so harmonious and and observed the happy medium. He was so just, that one part affords to another that at once resolute and mild; determined and support which, in its turn, it receives; while affectionate; politic and humane. The firm- each lends strength, as well as stability to ness of his mind, and the active vigour of his all? conduct, always kept pace with the gentle- How slender is the security of unlimited ness of his language. He fought for his pre-power, let the ephemeral reigns of eastern rogatives bravely, and defended them vigo- despots declare! A prince who governs a rously; yet, it is said, he ever carefully avoi-free people, enjoys a safety which no despotded the use of the term. He also loved and sought popularity, but he never sacrificed to it any just claim, nor ever made a concession which did not also tend to guard the real prerogatives of the crown* And it seems to be the true wisdom of a prince, that, as he cannot be too deliberate in his councils, nor too cautious in his plans, so when those counsels are well matured, and those plans well digested, he cannot be too decisive in their execution.

ic sovereign ever possessed. The latter rules singly; and where a revolution is meditated, the change of a single person is soon effected. But where a sovereign's power is incorporated with the powers of parliament, and the will of the people who elect parliaments, the kingly state is fenced in with, and intrenched by, the other states. He relies not solely upon an army. He relies on his parliament, and on his people,-a sure resource, while he involves his interests with theirs! This is the happiness, the beauty, and the strength of that three-fold bond which ties our constitution together. Counsellors may mislead, favourites may betray, even armies may desert, and navies may mutiny, but LAWS, as they are the surest guides of action, so are they the surest guards from danger.

It was not, indeed, under the actual rule of monarchs, however arbitrary, that royal authority was raised to its highest pitch in France. It was Richelieu, who, under a regency, rapidly established such a system of tyranny, as the boldest sovereign had seldom dared to attempt. He improved on all the anterior corruptions; and, as a lively French author says, tried to conceal their Well might the view of this well-founded being corruptions, by erecting them into po- power produce the remark which it drew litical maxims. Mazarin, with inferior abil- forth from a sagacious Frenchman,* who ity, which would not have enabled him to was comparing the solid constitutional augive the impulse, attempted still more to ac-thority of the British monarch, with the celerate the movement of that machine which his predecessor had set a-going with such velocity; and a civil war was the consequence.

more specious but less secure fabric of the despotism of the kings of France- That a king of England, who acted according to the laws, was the greatest of all monarchs!'

Happily, the examples of neither the kings, But while the convulsions of other governthe laws, nor the constitution of France, can ments, built on less permanent principles, be strictly applicable to us. Happily also, have rivetted our affection to our own; and we live at a time, when genuine freedom is while an experimental acquaintance with so completely established among us; when the miseries of anarchy most naturally lead the constitution, powers, and privileges of us, as subjects, to a strong sense of the duty parliament are so firmly settled; the limits of the royal prerogative so exactly defined, and so fully understood; and the mild, moderate, and equitable spirit of the illustrious family in which it is invested, is withal so conspicuous, that, as Blackstone observes, 'topics of government, which, like the mysteries of the Bona Dea, were formerly thought too sacred to be divulged to any but the initiated, may now, without the smallest offence, be fully and temperately discussed.'

*Il ne se defioit pas des loix, parcequ'il se fioit en lui meme.-De Retz.

of obedience :-with equal zeal would we wish it to be inculcated on princes, that they should be cautious never to multiply occasions for exacting that obedience; that they should use no unnecessary compulsion by seizing as a debt what good subjects are always willing to pay as a duty; and what is then only to be relied upon, when it is spontaneous and cordial.

It is observable, that those monarchs who have most sedulously contended for prerogative, have been among the feeblest and the

