now, in one general fyftem of policy. New interefts beget new maxims of government, and new methods of conduct. Thefe, in their turns, beget new manners, new habits, new customs. The longer this new constitution of affairs continues, the more will this difference increase; and altho' fome analogy may remain long between what preceded and what fucceeds fuch a period, yet will this analogy foon become an object of mere curiofity, not of profitable enquiry. Such a period therefore is, in the true fense of the words, an epocha or an æra, a point of time at which you stop, or from which you reckon forward. I fay forward; because we are not to study, in the present cafe, as chronologers compute, backward. Should we perfist to carry our researches much higher, and to push them even to fome other period of the fame kind, we should misemploy our time: the causes then laid having spent themselves, the series of effects derived from them being over, and our concern in both confequently at an end. But a new syftem of causes and effects, that fubfifts in our time, and whereof our conduct is to be a part, arifing at the last period, and all that paffes in our time being dependant on what has paffed fince that period, or being immediately relative to it, we are extremely concerned to be well informed about all those paffages. To be intirely ignorant about the ages that precede this æra would be fhameful. Nay fome indulgence may be had to a temperate curiofity in the review of them. But to be learned about them is a ridiculous affectation in any man who means to be useful to the prefent age. Down to this æra let us read hiftory: from this æra and down to our own time, let us study it.

The end of the fifteenth century feems to be just such a period as I have been describing, for those who live in the eighteenth, and who inhabit the western parts of Europe. A little before, or a little after this point of time, all those events happened, and all those revolutions began, that have produced fo vaft a change in the manners, cuftoms, and interests of particular nations, and in the whole policy ecclefiaftical and civil, of those parts of the world.'

After this his lordship, in order to furnish a kind of clue to the studies of that noble lord to whom his letters are addreffed, gives a fhort view of the ecclefiaftical government of Europe from the beginning of the fixteenth century; and fhews that there is little reason for going up higher in the study of history, to acquire all the knowledge neceffary at this time in ecclefiaftical policy, or in civil policy as far as

it

it is relative to it. He then gives a fhort but diftinct view of the civil government of France, England, Spain and Germany in the beginning of the fixteenth century; after which he proceeds as follows.

To what purpose, fays he, fhould I trouble your lordship with the mention of histories of other nations? They are either fuch as have no relation to the knowledge you would acquire, like that of the Poles, the Muscovites, or the Turks; or they are fuch as, having an occafional or fecondary relation to it, fall of course into your scheme; like the history of Italy, for instance; which is sometimes a part of that of France, fometimes of that of Spain, and fometimes of that of Germany. The thread of hiftory, that you are to keep, is that of the nations who are and must always be concerned in the fame scenes of action with your own. Thefe are the principal nations of the west. Things that have no immediate relation to your own country, or to them, are either too remote, or too minute, to employ much of your time: and their history and your own is, for all your purposes, the whole hiftory of Europe.

The two great powers, that of France and Auftria being formed, and a rivalship established by confequence between them; it began to be the interest of their neighbours to oppose the strongest and most enterprifing of the two, and to be the ally and friend of the weakeft. From hence arose the notion of a balance of power in Europe, on the equal poize of which the fafety and tranquillity of all muft depend. To deftroy the equality of this balance has been the aim of each of thefe rivals in his turn and to hinder it from being destroyed, by preventing too much power from falling into one fcale, has been the principle of all the wife councils of Europe, relatively to France and to the houfe of Auftria, through the whole period that began at the æra we have fixed, and fubfifts at this hour. To make a careful and just observation, therefore, of the rife and decline of these powers, in the two last centuries, and in the prefent, of the projects which their ambition formed, of the means they employed to carry these projects on with fuccefs, of the means employed by others to defeat them, of the iffue of all these endeavours in war and in negociation, and particularly to bring your obfervations home to your own country and to your own ufe; of the conduct that England held, to her honour or dishonour, to her advantage or difadvantage, in every one of the numerous and important conjunctures that happened-ought

to

to be the principal subject of your lordship's attention in reading and reflecting on this part of modern hiftory.

Now to this purpose you will find it of great ufe, my lord, when you have a general plan of the history in your mind, to go over the whole again in another method, which I propose to be this. Divide the entire period into fuch particular periods as the general course of affairs will mark out to you fufficiently, by the rife of new conjunctures, of different schemes of conduct, and of different theatres of action. Examine this period of history as you would do a tragedy or a comedy; that is, take firft the idea, or a general notion of the whole, and after that examine every act and every scene apart. Confider them in themselves, and confider them relatively to one another. Read this history as you would that of any antient period; but study it afterwards, as it would not be worth your while to ftudy the other; nay, as you could not have in your power the means of studying the other, if the study was really worth your while. The former part of this period abounds in great hiftorians; and the latter part is fo modern, that even tradition is authentic enough to fupply the want of good hiftory: if we are curious to enquire, and if we hearken to the living with the fame impartiality and freedom of judgment as we read the dead: and he that does one will do the other. The whole period abounds în memorials, in collections of public acts and monuments, of private letters, and of treaties. All these muft come into your plan of study, my lord: many not to be read through, but all to be confulted and compared. They must not lead you, I think, to your enquiries; but your enquiries must lead you to them. By joining history and that which we call the materia histórica together in this manner, and by drawing your information from both, your lordfhip will acquire not only that knowledge which many have in some degree, of the great transactions that have passed, and the great events that have happened in Europe during this period, and of their immediate and obvious causes and confequences; but your lordship will acquire a much fuperior knowledge, and fuch a one as very few men poffefs almost in any degree, a knowledge of the true political system of Europe during this time. You will fee it in its primitive principles, in the conftitutions of governments, the fituations of countries, their national and true interests, the characters and the religion of people, and other permanent circumftances. You will trace it through all its fluctua

