Transcriber's Note:

This project uses utf-8 encoded characters. If some characters are not readable, check your settings of your browser to ensure you have a default font installed that can display utf-8 characters.

THE
WORKS
OF
RICHARD HURD, D. D.
LORD BISHOP OF WORCESTER.
VOL. IV.

Printed by J. Nichols and Son,
Red Lion Passage, Fleet-Street, London.

THE
WORKS
OF
RICHARD HURD, D. D.
LORD BISHOP OF WORCESTER.
IN EIGHT VOLUMES.
VOL. IV.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR T. CADELL AND W. DAVIES, STRAND.
1811.

MORAL AND POLITICAL
DIALOGUES.
VOL. II.

MORAL AND POLITICAL
DIALOGUES,
WITH
LETTERS
ON
CHIVALRY AND ROMANCE.

CONTENTS
OF
THE FOURTH VOLUME.

DIALOGUE VI.
ON THE
CONSTITUTION
OF THE
ENGLISH GOVERNMENT.
BETWEEN
SIR JOHN MAYNARD, MR. SOMERS,
AND
BISHOP BURNET.

DIALOGUE VI.
ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT.
SIR JOHN MAYNARD, MR. SOMERS,
BISHOP BURNET.

TO DR. TILLOTSON.

Our next meeting at Sir John Maynard’s was on the evening of that day, when the war was proclaimed against France[1]. What the event of it will be, is a secret in the counsels of Providence. But if the goodness of our cause, his Majesty’s known wisdom and ability, and, above all, the apparent zeal and firmness of all orders amongst us in support of this great undertaking, may give a prospect of success, we cannot, I persuade myself, but indulge in the most reasonable hopes and expectations.

Perhaps, the time is approaching, my dear friend, which the divine goodness hath decreed for putting a stop to that outrageous power, which hath been permitted for so long a course of years to afflict the neighbouring nations. It may be, the season is now at hand, when God will vouchsafe to plead the cause of his servants, and let this mighty persecutor of the faithful know that he may not be suffered any longer to trample on the sacred rights of conscience. He may be taught to feel, that the ravages he hath committed in the fairest provinces, and the cruelties he hath exercised on the best subjects, of his own kingdom, have at length awakened the divine displeasure against him. And he may live to find in our great prince (raised up, as I verily believe, to this eminence of place and power to be the scourge of tyrants, and the vindicator of oppressed nations) an insurmountable bulwark against that encroaching dominion, which threatens to deform and lay waste the rest of Europe.

I have already lived to see those providences, which may encourage a serious and good mind to believe that some great work is preparing in our days. I was very early in my life a witness to the high measures which were taken and carried on by an intolerant hierarchy, acting in subserviency to an arbitrary court, in mine own country of Scotland. And I have lamented the oppression in which good men were held for conscience sake in all the three kingdoms. How far this tyranny was carried, and how near we were brought to the destruction of all our civil and religious rights, need not be told, and the occurrences of the two last reigns will not suffer to be forgotten. It is sufficient to observe, that when the danger was now brought to a crisis, and the minds of all men were filled with the most alarming apprehensions, it pleased God to rescue us, in a moment and by the most astonishing display of his goodness, from the impending ruin. Our chains fell off at once, as by a miracle of mercy. Our civil rights have been restored. And the legal toleration[2], we have just now obtained in consequence of the new settlement, hath put us into possession of that religious liberty, which, as men, as Christians, and as Protestants, we cannot but esteem the first of all public blessings.

And who knows but that, in the gracious designs of Heaven, the same hand which hath redeemed these nations from the yoke of slavery and of Rome, may be now employed to shake it off from the necks of our Protestant brethren on the continent[3]? The world hath seen how long and how severely they have groaned under that intolerant power, with which we are now at war. When the violences of the late reign had driven me into a sort of voluntary exile, and in the course of it I traversed some of those unhappy provinces of France, which were most exposed to the rigours of persecution[4], how have these eyes wept over the distresses of the poor sufferers, and how hath my heart bled for the merciless cruelties which I every where saw exercised upon them! The fury which appeared on that occasion, was so general and so contagious, that not only priests and court sycophants, but men of virtuous minds and generous tempers, were transported, as it were, out of their proper nature, and seemed to divest themselves of the common notices and principles of humanity.

In this fiery trial it hath pleased God to exercise the faith and virtues, and, as we may charitably hope, to correct the failings and vices, of his poor servants. His mercy may now, in due time, be opening a way for them to escape. And from the prosperous beginning of this great work, what comfortable presages may we not, in all humility, form to ourselves of still further successes?

We have a prince on the throne exactly qualified for the execution of this noble enterprise; of the clearest courage and magnanimity, and a wisdom tried and perfected in that best school, of Adversity; of dispositions the most enlarged to the service of mankind; and even quickened by his own personal resentment of former injuries to retaliate against their common oppressor.

Nor can we doubt of the concurrence of his faithful subjects, who, with one voice, have demanded the commencement of this war; and whose late deliverance, from like circumstances of distress, may be expected to animate their zeal in the support of it.

And oh! that I might see the day, when our deliverer shall become, what a bold usurper nobly figured to himself in the middle of this century[5], the soul and conductor of the Protestant cause through all Europe! and, that, as Rome hath hitherto been the centre of slavish impositions and anti-christian politics, the court of England may henceforth be the constant refuge and asylum of fainting liberty and religion!

But to turn from these flattering views, my good friend, to the recital of our late conversation; which I proceed to lay before you with the same exactness and punctuality that I did the former. You will see the reason why I cannot promise you the same entertainment from it.

We had no sooner come together, than Sir John Maynard began with his usual vivacity.