* Gourville

least capable of exercising it; and that those In order to enable him the better, therewho have struggled most earnestly for unjust fore, to know the true nature and limits of power, have seldom enjoyed it themselves, his authority, he will endeavour to develope but have made it over to mistresses and fa- the constitutional foundations on which it vourites. This is particularly exemplified rests. Sovereigns, even female sovereigns, in two of our weakest and most unhappy though they cannot have leisure to become princes, Edward II. and Richard II. fully acquainted with the vast mass of our Whether it was that this very imbecility laws, ought at least to imbibe the spirit of made them more contentious about their pre- them. If they be not early taught the genrogative, and more obstinate in resisting the eral principles of our laws and constitution, demands of parliament; or that their fa- they may be liable, from the flatterers to vourites stimulated them to exactions, the whom they may be exposed, to hear of benefit of which was to be transferred to nothing but the power which they may exert, themselves. The character of Edward III. or the influence which they may exercise, (notwithstanding his faults) was consistently without having their attention directed to magnanimous. He was not more brave than those counteracting principles, which, in a just. He was attentive to the dignity of his limited monarchy like ours, serve, in num crown in proportion to that magnanimity, berless ways, to balance and restrain that and to the creation and execution of laws in power. proportion to that justice; and he took no It should be worked into a principle in the important steps without the advice of parlia- mind, that it is in consideration of the duties ment. The wretched reign and miserable which the laws impose on a prince, that those catastrophe of each of the two first-named laws have secured to him either dignity or princes, furnish a striking contrast to the prerogative; it being a maxim of the law, energy and popularity of the last; of whom that protection and allegiance are reciprocal. Hume observes, that his domestic govern- With the impression of the power, the splenment was even more admirable than his for- dor, and the dignity of royalty, the ideas of eign conquests;' and of whom Selden says,trust, duty, and responsibility, should be in⚫ that one would think by his actions that he never was at home, and by his laws that he

never was abroad.'

best

separably interwoven It should be assiduously inculcated, that the LAWS form the very basis of the throne; the root and groundA wise and virtuous prince will ever bear work of the monarch's political existence. in mind the grand distinction between his One peculiar reason why a prince ought to own situation and that of his minister. The know so much of the laws and constitution, latter is but the precarious possessor of a as to be able to determine what is, and what transient authority; a mere tenant at will, is not, an infringement of them, is, that he or, at most, for life He himself is the he- may be quick sighted to the slightest approxreditary and permanent possessor of the imation of ministere towards any such enproperty. The former may be more tempt- croachments A farther reason is, that by ed to adopt measures which, though gainful studying the laws and constitution of the or gratifying at the present, will be probably country, he may become more firmly atproductive of future mischief to the estate. tached to them, not merely by national inBut surely the latter may be justly expected stinct, and fond prejudice, because they are to take a longer and wider view; and con- his wn, but from judgment, reason, knowsidering the interests of his posterity no less ledge, discrimination, preference, habit, obthan his own, to reject all measures which ligation,-in a word, because they are the are likely to disparage their inheritance, or injure their tenure. He will trace the mis- But as this superficial sketch proposes not fortunes of our first Charles to the usurpa- to be an essay on political, but moral intion of the Tudors; and mark but too natu- struction, these remarks are only hazarded, ral a connexion between the unprincipled in order to intimate the peculiar turn which domination and profuse magnificence of the royal education ought to take. If a Louis XIV., and the melancholy fate of his sovereign of England be, in such a variety far better and more amiable successor. He of respects, supreme, it follows, not only that will remember the solid answer of the Spar- his education should be liberal, large, and tan king, who being reproached by a super-general, but that it should, moreover, be dificial observer with having left the regal rected to a knowledge of those departments power impaired to his posterity, replied, in which he will be called to preside. No; for he had left it more secure, there- As supreme magistrate and the source of fore more permanent.' A large and just con- all judicial power, he should be adequately ception of interest. therefore, no less than of acquainted, not only with the law of nature daty, will prompt a wise prince to reject all and of nations, but particularly with the law measures which, while they appear to flatter of England. As possessing the power of dethe love of dominion, naturally inherent in claring war, and contracting alliances, he the mind of man, by holding forth the pres- should be thoroughly conversant with those ent extension of his power, yet tend obsti- authors who, with the soundest judgment, the nately to weaken its essential strength, to deepest moral views, and the most correct make his authority the object of his people's precision, treat of the great principles of pojealousy, rather than of their affection; to litical justice; who best unfold the rights of cause it to rest on the uncertain basis of mil-human nature, and the mischiefs of unjust itary power, rather than on the deep and du- ambition. He should be competently acrable foundations of the constitution. quainted with the present state of the differ

ent governments of Europe, with which that in the scale of letters; the wisdom and piety of Great Britain may have any political rela- of some of our most eminent contemporaries tion; and he should be led to exercise that having successfully applied it to its noblest intuitive discernment of character and tal-office, by rendering it subservient to the ents, which will enable him to decide on the purposes of Revelation, in multiplying the choice of ambassadors, and other foreign evidences, and illustrating the proofs. Thus ministers, whom it is his prerogative to ap- the Christian emperor, when he destroyed point. the heathen temples, consecrated the golden vessels, to adorn the Christian churches.