tions, and obferve how the objects vary feldom, but the means perpetually, according to the different characters of princes, and of thofe who govern; the different abilities of those who serve; the course of accidents, and a multitude of other irregular and contingent circumstances.

The particular periods into which the whole period fhould be divided, in my opinion, are these. 1. From the fifteenth to the end of the fixteenth century. 2. From thence to the Pyrenean treaty. 3. From thence down to the prefent time.

Your lordship will find the divifion as apt and as proper, relatively to the particular hiftories of England, France; Spain and Germany, the principal nations concerned, as it is relatively to the general history of Europe.'

. The feventh letter contains a sketch of the state and hiftory of Europe from the Pyrenean treaty to the year 1688. His lordfhip introduces it with obferving, that, as the ambition of Charles V. and the reftlefs temper, the cruelty and bigotry of Philip II. were principally objects of the attention and follicitude of the councils of Europe, in the first of the periods mentioned in the fixth letter; and as the ambition of Ferdinand II. & III. who aimed at nothing less than extirpating the proteftant intereft, and under that pretence fubduing the liberties of Germany, were objects of the fame kind in the second: fo an oppofition to the exorbitant ambition of the houfe of Bourbon has been the prin cipal concern of Europe, during the greatest part of the prefent period. The defign of afpiring to univerfal monarchy, he tells us, was imputed to Lewis XIV. as foon as he began to feel his own ftrength, and the weakness of his neighbours. This leads him to confider the great advantages. which Lewis had in many refpects. You will difcover, fays he, the first of these advantages, and fuch as were productive of all the reft, in the conduct of Richelieu, and of Mazarin. Richelieu formed the great defign, and laid the foundations: Mazarin purfued the defign, and raised the fuperftructure. If I do not deceive myself extremely, there are few paffages in history that deserve your lordship's attention more than the conduct that the first and greatest of these minifters held, in laying the foundations I speak of. You will obferve how he helped to embroil affairs on every fide, and to keep the houfe of Auftria at bay, as it were; how he entered into the quarrels of Italy against Spain, into that concerning the Valteline, and that concerning the fucceffion of Mantua; without engaging fo

deep

deep as to divert him from another great object of his policy, fubduing Rochelle, and difarming the Huguenots. You will obferve how he turned himself, after this was done, to ftop the progrefs of Ferdinand in Germany. Whilft Spain fomented difcontents at the court, and diforders in the kingdom of France, by all poffible means, even by taking engagements with the duke of Roban, and for fupporting the proteftants; Richelieu abetted the fame intereft in Germany against Ferdinand; and in the low Countries against Spain. The emperor was become almost the mafter in Germany. Chriftian IV. King of Denmark, had been at the head of a league, wherein the united Provinces, Sweden, and lower Saxony entered, to oppose his progrefs: but Chriftian had been defeated by Tilly and ValStein, and obliged to conclude a treaty at Lubec, where Ferdinand gave him the law. It was then that Guftavus Adolphus, with whom Richelieu made an alliance, entered into this war, and foon turned the fortune of it. The French minifter had not yet engaged his mafter openly in the war: but when the Dutch grew impatient, and threatened to renew their truce with Spain, unless France declared; when the king of Sweden was killed, and the battle of Nordlingen loft; when Saxony had turned again to the fide of the emperor, and Brandenburg, and fo many others had followed this example, that Hesse almoft alone perfifted in the Swedish alliance: then Richelieu engaged his master, and profited of every circumstance which the conjuncture afforded, to engage him with advantage. For firft he had a double advantage by engaging fo late: that of coming fresh into the quarrel against a wearied and almoft exhausted enemy; and that of yielding to the impatience of his friends, who, preffed by their neceffities, and by the want they had of France, gave this minifter an opportunity of laying those claims and eftablishing those pretenfions, in all his treaties with Holland, Sweden, and the princes and states of the empire, on which he had projected the future aggrandisement of France. The manner in which he engaged, and the air that he gave to his engagement, were advantages of the fecond fort, advantages of reputation and credit; yet were thefe of no fmall moment in the course of the war, and operated strongly in favour of France, as he defigned they fhould, even after his death, and at and after the treaties of Weftphalia. He varnished ambition with the most plausible and popular pretences. The elector of Treves had put himself under the protection of France; and, if I remember right, he made this step when the emperor could not protect him a

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