Torcy and our common historians, the Correspondence of Bolingbroke, which was not long ago published by Mr. Parke, should be looked at. It touches only on the surface of these important negotiations, but after the detail is known, the rapid allusions and brief notices that are taken by the Secretary Bolingbroke, from time to time, of these affairs, are not without their interest. Those of Prior's letters which appear here are lively and entertaining, so are indeed those of Bolingbroke; but from a correspondence of this sort we expect to acquire a greater insight into the transactions to which they refer than it must be confessed we can here obtain.

The merits of the peace of Utrecht was a question which you will perceive, from the occurrences that took place in and out of parliament during the close of this and the opening of the succeeding reign, extremely agitated the public mind. There is a short disquisition on the subject in the twentieth chapter of Somerville, to which I must refer. The historian there arrives at a conclusion which appears to me reasonable, that the peace was censurable rather as being disproportioned to the success of the war than as having fallen short of the ends of the grand alliance.

The question of the peace as between the Whigs and Tories may be seen argued in the eighth letter of Bolingbrake, on the Study and Use of History, and in the reply of the first Horace Walpole. It cannot be denied that the French court saw that it would be the personal interest of the English ministers to make a peace; that of this advantage France was ready, most ungenerously to those ministers, to avail herself; and that the English ministers exerted themselves in no proper manner to preclude France from any such advantage. They in no respect showed, as they ought to have done, that though desirous of peace, as good and wise men should always be, that though cooler and more equitable in this important respect than the Whigs, still they were as determined, as the Whigs, to make a common cause with Europe against the power of France; and that whatever France might conceive with respect to their personal interest as leaders of a party in England, that they would still do nothing inconsistent with their character as the arbiters, for

such they were at the time, of the great interests of the most civilized portion of mankind.

Torcy, through the whole of the third volume of his Memoirs, cannot help repeatedly contrasting, with pleasure, the existing and former situation of France; and these expressions, connected with the attendant circumstances of the case, amount to something like a reproach to the Tory ministers, with whom France had now to deal, instead of Marlborough and the Whigs.

Again, it cannot be denied that Harley, the first minister in the Tory administration, by the shuffling, temporizing, and narrow nature of his mind, was totally unfit to compose the differences and adjust the interests of Europe at that remarkable crisis. Bolingbroke should have been the Tory minister, not Harley, if any great and decisive alteration was to be made in the policy and measures of the country, and if a peace was to be attempted. England would not then have been disgraced by some of the wretched and even dishonourable measures that were resorted to. Bolingbroke, in his very curious close of his eighth letter, seems often to defend more than he can approve, to defend measures of which certainly he would not have been the author, and to some of which, it is to be hoped, if prime minister, he would not have submitted.

To the general train and object of Bolingbroke's very able and spirited reasonings, the Memoirs of Torcy seem to me, though little intended for any such purpose, to be a very adequate reply. The question is not whether the Whigs made a proper use of their success in war, when they came to negotiations for a peace, but, when that question has been de cided, as I think it must be, against the Whigs, the question is, whether next the Tory ministers made fair use of that success, and whether they conducted themselves in a spirit of good faith with their allies, or proper sympathy with the great interests of their country.

This second question must, I think, be determined against them-decidedly, and even with indignation.

Since I wrote the lecture which I have now delivered, the work of Mr. Coxe has appeared, his History of the Princes of the House of Bourbon in Spain. Every subject that I have

now alluded to is here treated very fully, and I must refer to it. I have not found any occasion to alter what I had written. I do not admire the Tory ministry any more than Mr. Coxe; but whether the Whigs, from the first, were sufficiently moderate and disposed to peace, is another ques

tion.

Mr. Coxe's work is in many places entertaining, and is on the whole a valuable accession to our historical information; but, in the present state of the world and of literature, I suspect that much of the work will be passed over with a slight perusal by the general reader,

ΤΗ

LECTURE XXIV.

ANNE.

THE reign of Anne is distinguished, even in the annals of England, for the violence of its politics. Party violence has been not uncommonly a topic of censure and lamentation with good men, and their accusations and reproaches have been urged often with sincerity and sometimes with reason; but care must be taken on these occasions both by those who are disposed to make these indiscriminate indictments, and those who are disposed to listen to them. It is in itself rather a suspicious circumstance, when men who are at all conversant with the business of the world are found expressing themselves very strongly or very often against the violence of parties or the fury of factions. In a mixed and free government, there will naturally arise, as I must for ever repeat, two great and leading divisions, those who lean to the side of authority, and those who lean to the side of privilege. Questions, unlike in name and form, will often involve the same general principles, and men are not, therefore, always as inconsistent as they seem. Trains of measures will often emanate from one point, and proceed in the most strictly logical succession, and must be therefore supported and resisted always by the same men. It is, therefore, not possible that those who are really independent and sincere should not often in free legislative assemblies, vote in sets and parties, and it is equally impossible that they should not become inflamed by sympathy and collision. Read the works of Soame Jenyns, and of Locke. Would not each of these men, for instance, while they retained their integrity, have been seen always on the opposite sides of any question that could affect the constitution and government of a free country?

The real and proper topic for lamentation and reproach, is

not, exactly, that men are often violent and systematic in their opposition to each other, but that they do not adopt their principles with sufficient care, and then follow them up with sincerity and honour. Moderate men, as they call themselves, and men of no party, as they profess themselves to be, will generally be found to be men who take little concern, or are but ill informed, on political subjects; and if they are members of the legislature, they are pretty uniformly observed, as they are of no party, forsooth, to take care to be of that party which is the strongest-to be of the minister's party (be he who he may), and to benefit by their neutrality. It is possible, indeed, for men to be of no party, and to assume the high station of real patriots; and even when they are of a party, to remain patriots, by refusing to sanction those measures of the party which they disapprove. This, is, perhaps, the highest possible ambition of an intelligent and virtuous man, but such an eminence can only be attained on one hard condition, that of never receiving a favour from those in power.

I may recur to this subject on some occasion hereafter; for the present, however, I conclude by observing, that the causes of political animosity were, in these times, very peculiarly weighty and animating. The questions that lay often between the parties were, in reality, what family was to possess the throne; whether the title of the crown was to be founded on divine and hereditary right, or on the principles of an original contract, that is, whether on arbitrary or free principles; whether the religion established in the country was to be certainly Protestant, or probably Roman Catholic; in a word, whether principles decidedly favourable, or principles clearly hostile, to the civil and religious liberties of the country, were to be maintained and established.

But in a sort of connexion with this subject, I may mention, that in a mixed government like this, the attention. of those who wish well to the popular part of it, has been always very naturally directed to the influence which the executive power can directly exercise on the legislative bodies, by means of posts, places, and pensions, given to their members.

Place bills have therefore at different times been attempted,