As he is the fountain of honour, from which proceed titles, distictions, and offices, he In this enlightened period, Religion, our should be early accustomed to combine a due religion at least, does not, as in her days of attention to character, with the examination darkness, feel it necessary to degrade human of claims, and the appreciation of services; learning, in order to withdraw herself from in order that the honours of the subject may scrutiny. The time is past, when it was reflect no dishonour on the prince. Those produced as a serious charge against saint whose distinguished lot it is to bestow subor-Jerome, that he had read Domer; when a dinate offices and inferior dignities, should doctor of the Sorbonne penitently confessed, evince, by the judgment with which they among his other sins, that the exquisite muse confer them, how fit they themselves are to of Virgil had made him weep for the woes discharge the highest. of Dido; and when the works of Tacitus were condemned to the flames, from the papal chair, because the author was not a Roman catholic. It is also curious to observe a papist persecuting the memory of a pagan on the ground of his superstition! Pope Gregory the great, expelled Livy from every Christian library on this account!

He

Is he supreme head of the church? Hence arises a strong obligation to be acquainted with ecclesiastical history in general, as well as with the history of the church of England in particular. He should learn, not merely from habit and prescription, but from an attentive comparison of our national church with other ecclesiastical institutions, to dis- The most acute enemy of Christianity, the cern both the distinguishing characters and emperor Julian, who had himself been bred appropriate advantages of our church estab- a Christian and a scholar, well understood lishment. He ought to inquire in what man- what was most likely to hurt its cause. ner its interests are interwoven with those of knew the use which the Christians were mathe state, so far as to be inseparable from king of ancient authors, and of rhetoric, in them. He should learn, that from the su- order to refute error, and establish truth.preme power, with which the laws invest him They fight us,' said he, by the knowover the church, arises a most awful respon- ledge of our own authors; shall we suffer sibility, especially in the grand prerogative ourselves to be stabbed with our own of bestowing the higher ecclesiastical ap-swords?' He actually made a law to inpointments,- -a trust which involves conse- terdict their reading Homer and Demostquences far too extensive for human minds henes; prohibited to their schools the to calculate; and which a sovereign, even study of antiquity, and ordered that they amid all the dazzling splendor of royalty, should confine themselves, to the explanawhile he preserves tenderness of conscience, tion of Matthew and Luke, in the churches and quickness of sensibility, will not reflect of the Galileans. on without trepidation. While history offers It can never be too soon, for the royal punumberless instances of the abuse of this pil, to begin to collect materials for reflecpower, it records numberless striking exam- tion, and for action. Her future character ples of its proper application. It even pre- will much depend on the course of reading, sents some, in which good sense has operated the turn of temper, the habit of thought now usefully in the absence of all principle.-acquired, and the standard of morals now When a profligate ecclesiastic applied for fixed. The acquisition of present tastes preferment to the profligate duke of Orleans, will form the elements of her subsequent while regent of France, urging as a motive, character. Her present acquirements, it is that he should be dishonoured if the duke did not make him a bishop- And I,' replied the regent, shall be dishonoured if I do.'

CHAP. V.

true, will need to be matured by her afterexperience; but experience will operate to comparatively little purpose, where only a slender stock has been laid in for it to work upon; and where these materials for forming the character have not been previously prepared. Things must be known before they The part should be studied before it is acted, if we expect to have it acted well.

On the importance of studying Ancient His- are done tory.

THOSE pious persons do not seem to un- Where much is to be learned, time must derstand the true interests of Christianity, be economised; and in the judicious selecwho forbid the study of pagan literature. tion of pagan literature, the discernment of That it is of little value, comparatively with the preceptor will be particularly exercised. Christian learning, does not prove it to be All those writers, however justly celebrated, altogether without its usefulness. In the who have employed much learning, in elabpresent period of critical investigation, bea-orating points which add little to the practithen learning seems to be justly appreciated, cal wisdom or virtue of mankind; all such

