Again, while the narratives of the contemporary historians furnish facts, they who live in a succeed ing age have the additional advantages, first, of chance of greater impartiality; secondly, of a comparison with corresponding events; and, thirdly, of having the tendencies of the events related, appreciated by the evidence of their actual effects. How imperfect, for example, would be the philosophical and political remarks, and how false the whole colour, belonging to any history of the French revolution which might have immediately appeared.* Much lapse of time is necessary, in order to reflect back light on the original tendency of events. The fomentation of political passions requires a long time to subside. The agitation continues till the events have nearly lost their interest, by the occurrence of a fresh class of events; which, in their turn, raise a new party, and excite a new interest; so that an impartial distribution of praise and censure is seldom made till those who are concerned in it have been long out of hearing. And it is an inconvenience inseparable from human things, that when writers are least able to come at the truth, they are most disposed to tell it.

It will be necessary to understand the political system of Europe, since that period, particularly, when the two powers of France and Austria having arisen to a greatness which made them mutually as well as generally formidable, other countries, seeing the necessity, for their own safety, of opposing the stronger and supporting the weaker, conceived the idea of that balance of power, that just equiponderance, which might preserve the security of all.

The French revolution, with its consequences, seem intended practically to contradict what Thucydides declared to be his design in writing history; namely, "by a faithful account of past things to assist mankind in conjecturing the future!"

But there is a far earlier epoch to which attention ought, perhaps, in the very first instance to be directed-I mean the reign of Alfred. This is eminently a study for kings. In Alfred, the most vigorous exertion of public justice was united with attachment to public liberty. He eagerly seized every interval of tranquillity, from the convulsions with which the state was torn, to collect materials for the most salutary institutions, which he afterwards established; he employed every moment he could snatch from the wars in which he was inevitably engaged, in introducing the arts of peace, and in turning the minds of his harassed and disorderly subjects to virtuous and industrious pursuits; in repairing the mischievous consequences of past insurrections, and wisely guarding against their return. He had to correct the habits of a people who had lived without laws, and without morals; and to reduce to civilization men who had been driven to subsist by chance or rapine. By a system of jurisprudence, which united moral discipline with the execution of penal laws, he undertook to give a new direction to habits inveterately depraved.

The royal pupil will be taught to ascribe the origin of some of our best usages to these sagacious regulations; above all, the conception of that unparalleled idea which so beautifully reconciles the exact administration of justice with individual liberty; the origin of our juries evidently appearing to have first entered the mind of Alfred. The effects on the people seem to have been proportioned to the exertions of the prince. Crimes were repressed. The most unexampled change took place in the national manners. Encouragement was held out to the reformed, while punishment kept in order the more irreclaimable. Yet, with all these strong measures, never was a prince more tenderly alive to the liberty of the subject. And

while commerce, navigation, ingenious inventions, and all the peaceful arts were promoted by him, his skill in the military tactics of that day was superior, perhaps, to that of any of his contemporaries.

To form such vast projects, not for disturbing the world, but for blessing it; to reduce those projects, in many instances, to the most minute detail of actual execution; to have surmounted the misfortune of a neglected education so as to make himself a scholar, a philosopher, and the moral as well as civil instructor of his people; all this implies such a grandeur of capacity, such an exact conception of the true character of à sovereign, such sublimity of principle, and such corresponding rectitude of practice, as fill up all our ideas of consummate greatness. In a word, Alfred seems to have been sent into the world to realize the beautiful fiction, which poets, philosophers, and patriots have formed of a perfect king. It is also worth observing, that all those various plans were both projected and executed by a monarch who, as all historians agree, had suffered more hardships than any ordinary adventurer, had fought more battles than most generals, and was the most voluminous author of his day.* And, if it should be asked by what means a single individual could accomplish such a variety of projects, the answer is simply this: It was in a good measure by an art of which little account is made, but which is, perhaps, of more importance in a sovereign than almost any other, at least it is one without which the brightest genius is often of little value, a strict economy of

time.

Between the earlier life of Alfred and that of Charles II. there was, as must be observed, a strik

See the character of Alfred in Hume, from which the preceding part of this account, in substance, is chiefly taken.

ing similarity. The paths of both to the throne were equally marked by such imminent dangers and "hair-breadth 'scapes," as more resemble romance than authentic history. What a lesson had Alfred prepared for Charles! But their characters, as kings, exhibited an opposition which is as strong as the resemblance in their previous fortunes. With an understanding naturally good; with that education which Alfred wanted; with every advantage which an improved state of society could give over a barbarous one; such, notwithstanding, was the uniform tenor of the Stuart's subsequent life, as almost to present the idea of an intended contrast to the virtues of the illustrious Saxon.

Another epoch to which the pupil's attention should be pointed, is the turbulent and iniquitous reign of king John; whose oppression and injustice were, by the excess to which they were carried, the providential means of rousing the English spirit, and of obtaining the establishment of the great charter. This famous transaction, so deservedly interesting to Englishmen, bestowed or secured the most valuable civil privileges; chiefly, indeed, to the barons and clergy, but also to the people at large. The privileges of the latter had, antecedently, been scarcely taken into the account, and their liberties, always imperfect, had suffered much infringement by the introduction of the feudal law into England under the Norman William. For, whether they were vassals under the barons, or vassals under the king, it made little difference in their condition; which was, in fact, to the greater part, little better than a state of absolute slavery. The barons, liberal, perhaps, through policy rather than humanity, in struggling for their own liberty, were compelled to involve in one common interest the liberty of the people; and the same laws which they demanded to secure their own protection, n

some measure necessarily extended their benign influence to the inferior classes of society. Those immunities, which are essential to the well-being of civil and social life, gradually became better secured. Injustice was restrained, tyrannical exactions were guarded against, and oppression was no longer sanctioned. This famous deed without any violent innovation, became the mound of property, the pledge of liberty, and the guarantee of independence. As it guarded the rights of all orders of men, from the lowest to the highest, it was vigorously contended for by all; for, if it limited the power of the king, it also confirmed it, by securing the allegiance and fidelity of the subject. It was of inestimable use by giving a determinate form and shape, "such a local habitation and a name," to the spirit of liberty; so that the English, when, as it often happened, they claimed the recognition of their legal rights, were not left to wander in a wide field, without having any specific object, without limitation, and without direction. They knew what to ask for, and, obtaining that, they were satisfied. We surely cannot but be sensible of the advantages which they derived from this circumstance, who have seen the effects of an opposite situation, in this very particular, illustrated so strikingly in the earlier period of the French revolution.

But, rapidity of progress seems, by the very laws of nature, to be precluded, where the benefit is to be radical and permanent. It was not, therefore, until our passion for making war within the territory of France was cured, nor until we left off tearing the bowels of our own country in the dissensions of the Yorkists and Lancastrians, after having, for near four hundred years, torn those of our neighbours; in a word, it was not until both foreign and civil fury began to cool, that in the reign of Henry