1 7 May, 1689.

2 The act of toleration did not pass till 24 May, 1689, which lets us see at what time this preface is supposed to have been drawn up.

3 This was the talk of men at that time. It was perhaps in the king’s intention. But the design, if it had ever been formed, miscarried; as the Bishop himself observes in his History—“The most melancholy part of the treaty of Ryswick was, that no advantages were got by it, in favour of the Protestants in France.” Vol. iv. p. 295. Edinb. 1753.—Whether the blame of this lies in the king, or his parliaments, or neither, the reader is left to judge for himself, from considering the state and transactions of those times.

4 These rigours the bishop gives a particular account of in THE HISTORY OF HIS OWN TIMES, vol. iii. Edinb. 1753.—Speaking of the persecution of the French Protestants, he says, “I went over a great part of France, while it was in its hottest rage, from Marseilles to Montpelier, and from thence to Lyons, and so on to Geneva. I saw and knew so many instances of their injustice and violence, that it exceeded even what could have been well imagined; for all men set their thoughts on work to invent new methods of cruelty. In all the towns through which I passed, I heard the most dismal accounts of things possible.” p. 60.—Again—“The fury that appeared on this occasion did spread itself with a sort of contagion: for the intendants and other officers, that had been mild and gentle in the former parts of their life, seemed now to have laid aside the compassion of Christians, the breeding of gentlemen, and the impressions of humanity.” p. 61.

5 Meaning Cromwell, who, it seems, had a design of setting up “a council for the Protestant religion, in opposition to the congregation de propagand fide at Rome.” See the Bishop’s own account in his Hist. vol. i. p. 109.

6 Nat. Bacon, in his Disc. part II. p. 125. Lond. 1739.

7 The story is told by Lord Bacon in his history of this prince.

8 He did not consider that maxim of the Lord Bacon, “Depression of the nobility may make a king more absolute, but less safe.” Works, vol. iii. p. 296.

9 And yet Lord Bacon tells us, that when Henry VIII. came to the crown, “There was no such thing as any great and mighty subject, who might any way eclipse or overshade the imperial power.” Works, vol. iii. p. 508.

10 “A man, as Mr. Bacon characterises him, underneath many passions, but above fear.” Disc. Part II. p. 120.

11 Disc. Part II. p. 125.

12 This terrible act is 31 Hen. VIII. c. 8. It was repealed in 1 Edw. VI. c. 12.

13 Speech to the lords and commons at Whitehall. An. 1609.

14 It was said well of this king—“That he spake peace abroad, and sung lullaby at home: yet, like a dead calm in a hot spring, treasured up in store sad distempers against a back-winter.” Nat. Bacon.

15 Meaning such clauses as these—as by any spiritual or ecclesiastical power or authority may LAWFULLY be exercised, and, provided that nothing be done contrary to the LAWS of this realm.

16 The bishop does well to say—in some measure. For, according to popish prejudices, the sacerdotal character is vastly above the regal. See Pole’s address to Hen. VIII. I. 1, where this high point is discussed at large.

17 Hist. Ang. p. 694.

18 Something to this purpose occurs in p. 706.

19 The name of this reverend judge was Roger de Thurkeby. A cause was trying before him in Westminster-hall, when one of the parties produced the king’s letters patent with a non-obstante in it. “Quod cum comperisset,” says the historian, “ab alto ducens suspiria, de prÆdictÆ adjectionis appositione, dixit; Heu, heu, hos ut quid dies expectavimus? ecce jam civilis curia exemplo ecclesiasticÆ conquinatur, et a sulphureo fonte rivulus intoxicatur.” p. 784. Hen. III.

20 Many statutes, and especially 23 Hen. VI. had forbidden the continuance of any person in the office of sheriff for more than one year. Henry VII. dispensed with these statutes. And the twelve judges resolved in 2 Hen. VII. that, by a non-obstante, a patent for a longer time should be good.—It seems, the good old race of the Thurkebys was now worn out.

21 See his Works, vol. iii. p. 806.

22 The true law of free monarchies, in the King’s Works, p. 203.

23 Alluding to the doctrine of the canonists, who say, Papa dispensare potest de omnibus prÆceptis VETERIS ET NOVI TESTAMENTI. See bishop Jewell’s defence of his apology of the church of England, against Harding, p. 313.

24 See this particular taken notice of in K. James’s Works, p. 384.

25 One of them, King James, profited so well by this discipline, that, as we are told on very competent authority, “He was the most able prince that ever this kingdom had, to JUDGE OF CHURCH-WORK.” Ded. of Bp. Andrews’s sermons to Charles I. by the bishops Laud and Buckeridge.

