shown to be authentic, are worth volumes of reasonings and conjectures of a thinking mind; or rather, it is on such relics and facts that the student must in the first place alone depend when he collects materials for his instruction, and he must never lose sight of them, when he comes afterwards to build up his political reasonings and conclusions.

It is upon this account, and it is to impress this lesson upon your recollection, that I have gone into this detail, and perhaps not a little exercised your patience. It is for this reason and for another, to show you the importance of the political principles of men; a point which I must for ever enforce in the course of these lectures. First observe the

general remarks of Hume." Though some topics," says Mr. Hume, while introducing the passages I have just quoted from him,-"though some topics employed by that virtuous prelate, the Bishop of Carlisle, may seem to favour too much the doctrine of passive obedience, &c., the intrepidity as well as disinterestedness of his behaviour proves," says Mr. Hume, "that whatever his speculative principles were, his heart was elevated far above the meanness and abject submission of a slave." Undoubtedly it does this observation of Mr. Hume is very just, and therefore it is more incumbent upon me, as your lecturer, to impress upon your minds the importance of your political principles, that you may endeavour to be wise as well as virtuous. It is but too plain from the historian's own account, that men of the most noble feelings and honourable character (such as the bishop is here supposed by Mr. Hume to have been), may on public occasions act upon principles, and enforce political doctrines, which can have no tendency but to make their fellow creatures base and servile (whatever they may be themselves), by injuring and destroying the only source of all elevated character in a people, the free principles of the constitution of their government. It is of little consequence that men may not

have, themselves, the feelings of slaves, if they propagate doctrines that will practically and in the result make a nation of slaves around them.

But to return to Hume. Gilbert Stuart, a very able though somewhat impetuous inquirer into the earlier parts of our history, has pronounced his opinion upon the work of Mr. Hume in the following words: "From its beginning to its conclusion, it is chiefly to be regarded as a plausible defence of prerogative. As an elegant and spirited composition, it merits every commendation. But no friend to humanity, and to the freedom of this kingdom, will consider his constitutional inquiries, with their effect on his narrative, and compare them with the ancient and venerable monuments of our story, without feeling a lively surprise, and a patriot indignation.”

This opinion, however severe, is not very different from that which is in general entertained by others, who from previous study are competent to decide; and this, while the literary merits of the history are universally acknowledged. The student will therefore read, with more than ordinary care, what he is told is so fitted at once to charm his taste and to mislead his understanding.

Since I drew up this lecture, a work has been published by Mr. Brodie, of Edinburgh; it is not well written in point of style, and the author must be considered as a writer on the popular side, but he is a man of research and independence of mind. It is a work of weight and learning, and it appears to me for ever to have damaged, and most materially damaged, the character of Mr. Hume as an accurate historian. It justifies the opinion I have just alluded to, as pronounced by Gilbert Stuart, and maintained by others competent to decide.

I must observe, before I conclude, that it is the general effect of the narrative of this able historian that is of so much importance. Particular passages might be drawn from his work of every description, favourable as well as

unfavourable to the privileges of the subject. But the sentiment conveyed by such particular passages, taken singly, do in fact stand opposed to the general impression that results from the whole.

Were a popular writer to seek for observations favourable to the cause of the liberties of England, he would often find them nowhere better expressed; but their being found in the history of Hume is a circumstance quite analogous to what constantly obtains, in every literary performance, where the author has (on whatever account) a general purpose to accomplish, which the nature of his subject does not in strict reason allow. Truth is then continually mixed up with misrepresentation, and the whole mass of the reasoning, which in its final impression is materially wrong, is so interspersed with observations which are in themselves perfectly right, that the reader is at no time sufficiently on his guard, and is at last betrayed into conclusions totally unwarrantable, and at variance with his best feelings and soundest opinions.

Observe the writings of Rochefoucault or Mandeville; you will there see what I am describing, as indeed you may in every work, where the author is deceived himself or is deceiving others.

One word more and I conclude,-one word as an estimate of the whole subject between Mr. Hume and his opponents.

In the first place, we may agree with Mr. Hume, that the whole of our history during the period from Edward I. to Henry VIII. was a scene of irregularity and of great occasional violence; that the laws could neither be always maintained, nor could the principles of legislation be ever said to be well understood; we must admit, therefore, that it is not fair to imagine, as Mr. Hume complains we do, that all the princes who were unfortunate in their government were necessarily tyrannical in their conduct, and that resistance to the monarch always proceeded from some attempt on his

part to invade the privileges of the subject. This we must admit.

But, in the second place, it must be observed that the struggle between the subject and the crown was constantly kept up in the times of the most able, as well as of the weakest monarchs: that they who resisted the prerogative never did it without producing those maxims and without asserting those principles of freedom, which are necessary to all rational government; which are by no means fitted in themselves to produce anarchy, and by no means inconsistent with all those salutary prerogatives of the crown which are requisite to the regular protection of the subject.

In the third place, that if these maxims and principles had not been from time to time asserted, and sometimes with success, that the result must have been, that our constitution would have degenerated, like that of France and of every other European state, into a system of monarchical power, unlimited and unrestrained by the interference of any legislative assemblies.

And that therefore, in the last place, Mr. Hume tells the story of England without giving sufficient praise to those patriots who preserved and transmitted those general habits of thinking on political subjects which have always distinguished this country, and to which alone every Englishman owes, at this day, all that makes his life a blessing and his existence honourable.

LECTURE VI.

ENGLAND.

IN my last lecture I called your attention to England. After showing you that in the consideration of its history we soon arrived at the same points as in the history of the rest of Europe, I mentioned to you that there were before you the facts of our history and the philosophy of it; that you were to acquire a knowledge of the one, but that you must endeavour to understand the other; above all, that the constitutional history of your country must be your great object of inquiry; that Rapin, Hume, and Millar must be your authors; at the same time I referred you to other

sources of information and other historians.

Next, I stated to you, that a difference in the opinions of men had existed and always must exist in every mixed form of government; that there must be always those who favour the monarchical and those who favour the popular part of it; that through the whole of our history, down to 1688, there had been maintained a struggle between prerogative and privilege; and that no thoroughly impartial historian of our annals could be found.

Lastly, I attempted to give you some general description of the merits of Hume, the most popular and the most able, and therefore the most important of our historians.

I endeavoured to protect you, or rather to enable you to protect yourselves, from the mistakes into which you might fall if you depended on his representations, if you rested upon them with that confidence which his evident good sense and apparent calmness and impartiality would naturally inspire.