as are rather curious than useful, or ingen-whom corrupt princes, not contented with ious than instructive, should be passed over; having sacrificed them to their unjust jealnor need she bestow much attention on ousy, would rob also of their fair renown. points, which, though they may have been When Arulenus Rusticus was condemned accurately discussed, are not seriously im- by Domitian, for having written with its deportant. Dry critical knowledge, though served eulogium, the life of that excellent it may be correctly just; and mere chroni- citizen, Thrasea Poetus; when Senecio was cles of events, though they may be strictly put to death by the same emperor, for having true, teach not the things she wants. Such rendered the like noble justice to Helvidius authors as Sallust, who, in speaking of tur- Priscus-when the historians themselves, bulent innovators, remarks, that they thought like the patriots whom they celebrated, were the very disturbance of things established a sentenced to death, their books also being sufficient bribe to set them at work: those condemned to the flames; when Fannia, who, like this exquisite historian, unfold the the incomparable wife of Helvidisu, was internal principles of action, and dissect the banished, having the courage to carry into hearts and minds of their personages, who exile that book which had been the cause of develop complicated circumstances, furnish it; a book of which her conjugal piety had a clue to trace the labyrinth of causes and furnished the materials. In the fire which effects, and assign to every incident its pro- consumed these books,' says the author of per motive, will be eminently useful. But, the life of Agricola, the tyrants imagined if she be taught to discern the merits of wri- that they had stifled the very utterance of ters, it is that she may become not a critic the Roman people, abolished the lawful pow. in books, but in human nature. er of the senate, and forced mankind to doubt of the very evidence of their senses. Having expelled philosophy, and exiled science, they flattered themselves that nothing, which bore the stamp of virtue, would exist."*-But history has vindicated the noble sufferers. Poetus and Helvidius will ever be ranked among the most honourable patriots; while the emperor, who, in destroying their lives could not injure their reputation, is consigned to eternal infamy.

History is the glass by which the royal mind should be dressed. If it be delightful for a private individual, to enter with the historian into every scene which he describes, and into every event which he relates; to be introduced into the interior of the Roman senate, or the Athenian areopagus; to follow Pompey to Pharsalia, Miltiades to Marathon, or Marlborough to Blenheim; how much more interesting will this be to a sovereign? To him for whom senates de- The examples which history records, furbate, for whom armies engage, and who is nish faithful admonitions to succeeding prinhimself to be a prime actor in the drama! Of ces, respecting the means by which empires how much more importance is it to him, to are erected and overturned. They show by possess an accurate knowledge of all the suc- what arts of wisdom, or by neglect of those cessive governments of that world, in a prin- arts, little states become great, or great cipal government of which he is one day to states fall into ruin; with what equity or intake the lead. To possess himself of the ex-justice wars have been undertaken; with perience of ancient states, of the wisdom of every antecedent age! To learn modera tion from the ambition of one, caution from the rashness of another, and prudence perhaps from the indiscretion of both! To apply foregone examples to his own use; adopting what is excellent, shuning what is erroDeous, and omitting what is irrelevant!

Reading and observation are the two grand sources of improvement; but they lie not equally open to all. From the latter, the sex and habits of a royal female, in a good measure, exclude her. She must then, in a greater degree, depend on the information which books afford, opened and illustrated by her preceptor. Though her personal observation must be limited, her advantages from historical sources may be large and various.

what ability or incapacity they have been conducted; with what sagacity or shortsightedness treaties have been formed. How national faith has been maintained, or forfeited. How confederacies have been made, or violated. History, which is the amusement of other men, is the school of princes. They are not to read it merely as the rational occupation of a vacant hour, but to consult it, as a storehouse of materials for the art of government.

There is a splendor in heroic actions, which fires the imagination, and forcibly lays hold on the passions. Hence, the poets were the first, and, in the rude ages of antiquity, the only historians. They seized on whatever was dazzling, in character, or shining in action; exaggerated heroic qualities, immortalized patriotism, and deified If history for a time, especially during the courage. But, instead of making their hereign of the prince whose actions are re-roes patterns to men, they lessened the utilcorded, sometimes misrepresent characters.ity of their example, by elevating them into the dead, even the royal dead, are seldom gods.

men from the delusions of fable; of bringing down extravagant powers, and preternatural faculties, within the limits of human

flattered; unless, which indeed too frequent- Hence however arose the first idea of hisly happens, the writer is deficient in that tory; of snatching the deeds of illustrious just conception of moral excellence, which teaches to distinguish what is splendid from what is solid. But, sooner or later, history does justice. She snatches from oblivion, or reproach, the fame of those virtuous men, VOL. II.

4

*Beginning of Tacitus's life of Agricola.

nature and possibility; and reducing overcharged characters to the size and shape of real life; giving proportion, order and arrangement to the widest scheme of action, and to the most extended duration of time.

CHAP. VI.

