example may be vicious, or may be virtuous; in either case it cannot but have influence.

Lastly, I must remark, that there are several parts of this history of the League, that seem almost to have announced to us, two centuries ago, the unhappy events of modern times.

When we turn, for example, to the account of the day of the barricadoes in Paris, we have the siege of the Louvre, the Swiss guards, the flight of the king, the tumultuous capital, the committees, and other particulars, that might almost lead us to imagine, that we were but reading a detail of the transactions that lately took place in the very same metropolis; that, in fact, we were engaged in the perusal of the horrors of the French Revolution.

Such are, I think, some of the general reflections which belong to these civil and religious wars in France, in both their different stages, before and after the project of the League.

I must now leave you to read the history for yourselves. I may observe, indeed, before you do so, that these scenes have been always recommended to the interest and curiosity of mankind, not only because they have exhibited, in the strongest manner, the workings of the two great passions of civil and religious hate, but because times so extraordinary were calculated to produce, and did produce, characters the most extraordinary; fierce crimes, unbridled licentiousness, but accompanied with great courage and ability in the one sex, and with genius and spirit in the other. These have always more particularly marked this singular era, and have, therefore, had a charm for the readers of history, not derived, I fear, from any very respectable desire either of philosophic entertainment or instruction.

Brantome has been always read, but in the Memoirs of the House of Valois, by Wraxall, may be found an ample specimen of the characters and anecdotes which belong to this

part of history; and you may in this work occupy yourselves more than sufficiently in a species of reading, by which every one, I fear, may be amused, and no one, I am sure, can be improved.

I must here close my account of these civil and religious wars, which will be found, when perused, too busy in events, and too fertile in character, to be treated in any other but this indistinct and general manner.

But as the student is thus supposed to approach the great subject of the civil and religious wars, by which in France, and everywhere in Europe, these ages were distinguished, I cannot conclude this part of my lecture without making one observation more, however obvious; it is this: that the theatre of the world is not the place where we are to look for religion; her more natural province must ever be the scenes of domestic and social life: too elevated to take the lead in cabinets and camps, to appear in the bustle and ostentation of a court, or the tumults of a popular assembly, amid the struggles of political intrigue, or the vulgar pursuits of avarice and ambition, Religion must not be judged of by the pictures that appear of her in history. The form that is there seen is an earthly and counterfeit resemblance, which we must not mistake for the divine original.

LECTURE XII.

HENRY IV. AND THE LOW COUNTRIES.

IN my last lecture I made some remarks on the civil and religious wars of France, before and during the League. The reign of the celebrated Henry IV. forms the concluding part of this remarkable era.

The great historical French work, on the subject of his life and reign, is by Péréfixe; but De Thou, Sully, Mably, l'Intrigue du Cabinet, with Wraxall, will be the best authors, as I conceive, to recommend to your attention. You may read Lacretelle; he is too favourable. You may in these works read the narrative of his eventful life. I cannot enter into it. A few general observations on the whole is all that I can attempt to offer.

The situation of Henry while mounting the throne of France, was so beset with difficulties, that as we read the history, we can scarcely imagine how he is ever to become successsful, though we already know that such was the event. He was a Huguenot, and the nation could not therefore endure that he should be king; he had been leagued with Henry, the former king, while that prince was stained with the blood of the Duke of Guise, the great object of national admiration; he had a disputed title; an able and experienced general to oppose him in Mayenne, the brother of the `murdered Guise, backed by a triumphant party, and by the furious Parisians. Lastly, he was exposed to the hostile interference of one of the most consummate generals that ever appeared, the Duke of Parma, at the head of the Spanish infantry, then the first in the world.

It must be confessed that Henry, with some assistance from

fortune, fairly, slowly, and laboriously, won and deserved his

crown.

This part of the history is well given by Wraxall, from De Thou and others.

But Henry had not only to win the crown, but to wear it; not only to acquire, but preserve it.

Now the great lesson to be drawn from Henry's life is, the wisdom of generous policy, the prudence of magnanimity. To these he owed his success. There was nothing narrow in his views, no ungovernable animosity that rankled in his memory; he forgot, he forgave, he offered favourable terms, he negotiated, with all the fearless liberality of an elevated mind. The path of honourable virtue was here, as it always is, that of true policy, that of safety and happiness. The result was, that he was served by men who had been opponents and rebels, more faithfully than other princes have been by their favourites and dependents.

Henry has always been, and with some justice, the idol of the French nation. But in his private life two fatal passions reduce him (great as he was in public) to a level with his fellow mortals, and sometimes far below them.

It was in vain that the virtuous Sully remonstrated against his passion for play. Again, Henry seems never to have suspected that domestic comfort was only to be purchased by domestic virtue. In respect of the Princess of Condé such was his licentious nature, such the result, as is always the case, of the long indulgence of his passions, that he is, in this affair, as far as I can understand the history, very little to be distinguished from a mere violent and unprincipled tyrant.

The name of Henry IV. may remind us of a celebrated work, the Henriade of Voltaire. This extraordinary writer was allowed to be a poet by Gibbon, and an historian by Robertson. The poem will exhibit him in both capacities, It should be read immediately after reading the history of

these times. Thus read, it will strike the judgment and refresh the knowledge of the student, while it exercises his taste, and, to a certain degrec, animates his imagination. The work was considered by its author merely as a poem, and not a history; but it is now chiefly valuable for the descriptions which it gives of the great characters and events of these times, drawn with great beauty and force, and evidently by the pencil of a master. It will be found very entertaining, read in the way I propose. On the whole, the striking scenes of this celebrated period in French history (the period of the sixteenth century) attach powerfully on our attention; but we must never forget to remark those incidents which paint the manners, laws, and constitution of any people whose annals we are reading. Incidents of this kind may be found— many of them in De Thou, some in Davila, many more in very inferior authors, such as L'Etoile. Every information of this sort is collected with great diligence and propriety of selection by Wraxall: a large part of his work is very properly dedicated to the delineation of the arts, manners, commerce, government, and internal situation of society; first, under the later princes of the House of Valois, and secondly, during the reign of Henry IV.

This author does not seem to have studied the science of political economy with the same diligence which he has exerted in his more immediate department of histɔry; and therefore his conclusions on these subjects must be read with great caution. The science seems to have been still more unknown to the statesmen and historians of France; it is therefore difficult to understand their reasonings, or benefit by their remarks when such matters are touched upon.

The facts and anecdotes of these times, which Wraxall has collected, exhibit a most afflicting picture of licentiousness and vice. The historian is obliged to acknowledge, that he can only find three virtues then in existence-courage, friendship, and, what could be less expected, "filial obedience;" a