On the

court. His morals as well as his politics were those of an earlier generation. Even when he was a young law student, living much with men of wit and pleasure, his natural gravity and his religious principles had to a great extent preserved him from the contagion of fashionable debauchery; and he was by no means likely, in advanced years and in declining health, to turn libertine. vices of the young and gay he looked with an aversion almost as bitter and contemptuous as that which he felt for the theological errors of the sectaries. He missed no opportunity of showing his scorn of the mimics, revelers, and courtesans who crowded the palace; and the admonitions which he addressed to the king himself were very sharp, and, what Charles disliked still more, very long. Scarcely any voice was raised in favor of a minister loaded with the double odium of faults which roused the fury of the people, and of virtues which annoyed and importuned the sovereign. Southampton was no more. Ormond performed the duties of friendship manfully and faithfully, but in vain. The chancellor fell with a great ruin. The king took the seal from him; the Commons impeached him; his head was not safe; he fled from the country; an act was passed which doomed him to perpetual exile; and those who had assailed and undermined him began to struggle for the fragments of his power.

The sacrifice of Clarendon in some degree took off the edge of the public appetite for revenge; yet was the anger excited by the profusion and negligence of the gov ernment, and by the miscarriages of the late war, by no means extinguished. The counselors of Charles, with the fate of the chancellor before their eyes, were anxious for their own safety. They accordingly advised their master to soothe the irritation which prevailed both in the Parliament and throughout the country, and, for that end, to take a step which has no parallel in the history of the house of Stuart, and which was worthy of the prudence and magnanimity of Oliver.

We have now reached a point at which the history of

the great English Revolution begins to be complicated with the history of foreign politics. The power of Spain had, during many years, been declining. She still, it is

true, held in Europe the Milanese and the two Sicilies, Belgium, and Franche Comté. In America her dominions still spread, on both sides of the equator, far beyond the limits of the torrid zone. But this great body had been smitten with palsy, and was not only incapable of giving molestation to other states, but could not, without assistance, repel aggression. France was now, beyond all doubt, the greatest power in Europe. Her resources have, since those days, absolutely increased, but have not increased so fast as the resources of England. It must also be remembered that, a hundred and eighty years ago, the empire of Russia, now a monarchy of the first class, was as entirely out of the system of European politics as Abyssinia or Siam; that the house of Brandenburg was then hardly more powerful than the house of Saxony; and that the republic of the United States had not then begun to exist. The weight of France, therefore, though still very considerable, has relatively diminished. Her territory was not, in the days of Louis the Fourteenth, quite so extensive as at present, but it was large, compact, fertile, well placed both for attack and for defense, situated in a happy climate, and inhabited by a brave, active, and ingenious people. The state implicitly obeyed the direction of a single mind. The great fiefs which, three hundred years before, had been, in all but name, independent principalities, had been annexed to the crown. Only a few old men could remember the last meeting of the States-General. The resistance which the Huguenots, the nobles, and the Parliaments had offered to the kingly power, had been put down by the two great cardinals who had ruled the nation during forty years. The government was now a despotism, but, at least in its dealings with the upper classes, a mild and generous despotism, tempered by courteous manners and chivalrous sentiThe means at the disposal of the sovereign were,

ments.

for that age, truly formidable. His revenue, raised, it is true, by a severe and unequal taxation which pressed heavily on the cultivators of the soil, far exceeded that of any other potentate. His army, excellently disciplined, and commanded by the greatest generals then living, already consisted of more than a hundred and twenty thou sand men. Such an array of regular troops had not been seen in Europe since the downfall of the Roman empire. Of maritime powers France was not the first; but, though she had rivals on the sea, she had not yet a superior. Such was her strength during the last forty years of the seventeenth century, that no enemy could singly withstand her, and that two great coalitions, in which half Christendom was united against her, failed of success.