26 This notion was started even so early as Henry’s rejection of the supremacy. Cardinal Pole insists strongly on this origin of kingship in his book, Pro ecclesiasticÆ unitatis defensione, lib. i. p. 74.

27 In the writings, published by political men for twenty years together before the Restoration; in which the great question of the origin of civil government was thoroughly canvassed.

28 The bishop declares his opinion to this purpose very fully in several places of the History of his Own Times. His and his friend Tillotson’s representations to the unhappy Lord Russell, no doubt, turned upon this principle.

29 The bishop gives the same account of this matter in his History of the Reformation, Part I. p. 330.

30 True law of free monarchies, p. 203.—What is said of the king’s being the great schoolmaster of the land is taken from the same discourse, p. 204. His words are these—“The people of a borough cannot displace their provost—yea, even the poor school-master cannot be displaced by his scholars—How much less it is lawful upon any pretext to control or displace the great provost and GREAT SCHOOL-MASTER OF THE WHOLE LAND.”

31 Mr. Somers had reason for saying this; for the intimation was no less than that the power of the militia was not in the king. Sir J. Maynard was of this opinion, when the matter was debated in parliament in 1642. See Whitlock, p. 56.

32 The doctrines of divine right, as propagated by the churchmen of that time in their books and sermons, are well known.—Those of the lawyers were such as these—It had been alleged on the part of Mr. Hampden, in the great cause of ship-money, “that by a fundamental policy in the creation of the frame of this kingdom, in case the monarch of England should be inclined to exact from his subjects at his pleasure, he should be restrained, for that he could have nothing from them, but upon a common consent of parliament.” Sir Robert Berkeley, one of the judges of the king’s-bench, affirmed—“That the law knows no such king-yoking policy:”—Sir Thomas Trevor, one of the barons of the exchequer, “That our king hath as much power and prerogative belonging to him as any prince in Christendom:”—The attorney-general, Sir John Banks, “That the king of England hath an entire empire; he is an absolute monarch: nothing can be given to an absolute prince! but is inherent in his person.” State Trials, vol. i. Such was the language of the guardians of the LAW, that temple or sanctuary, as it has been called, whither the subject is to run for shelter and protection. Had not Mr. St. John then much reason for saying, as he did on that occasion, “We have the fabric of the temple still; but the Gods, the Dii Tutelares, are gone?” There is the more force and propriety in this censure, as it comes from a man who was himself of the profession. And another of the same order, the best and wisest perhaps that frequented the temple of law in those days, proceeds with a just indignation still further—“These men (said Mr. Hide, in a speech to the lords) have, upon vulgar fears, delivered up the precious forts they were trusted with, almost without assault; and, in a tame easy trance of flattery and servitude, lost and forfeited (shamefully forfeited) that reputation, awe, and reverence, which the wisdom, courage, and gravity of their venerable predecessors had contracted and fastened to their places; and have even rendered that study and profession, which in all ages hath been, and I hope now shall be, of honourable estimation, so contemptible and vile, that, had not this blessed day come [the day of impeachment of the six judges], all men would have had that quarrel to the Law itself, which Marcius had to the Greek tongue, who thought it a mockery to learn that language, the masters whereof lived in bondage under others.”—Thus these eloquent apologists for law and liberty. The conclusion is, that though in the great bodies of churchmen and lawyers, some will always be found to dishonour themselves, there have never been wanting others to do justice to the public, and to assert, maintain, and preserve, the dignity of their respective professions.

33 This appears even from Mr. Hume’s own account of the feudal times; incomparably the best part of his History of England. And it is to be presumed that, if so ingenuous a writer had begun his work at the right end, he would have been led, by the evidence of so palpable a truth, to express himself more favourably, indeed more consistently, of the English constitution. But having, by some odd chance, written the history of the Stuarts first, and afterwards of the Tudors, (in both which he found it for his purpose to adopt the notion of a despotic independent spirit in the English monarchy), he chuses in the last part of his work, which contains the history of England from Julius CÆsar to Henry VII. to abide by his former fancy; on this pretence, that, in the administration of the feudal government, the liberty of the subject was incomplete and partial; often precarious and uncertain: a way, in which the learned historian might prove, that no nation under heaven ever was, or ever will be, possessed of a FREE CONSTITUTION.

By the FREE CONSTITUTION of the English monarchy, every advocate of liberty, that understands himself, I suppose, means, that limited plan of policy, by which the supreme legislative power (including in this general term the power of levying money) is lodged, not in the prince singly, but jointly in the prince and people; whether the popular part of the constitution be denominated the king’s or kingdom’s great council, as it was in the proper feudal times; or the parliament, as it came to be called afterwards; or, lastly, the two houses of parliament, as the style has now been for several ages.

