government was restored and established by parliament; and the genera assembly met, after it had been discontinued from the year 652. Hither to the provision for the maintenance of the clergy was inadequate, but their stipends were now raised and regulated by the price of grain.

The presbyterian church government afterwards secured in the treaty of union, is founded on a parity of ecclesiastical authority among all its presbyters or pastors, and modelled after the Calvinistic plan, which Knox recommended to his countrymen. This form of government excludes all pre-eminence of order, all ministers being held equal in rank and power. In matters relating to discipline a pastor is asisted by elders, who ought to be selected from among the most intelligent and consistent of the parishioners, but have no right to teach or dispense the sacraments. Their proper office is to watch over the morals of the people, and to catechise and visit the sick. They likewise discharge the office of deacons. by managing the funds for the maintenance of the poor within their districts. The elders and ministers compose what is called a kirk or churchsession, the lowest ecclesiastical judicature in Scotland. When a parishioner is convicted of immoral conduct, the church-session inflicts some ecclesiastical censure. If a person considers himself aggrieved, he may appeal to the presbytery, which is the next superior court. The ministers of an indefinite number of contiguous parishes, with one ruling elder chosen half-yearly, out of every church-session, constitute what is called a presbytery, which has cognizance of all ecclesiastical matters within its bounds. Synods are composed of several presbyteries, and of a ruling elder from every church-session within their bounds. They review the proceedings of presbyteries, and judge in references, complaints, and appeals from the inferior court. But their decisions and acts are reversible by the general assembly, which is the highest ecclesiastical court, and from which there is no appeal.

FRANCE, which in the time of the Romans was called Gaul, or Galba, extended from the Pyrenees to the Rhine, and on the side of Italy, beyond the Alps to the Adriatic, that which was situated on the Italian side of the Alps being named Cisalpine Gaul, and that beyond the Alps, Transalpine Gaul. The part of Transalpine Gaul nearest Upper Italy, and stretching along the Mediterranean towards the Pyrenees, was conquered by Fabius. As this was the first part that was converted into a Roman province, it was called, by way of eminence, the Provincia (afterwards changed into Provence.) It was bounded by the Alps, the Cevennes, and the Rhone. Cæsar, who conquered Transalpine Gaul at a later period, found it divided into three parts: 1. Aquitania, extending from the Pyrenees to the Garonne, chiefly occupied by Iberian tribes; 2. Gallia Celtica, from the Garonne to the Seine and Marne; 3. Gallia Belgica, in the north, extending to the Rhine. But subsequently, by the command of Augustus, a very different and much more minute division of the country took place, which, however, it is not here necessary to describe..

The Gauls were the chief branch of the great original stock of Celts, and as they called themselves Gael, the name Gaul probably thus took its rise. A great resemblance appears to have existed among all the Celts, and although they were divided into numerous tribes, there were but few branches that were perceptibly different from each other. The period of their earliest migrations is, however, too remote for history, and inapplicable to our present object. Cæsar represents all the Gallic tribes as warlike, going always armed, and ready on all occasions to decide their differences by the sword; as a people of great levity, and little inclined to idleness, but hospitable, generous, confiding, and sincere. The Druids, their priests, who were the sole depositaries of learning among them, were indebted to the credulity of the people for the deference they paid to them. These priests ruled the people by the terror of their anathemas; they were exempt from all tribute to the state, and abounded in riches. They had also bards or poets, who composed war-songs to animate the combatants, and to perpetuate the memory of their heroes. The elders, or senators of their towns, together with the military and their chiefs, formed the nobility; these, in conjunction with the priests, possessed the riches and the power; vassalage and misery were the portion of the commonalty.

