Modern history thus appears to me to present two great fields of investigation,—the progress of the human mind, and the progress of human prosperity.

The progress of the human mind, as seen in the advancement of literature and science, and as seen in the different modes which the European nations have adopted for administering the blessings of government and religion; to be traced, it must be confessed, through the wars and the disputes, foreign and domestic, which such most serious, most interesting subjects could not fail to occasion.

The progress of human prosperity, as seen in the growth, multiplication, and extension of the accommodations of life; to be traced, it must also be confessed, through systems of unenlightened legislation; through monopolies and restrictions; and, what is still more to be lamented, through atrocious enterprises of cruelty and conquest. To the former of these subjects to the fortunes of the civil and religious liberties of mankind—we have hitherto more particularly adverted; for they form the most important and critical portion of the first part of modern history.

But the latter, the subject of the internal trade, manufactures, commercial greatness, and rivalship of the different states of Europe, must hereafter share also our attention. When united they constitute the great interest and instruction of the more modern history of Europe and of the world.

LECTURE XXII.

1811.

WILLIAM III.

THE great subject of all history is the civil and religious liberties of mankind, for on these depend their intelligence, their prosperity, their happiness, private and public; and hence arises the extraordinary interest which belongs to the era of our Revolution. In consequence of that most fortunate event, these liberties were in England asserted with a success unexampled in the history of the nations of the earth, as we must now, therefore, proceed to consider, as we have already in part done, how far they were at that period of 1688 adjusted and established, and what was their subsequent progress.

The first object of our attention is the reign of William III. Then follows that of Queen Anne, both very

critical.

This will appear very evident to those who examine them with any care, more particularly to those who have the faculty of placing themselves in the scenes that they see described by the historian, a faculty of great consequence to those who are to read history.

In the present lecture, I shall first mention the books that must be either consulted or read. I shall then make some observations on the parties by which these and subsequent periods have been distinguished.

I shall then allude to some of the constitutional questions which occurred in the reign of William, such as were then of importance, and such as I conceive will be ever of importance, to the inhabitants of this country, while their free and mixed form of government remains.

And now, when we enter upon the reign of William, we have

no longer the assistance of the philosophic Hume. We have no longer within our reach those penetrating observations, those careless and inimitable beauties, which were so justly the delight of Gibbon, and which, with whatever prejudices they may be accompanied, and however suspicious may be those representations which they sometimes enforce and adorn, still render the loss of his pages a subject of the greatest regret, and leave a void which it is impossible adequately to supply.

In the absence of Hume, the histories of Dr. Somerville will be found very useful, nor are they as yet sufficiently known, nor duly estimated.

Belsham will, I think, in like manner be found, for a considerable part of his work, very valuable: spirited, intelligent, an ardent friend to civil and religious liberty, and though apparently a dissenter, not a sectarian. In his latter volumes, indeed, from the breaking out of the late French war in 1793, he has departed from the equanimity of an historian, and has degenerated into the warmth, and almost the rage of a party writer.

Of these authors (Somerville and Belsham) the use to the student will be the same. They will show him those more important subjects of reflection which the detail of the history contains; they will offer to him observations generally very judicious, and always the results of much more labour and investigation than he will himself be disposed to undertake. These more important subjects may, whenever occasion requires, be followed up in their references; and some of them may be investigated in this more complete manner, on account of their own general importance, and as a portion of the proper labour of a philosophic reader of history.

For the detail, Tindal will be found not unworthy to be the successor of Rapin; equally diligent and copious, with the same attachment to the best interests of Englishmen, and, like his predecessor, a sort of general substitute, in the absence of other writers.

But the great historian for detail, even more than Tindal, is Ralph. Such subjects as may be thought, from the representations of Belsham and Somerville, to be important, may be read with much advantage in this author; ill-humoured, no doubt, but laborious and impartial. Indeed, the whole work should be looked over, though it cannot, and for general purposes, it need not, be regularly read. Burnet must, of course, be diligently perused, as an eye-witness and actor in the scene; his merits and defects seem to remain in this part of his history, what they were from the first. He is often blamed, but his reports and representations are seldom without their reasonableness or their foundation, and must always be at least taken into account. Of late the credit of Burnet, even for accuracy, has been rising; and since I drew up this lecture, a new edition of the work has been very properly published at Oxford, in which, for the first time, are given the abusive notes of Swift, the unfriendly comments of Lord Dartmouth, and the very excellent and constitutional observations of Speaker Onslow.

Cobbett will supply the debates. In the appendix to the fifth volume, there are several tracts published which will give an idea of the views of reasoners and statesmen at the time; and there is not one of them which will not be found, in some way or other, valuable; more particularly Lord Shaftesbury's tract, No. 1; containing his objections to the representation of the House of Commons, and a scheme for its reform. Lord Somers' No. 4; his explanation and vindication of the merits of the Revolution, and the subsequent system. Mr. Hampden's No. 6; a general description of the state of public opinion at the time and of the constitution, and against an excise. Mr. Lawton's No. 9 is a sort of specimen of the discontents of the Whigs. In No. 13 will be found all the arguments in favour of the liberty of the press. No. 15 is worth reading, and particularly Nos. 17 and 18, the Kentish petition, &c.

The leading views, that I should propose to the student,

of the reign of William, are these:-Supposing himself, as usual, to be unacquainted with all subsequent events, he is to consider as the great object before him: first, the liberties of England; secondly, the liberties of the continent; that is, in other words, first, whether the Revolution of 1688 was destined to succeed; whether the exiled family was to be restored: secondly, whether the ambition of Louis, whether the aggrandisement of France, was to be checked. These seem the questions to which all others may be considered as subordinate; and within which they may, for the most part, be included.

And first with respect to England. To all reasoners at the time, the ultimate success of the Revolution must have appeared very doubtful. The student cannot have reflected upon the history of this Revolution in 1688, without observing the fortunate manner in which it was accomplished; that the success of it was owing, not only to the great prudence and merit of William, but the great mistakes and faults of James, and above all to the zeal of the latter for the Roman Catholic religion. The church party, and the Tory party, comprehending so large a portion of the nation, always looked upon the crown as really belonging to the Stuart family. France was, in the meantime, considered not only as pledged to the cause of James, but as a power not easily to be resisted. Charles II., it could not but be remembered, though long a wanderer on the continent, had been at last most triumphantly restored. Any good fortune or good management in James, the want of them in William, the death of either, a thousand contingencies, such as often take place in the affairs of the world, might obviously be sufficient to reinstate the Stuarts in their hereditary right. They had been driven away by a movement, forced and unnatural to the English nation: their return was therefore, on the whole, very probable; and while this probability continued, the cause of the Revolution must all along be considered as still at issue.

The very doubtful nature of the success of the Revolution