To tell us, that this constitution has been different at different times, because the regal or popular influence has at different times been more or less predominant, is only playing with a word, and confounding constitution with administration. According to this way of speaking, we have not only had three or four34, but possibly three or four score, different constitutions. So long as that great distribution of the supreme authority took place (and it has constantly and invariably taken place, whatever other changes there might be, from the Norman establishment down to our times) the nation was always enabled, at least authorized, to regulate all subordinate, or, if you will, supereminent claims and pretensions. This it effectually did at the Revolution, and, by so doing, has not created a new plan of policy, but perfected the old one. The great MASTER-WHEEL of the English constitution is still the same; only freed from those checks and restraints, by which, under the specious name of prerogatives, time and opportunity had taught our kings to obstruct and embarrass its free and regular movements.

On the whole, it is to be lamented that Mr. Hume’s too zealous concern for the honour of the house of Stuart, operating uniformly through all the volumes of his history, has brought disgrace on a work, which, in the main, is agreeably written, and is indeed the most readable general account of the English affairs, that has yet been given to the public.

34 Mr. Hume’s Hist. vol. v. p. 472, n. ed. 8vo, 1763.

35 A great lawyer, however, and one of the ornaments of Mr. Somers’s own house, is not afraid to indulge in these generous expectations. In a late treatise, in which he explains, with exquisite learning, the genius of the feudal policy, “These principles, says he, are the principles of freedom, of justice, and safety. The English constitution is formed upon them. Their reason will subsist, as long as the frame of it shall stand; and being maintained in purity and vigour, will preserve it from the usual mortality of government.” Considerations on the Law of Forfeiture, 3d ed. Lond. 1748.

36 Account of Denmark, as it was in the year 1692.

37 Such as certain philosophers amused themselves with building, on Innate Ideas.

38 Ideas of Sensation—on which principles, indeed, a late writer has constructed, but by no fault of Mr. Locke, a material system of the grossest Epicurism. See a work entitled, De l’Esprit, in 2 tom. Amst. 1759.

39 “Infidelity is the natural product of restraint and spiritual tyranny—Hence it is we see France and Italy over-run with the worst kind of Deism. There our travelling gentry first picked it up for a rarity. And, indeed, at first, without much malice. It was brought home in a cargo of new fashions: and worn, for some time, with that levity, by the importers, and treated with that contempt by the rest, as suited, and was due, to the apishness of foreign manners: till a set, &c.” Bishop of Gloucester’s Sermon on the Suppression of the late Rebellion, p. 78.

40 Charact. Vol. iii. Dis. iii.

41

42 Of Ryswick, in 1697.

43 Advice to an Author, P. II. S. III.

44 See a discourse at the end of Love’s Labour Lost in Warb. Ed. of Shakespear; in which the origin, subject, and character of these books of Chivalry (or Romances, properly so called) are explained with an exactness of learning, and penetration, peculiar to that writer—

45 The late right honourable Charles Yorke; who to all the learning of his own profession had joined an exact taste, and very extensive knowledge, of polite literature. What follows is an extract from a long letter which this excellent person did me the honour to write to me on the subject of these letters, when he had read them in the first edition.

46 See the Memoir, just quoted.

47 Mr. Warton’s Observations on Spenser, vol. i. p. 175.

48 Don Quixote, b. iv. c. 22.

49 Mr. Warton, Obs. on the F. Q. p. 7. vol. i. Lond. 1762.

50 Lord Shaftesbury, Adv. to an Author.

51 Adv. to an Author, Part III. S. II.

52 Spectator, vol. i. N^o 5. vol. v. N^o 369.

53 For an account of some other wonders in Romance, such as enchanted arms, invulnerable bodies, flying horses, &c. see L’Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 22.

54 Voltaire, Essai sur la PoËsie Epique, ch. vii.

55 A celebrated writer, whose good sense, or whose perverseness, would not suffer him to be the dupe of French prejudices, declares himself roundly of this opinion: “On a voulu mettre en representation (says he, speaking of the absurd magnificence of the French Opera) le MERVEILLEUX, qui, n’etant fait que pour Être imaginÉ, EST AUSSI BIEN PLACE DANS UN POEME EPIQUE que ridiculement sur un theatre.” [Nouv. Heloise, p. II. l. xxiii.]

56 Sir W. Davenant’s Preface.

57 Te??? ??e????. Homer.

58 Mr. Hobbes’s Letter.