The discipline of the Romans, and the genius and good fortune of Cæsar, triumphed in ten years over the valour of the Gauls. Colonies had commenced the work of subjugation, and conquest completed it; Gaul became a Roman province. The municipal regulations, and the agriculture of the Romans, soon rendered the country flourishing, but despotism afterwards despoiled it. This state of things continued for four centuries, when the people were reduced to the lowest depths of misery, impoverished by the proconsuls, the prey of factions, and alternately passing from insurrection to slavery, under tyrants, who were perpetually changing. But the "incursions of the barbarians" on the Roman territory, had by this time greatly humbled the former mistress of the world. The civilization, arts, and literature of the Romans were on the decline; the empire, divided and weakened, was falling into ruin, discipline was relaxed, and the glory of the Roman name faded before the barbaric hosts that issued from the north and overran the five provinces which had flourished under the administration of a Trajan and an Antonine.

Four hundred years after the Roman conquests, and under the reign of the weak Honorious, a people known by the name of Franks, from Franconia in Germany, abandoned their morasses and their woods, in search of a better country. Under the direction of their king Pharamond, they passed the Rhine, and entered Gaul, but carried their arms no further than Belgic Gaul, that part of modern France till lately called the Netherlands. Pharamond died soon after he had effected the settlement. The long lists of kings which followed Pharamond, are divided into three races. The first is called the MEROVINGIAN, from Merovius, the third king of the Franks; it produced twenty-one kings' to France, from the year 448 to the year 751, and ended with Childeric III., surnamed the Foolish. The second race began with Pepin, mayor of the palace, who did not take upon himself the title of king; nor did his son, the celebrated Charles Martel. Pepin the Short, his son, deprived Childeric III. of his crown. This race, called the CARLOVINGIAN, gave thirteen kings to France. It acquired much glory under Charlemagne, but became very weak under his successors, and terminated with Louis V., called the Sluggard, after having possessed the throne 235 years, from 752 to 987. The third race, called the CAPETINE, commenced with Hugh Capet, and gave to France thirty-three kings, who reigned 8C6 years, and finished with Louis XVI., who was beheaded January, 1793. France then became a republic, which lasted until May 1804, when it was transformed into an empire by Napoleon Bonaparte,

who had risen on the ruins of the republic, and had been dictator of France under the appellation of chief consul. The imperial title, however, lasted but ten years, Napoleon having been driven from his usurped throne, and Louis XVIII. restored to the throne of his ancestors.

In tracing the obscure records of the early periods, we behold alternately wars and alliances among the Romans and Frauks, the Visigoths, and other barbarians; ambitious generals raised to power by the imperial court, but quickly overcoming their feeble masters, and calling in the aid of the barbarous tribes to serve the ever-varying purposes of their personal ambition. The western empire was then declining; the Saxons seized upon Anjou and Maine; the Burgundians occupied the country near the Seine; the Goths and Visigoths extended their dominions as far as the Loire; the Franks and the Allmanns, branches of the different hordes which issued from Germany, contended for the possession of the north; while the Romans or Gauls kept the other part of the country. On the conquest of Gaul by the Franks, the lands were distributed among their officers; and these, with the clergy, formed the first great councils or parliaments. Thus the government was evidently a kind of mixed monarchy, in which nothing of moment was transacted without the grand council of the nation, consisting of the principal officers, who held their lands by military tenures. It appears, indeed, that when Gaul became the possession of northern invaders, it did not acquire that degree of freedom to its constitution which Britain received, about the same time, from conquerors who sprung from the same common stock.

The Merovingian Dynasty, or First Race.