Laws--Egypt-Persia.

most powerful argument to desire their perpetuation; and his providential destiny becomes his choice.

On the law of nature, and the law of revelation (where revelation is known) all human laws ought to depend. That a rule of civil conduct should be prescribed to man, by the state in which he lives, is made necessary by nature, as well as sanctioned by revelation. Were man an insulated being, the law of nature, and of revelation, would suffice for him; but, for aggregate man, something more than even municipal laws beBUT however the fictions of poetry might comes requisite. Divided as human beings have given being to history; it was sage po are, into separate states, and societies, conlitical institutions, good governments, and nected among themselves, but disconnected wise laws, which formed both its solid basis, with other states, each requires with relation and its valuable superstructure. And it is to the other, certain general rules, called the from the labours of ancient legislators, the law of nations, as much as each state needs establishment of states, the foundation of respecting itself, those distinct codes, which governments, and the progress of civil soci- are suited to their own particular exigencies. ety, that we are to look for more real great- On the whole, then, as the natural sense of ness, and more useful instruction, than from weakness and fear impels man to seek the all the extravagant exploits recorded in the protection, and the blessing of laws, so from fabulous of antiquity. the experience of that protection, and the ages So deep is the reverential awe which man-sense of that blessing, his reason derives the kind have uniformly blended with the idea of laws, that almost all civilized nations have affected to wrap up the origin of them in the obscurity of a devout mystery, and to If, therefore, we would truly estimate the intimate that they sprang from a divine value of laws, let us figure to ourselves the source. This has arisen partly from a love misery of that state of nature in which there of the marvellous, inherent in the human should be no law, but that of the strongest ; mind; partly from the vanity of a national no judge to determine right, or to punish fondness in each country, for losing their wrong; to redress suffering, or to repel inoriginal in the trackless paths of impenetra- jury; to protect the weak, or to control the ble antiquity. Of the former of those tastes, powerful. a legislator, like Numa, who had deep views If, under the prevalence of a false, and and who knew how much the people reve- even absurd religion, several ancient states, rence whatever is mysterious, would natural- that of Egypt in particular, subsisted in so ly avail himself. And his supposed divine much splendor for so long a period, and afcommunication was founded in his consum- terwards sunk into such abject depression, mate knowledge of the human mind; a the causes of both are obvious. The LAWS knowledge which a wise prince will always of ancient Egypt were proverbial for their wisdom. It has not escaped several christurn to good account. But, however the mysteriousness of the tian historians that it was the human praise origin of laws may excite the reverence of of him who was ordained to be the legislathe vulgar, it is the wise only who will duly tor of God's own people, that he was skilled venerate their sanctity, as they alone can appreciate their value. LAWS are providentially designed, not only to be the best subsidiary aid of Religion, where she is operaThe laws of this state so strongly enforced tive, but to be in some sort her substitute, in those instances where her own direct opera mercy, that they punished with death those tions might be ineffectual. For, even where who refused to save the life of a fellow-creathe immediate law of God is little regarded, ture if attacked, when it was in their power. the civil code may be externally efficient, The justice of the Egyptian laws was so infrom its sanctions being more visible, palpa- flexible, that the kings obliged the judges to ble, tangible. And human laws are direct-swear that they would never depart from the ly fitted to restrain the outward acts of those, principles of rectitude, though even in obewhose hearts are not influenced by the di

in all the learning of the Egyptians. And it was meant to confer an high eulogium on the wisest of the kings of Israel, that his wisdom eclipsed that of Egypt.

*It is to be observed that this splendor alludes vine injunctions. Laws, therefore, are the surest fences of the best blessings of civili- to the prosperity arising from wise political institutions merely; for the private morals of Egypt zed life. They bind society together, while must have borne some proportion to her corrupt they strengthen the separate interests of idolatry, which afterwards became of the most dethose whom they reciprocally unite. They grading and preposterous kind. Her wisdom, we tie the hands of depredation in the poor, and must therefore infer, was chiefly political wisdom. of oppression in the rich: protect the weak against the encroachments of the powerful, and draw their sacred shelter round all that is dear in domestic, or valuable in social life. They are the truest guardians of the dignity of the throne, and the only rampart of the liberty of the people.

Her morality seems to have been, in a good measure, cultivated with a view to aggrandize the state, and in violation of many natural feelings, as was political society, and her virtue appears to have the case in Sparta. Egypt was a well compacted been the effect of political discipline. In enumer ating her merits, our object is to prove the great 'importance of laws.