The personal qualities of the French king added to the respect inspired by the power and importance of his kingdom. No sovereign has ever represented the majesty of a great state with more dignity and grace. He was his own prime minister, and performed the duties of that arduous situation with an ability and an industry which could not be reasonably expected from one who had in infancy succeeded to a crown, and who had been surrounded by flatterers before he could speak. He had shown, in an eminent degree, two talents invaluable to a prince: the talent of choosing his servants well, and the talent of appropriating to himself the chief part of the credit of their In his dealings with foreign powers he had some generosity, but no justice. To unhappy allies who threw themselves at his feet, and had no hope but in his compassion, he extended his protection with a romantic disin terestedness, which seemed better suited to a knight-errant than to a statesman; but he broke through the most sacred ties of public faith without scruple or shame, whenever they interfered with his interest, or with what he called his glory. His perfidy and violence, however, excited less enmity than the insolence with which he constantly reminded his neighbors of his own greatness and of their littleness. He did not at this time profess the

acts.

austere devotion which, at a later period, gave to his court the aspect of a monastery. On the contrary, he was as licentious, though by no means as frivolous and indolent, as his brother of England. But he was a sincere Roman Catholic; and both his conscience and his vanity impelled him to use his power for the defense and propagation of the true faith, after the example of his renowned predecessors, Clovis, Charlemagne, and St. Louis.

In

Our ancestors naturally looked with serious alarm on the growing power of France. This feeling, in itself perfectly reasonable, was mingled with other feelings less praiseworthy. France was our old enemy. It was against France that the most glorious battles recorded in our annals had been fought. The conquest of France had been twice effected by the Plantagenets. The loss of France had been long remembered as a great national disaster. The title of King of France was still borne by our sovereigns. The lilies of France still appeared mingled with our own lions, on the shield of the house of Stuart. the sixteenth century, the dread inspired by Spain had suspended the animosity of which France had anciently been the object; but the dread inspired by Spain had given place to contemptuous compassion, and France was again regarded as our national foe. The sale of Dunkirk to France had been the most generally unpopular act of the restored king. Attachment to France had been prominent among the crimes imputed by the Commons to Clarendon. Even in trifles the public feeling showed itself. When a brawl took place in the streets of Westminster between the retinues of the French and Spanish embassies, the populace, though forcibly prevented from interfering, had given unequivocal proofs that the old antipathy was not extinct.

France and Spain were now engaged in a more serious contest. One of the chief objects of the policy of Louis throughout his life was to extend his dominions toward the Rhine. For this end he had engaged in war with Spain, and he was now in the full career of conquest

The

The United Provinces saw with anxiety the progress of his arms. That renowned federation had reached the height of power, prosperity, and glory. The Batavian territory, conquered from the waves, and defended against them by human art, was in extent little superior to the principality of Wales. But all that narrow space was a busy and populous hive, in which new wealth was every day created, and in which vast masses of old wealth were hoarded. The aspect of Holland, the rich cultivation, the innumerable canals, the ever-whirling mills, the endless fleets of barges, the quick succession of great towns, the ports bristling with thousands of masts, the large and stately mansions, the trim villas, the richly-furnished apartments, the picture galleries, the summer houses, the tulip beds, produced on English travelers in that age an effect similar to the effect which the first sight of England now produces on a Norwegian or a Canadian. States-General had been compelled to humble themselves before Cromwell; but after the Restoration they had taken their revenge, had waged war with success against Charles, and had concluded peace on honorable terms. Rich, however, as the republic was, and highly considered in Europe, she was no match for the power of Louis. She apprehended, not without good cause, that his kingdom might soon be extended to her frontiers; and she might well dread the immediate vicinity of a monarch so great, so ambitious, and so unscrupulous. Yet it was not easy to devise any expedient which might avert the danger. The Dutch alone could not turn the scale against France. On the side of the Rhine no help was to be expected. Several German princes had been gained by Louis, and the emperor himself was embarrassed by the discontents of Hungary. England was separated from the United Provinces by the recollection of cruel injuries recently inflicted and endured; and her policy had, since the Restoration, been so devoid of wisdom and spirit, that it was scarcely possible to expect from her any valuable assistance.