A. D. 420.—Pharamond, the first king of the Franks, was succeeded by Clodio, who extended the bounds of his kingdom. Merovius secured the acquisitions of his predecessor, and Childeric, his son, pushed his conquests to the banks of the river Seine. Clovis, his son, aud the inheritor of his ambition, aggrandized his kingdom, and so far extended his power that he is ranked as the founder of the French monarchy. This prince, the first of the Frank kings who had embraced Christianity, brought almost all the Gauls under his government. He parted his dominions, before he died, between his children. Clovis owed his conversion to Christianity from his marriage with a Christian princess of Spain, and his example was followed by most of the Franks, who until that time had been pagans. He was baptized with great splendour in the cathedral at Rheims, on which occasion the king granted freedom to a number of slaves, and received the title of "Most Christian King," which has ever since been retained by the monarchs of France. Charles I., the youngest and most barbarous of the sons of Clovis, and the last survivor of them, at the time of his death possessed the whole of France; his dominion extended from the banks of the Elbe to the sea of Aquitaine, in the Atlantic ocean, and from the Scheldt to the sources of the Loire. At his death he divided it

among his four sons. The kingdom was soon after rendered miserable, from the jealousy of two ambitious women, the queens Fredigonde and Brunehaut. The former was a prodigy of boldness, of wickedness, and genius, and gained several battles in person; the other is described as a woman who, under the exterior graces of beauty, practised the worst of vices, and expiated her crimes by a shocking death.

A. D. 613.-Clotaire II., the worthy son of Fredigonde, became sole monarch of France. Under this prince the mayors of the palace began to have considerable power, which increased under Dagobert I., and became excessive under Clovis II. and his successors. We see in the first race little more than the shadows of kings, while their ministers governed and tyrannized over the people. Pepin Heristal, mayor of the palace to Childeric the Foolish, seized the whole authority. His son, Charles

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Martel, a bold and enterprising warrior and great politician, with more ambition even than his father, increased his power by his brilliant achievements, and governed France under the title of duke.

The Carlovingian Dynasty, or Second Race.

As mayor of the palace, Charles Martel had long exercised the sovereign power in the name of Childeric, a weak and indolent prince. The Saracons, who had made themselves masters of the south of France, penetrating into the heart of the kingdom, were at length entirely defeated by him, 'n one great battle, fought between Tours and Poitiers, which lasted seven days, and in which 300,000 Moslems were slain. In consequence of this splendid victory, he was considered the champion of Christendom, and such was his popularity, that with the consent of the people he assumed the doninion of France; for, having a victorious army at his command, he not only deposed the king, but rendered himself an absolute prince, by depriving the nobility and clergy of their share in the govern

ment.

A. D. 752.—His son Pepin succeeded him on the throne, but restored the privileges of the nobility and clergy, on their agreeing to exclude the former race of kings. He also divided the provinces among his principal nobility, allowing them to exercise sovereign authority in their respective governments, till at length, assuming a kind of independency, they only acknowledged the king as their head, and this gave rise to the numerous principalities, and their several parliaments, every province retaining the same form of government that had been exercised in the whole; and no laws were made, or taxes raised, without the concurrence of the clergy.

A. D. 768.-Charles, his son, called Charlemagne, was valiant, wise, and victorious. He conquered Italy, Germany, and part of Spain, and was crowned emperor of the Romans (the western empire), by Pope Leo III. He established a regular and popular government, compiled a code of laws, favoured the arts and sciences, and died with the glory of being beloved by his subjects, and feared by his enemies. Louis I., le Debonnaire, the only surviving son of Charlemagne, began his reign with the most cruel executions. His children revolted against him, he was compelled to do public penance, and declared to have forfeited the imperial dignity. The Normans renewed their incursions and their ravages under Charles the Bald, besieged Paris in the reign of Charles the Gross, and at length obtained a fixed establishment under Charles the Simple. The royal au thority became weakened, while the power of the lords considerably augmented; the imperial dignity was already lost to the house of Charlemagne, and it was soon followed by the loss of the crown of France

FIRST BRANCH.-The Capetine Dynasty, or Third Race.

A. D. 987.-After the death of Louis V., the last of the Carlovingian race, Hugh Capet usurped the throne. This Hugh was the grandson of Robert, whom the French had elected king in the room of Charles the Simple. His father had rendered himself much respected by the nation, in defending Paris against the attacks of the barbarians. Hugh Capet inheriting the valour of his ancestors, saved France under Lothaire. This family possessed the duchies of Paris and of Orleans; and these two cities, by their situation on the Loire and the Seine, were the strongest bulwarks of the monarchy against the Normans. Hugh associated his son Robert in the kingdom. Robert, as pusillanimous as his father was courageous, reunited the duchy of Burgundy to the crown, but his weak nëss tarnished his virtues.

A. D. 1031.-Henry I., who had the misfortune to see his own mothe irmed against him, tó deprive him of his crown and give it to his brother

with the assistance of the duke of Normandy, forced his brother to content himself with Burgundy, which this branch of the royal family possessed 300 years. At this period the tyranny of feudalism was at its height. Overwhelmed with services, toils, and subsidies of all sorts, imposed by the military or the ecelesiastics, the people fought only to rivet their chains more firmly. Those who lived in the country were called villeins those of the cities and towns, bourgeois. Neither of them could labour but for the advantage of their lords, who often quartered their military retainers upon them. Among themselves the lords were equally ferocious; their declarations of war extended to relations and allies, and the quarrel of a single family was sufficient to involve a whole community in the fiercest war for years together. Thus France became one vast field of blood, and perpetual carnage at length wearied even ferocity itself.

L

A. D. 1060.-The long reign of Philip I., son of Henry I., is an epoch of remarkable events. William, duke of Normandy, crossed the channel, and effected the conquest of England in 1066, where he established his own rigorous modification of the feudal regime, and had also the firmness to refuse homage to the pope. A jest of the king of France on the obesity of William kindled a war, from which may be dated a long continued enmity between France and England.

A. D. 1108.-Philip was succeeded by his son, Louis the Gross. The first years of his reign were disturbed by insurrections of his lords in different parts of the kingdom, and these insurrections were the more troublesome, as they were secretly fomented by the English king, that by weakening the power of France his duchy of Normandy might be the more secure. These wars between the two countries were often interrupted by treaties, but as often re-lighted by national ambition and antipathy. Louis the Young, unfortunate in the crusades, at his return repudiated his wife, in whose right he inherited Guienne and Poictou. He died in 1180, and was succeeded by his son, Philip II., surnamed the August. Philip II. defeated John, king of England, and wrested from him Normandy, Maine, and Anjou. He then went on the crusade with Richard Coeur-deLion, to rescue Jerusalem from the Saracens. The two kings succeeded only in taking Acre, and Philip, on his return, treacherously invaded Normandy during Richard's absence.

A. D. 1223.-Philip Augustus was succeeded by his son, Louis VIII., surnamed the Lion. His short reign was not marked by any great events, but he distinguished it by enfranchising a great number of serfs or villeins. He signalized his courage against the English, and died of a contagious distemper, at the age of thirty-nine years.

A. D. 1226.-Louis IX., surnamed for his piety, Saint Louis, having de feated the king of England and many of the grand vassals of France, at Tailleburg, conducted an army to Palestine, took Damietta in Egypt, and distinguished himself at Massous, where he was taken prisoner. He was friend to the indigent, and a zealous advocate for the Christian religion. He died before Tunis, where he had gone upon a second crusade against the infidels. Philip III., surnamed the Bold, his son, was proclaimed king by the army; he was liberal, benevolent, and just, but displayed no striking abilities. He was succeeded by his son, Philip the Fair.

A. D. 1285.-Philip IV., surnamed le Bel, or the Fair, celebrated for his disputes with Edward I. of England, and Pope Boniface VIII., abolished the order of the Templars, reduced the Flemings, and made the seat of the parliament permanent in Paris. He was of a lively disposition, but cruel and unfeeling, and employed ministers who possessed his defects without his good qualities. In his reign, the states-general, or representatives of the three estates of the kingdom, the nobility, clergy, and commonalty, were first assembled. Philip JV. was succeeded by his son, Louis X., during whose reign, which was short, the people were burdened