I have been thinking, my lord, how dexterous a game I have played with you, in this inquiry of ours into the English government. What was obvious enough in itself, and had indeed been undertaken by many persons, I mean the vindication of our common liberties as founded in the ancient feudal constitution, is the part I assumed to myself in this debate; and have left it to your lordship to reconcile the FACT to the RIGHT: which is not only the most material point of inquiry, but the most difficult, and that which the patrons of liberty have either less meddled with, or have less succeeded in explaining. For, to own an unwelcome truth, however specious our claim may be to civil liberty, the administration of government from the time of Henry VII’s accession to the crown, that is, for two entire centuries, has very little agreed to this system. The regal power, throughout this period, has been uniformly exercised in so high and arbitrary a manner, that we can hardly believe there could be any certain foundation for the people’s claim to a limited monarchy. Add to this, that the language of parliaments, the decrees of lawyers, and the doctrines of divines, have generally run in favour of the highest exertions of prerogative. So that I cannot but be in some pain for the success of your undertaking, and am at a loss to conjecture in what way your lordship will go about to extricate yourself from these difficulties.

BP. BURNET.

I understand, Sir John, that your intention in setting forth the difficulties of this attempt is only, in your polite way, to enhance the merit of it. I must not however assume too much to myself. The way is clear and easy before me. You have conducted us very agreeably through the rough and thorny part of our journey. You have opened the genius of our ancient constitution. You have explained the principles on which it was raised. All that remains for me is, only to solve doubts, and rectify appearances; a matter of no great difficulty, when, instead of groping in the dark, we are now got into open daylight, and are treading in the paths of known and authentic history.

MR. SOMERS.

And yet, my lord, I shall very readily acknowledge, with my Lord Commissioner, the importance of the service. For, unless appearances be strangely deceitful indeed, there is but too great reason to conclude, from the recent parts of our history, either that there never was a rightful claim in the people to civil liberty, or that they, as well as their princes, had lost all sense of it. I doubt, the most your lordship can make appear, is, that as our kings, from the coming of the Tudor line, had usurped on the ancient privileges of the subject; so the subject, at length, in our days, has, in its turn, usurped on the undisputed and long-acknowledged prerogative of the sovereign. In short, I doubt there is no forming a connected system on these subjects; but that in our country, as well as in others, liberty and prerogative have prevailed and taken the ascendant at different times, according as either was checked or favoured by contingent circumstances.

BP. BURNET.

Still Mr. Somers, I see, is on the desponding side: and with better reason than before; since, if the difficulty be half so great as is pretended, this change of the speaker is little favourable to the removal of it. However, I do not despair, whether these surmises of difficulty be real or dissembled, to clear up the whole matter to both your satisfactions. The stress of it lies here: That, whereas a mixed and limited government is supposed to have been the ancient constitution in this country, the appearances, in fact, for a couple of centuries, have been so repugnant to this notion, that either the supposition must be given up as too hastily formed, or sufficient reasons must be assigned for these contradictory appearances. I embrace the latter part of this alternative without hesitation or reserve; and pretend to lay before you such unanswerable arguments for the cause I have undertaken, as, in better hands, might amount to a perfect vindication of English Liberty.

I take my rise from the period which my Lord Commissioner has prescribed to me; that is, from the accession of the Tudor family.

We have henceforth, indeed, a succession of high despotic princes, who were politic and daring enough to improve every advantage against the people’s liberties. And their peculiar characters were well suited to the places in which we find them. Henry VII. was wise and provident; jealous of his authority as well as title; and fruitful in expedients to secure both. His son and successor, who had a spirit of the largest size, and, as one says[6], feared nothing but the falling of the heavens, was admirably formed to sustain and establish that power, which the other had assumed. And after two short reigns, which afforded the people no opportunity of recovering their lost ground, the crown settled on the head of a princess, who, with the united qualifications of her father and grandfather, surpassed them both in the arts of a winning and gracious popularity. And thus, in the compass of a century, the prerogative was now wound up to a height, that was very flattering to the views and inclinations of the Stuart family.

It may be further observed, that the condition of the times was such as wonderfully conspired with the designs and dispositions of these princes.

A long and bloody war, that had well nigh exhausted the strength and vitals of this country, was, at length, composed by the fortunate successes of Bosworth-field. All men were desirous to breathe a little from the rage of civil wars. And the enormous tyranny of the prince, whose death had made way for the exaltation of the earl of Richmond, was a sort of foil to the new government, and made the rigours of it appear but moderate when set against the cruelties of the preceding reign.

The great change that followed, in the deliverance of the nation from papal tyranny, and the suppression of religious houses, was a new pretence for the extension of the royal prerogative; and the people submitted to it with pleasure, as they saw no other way to support and accomplish that important enterprise.

And, lastly, the regal power, which had gained so immensely by the rejection of the papal dominion, was carried still higher by the great work of reformation; which being conducted by a wise and able princess, was easily improved, on every occasion, to the advantage of the crown.

And thus, whether we consider the characters of the persons, or the circumstances of the times, every thing concurred to exalt the princes of the house of Tudor to a height of power and prerogative, which had hitherto been unknown in England, and became, in the end, so dangerous to the constitution itself.

But you expect me, I suppose, to point to the very examples of usurpation, I have in view, and the means by which it took effect in the hands of these and the succeeding princes.

SIR J. MAYNARD.

We do indeed expect that from your lordship. For otherwise it will be thought that what you treat as an usurpation, was but the genuine exercise of the regal authority; only favoured by fortunate conjunctures, and, as you say, by great ability in the princes themselves.

MR. SOMERS.

Perhaps, still more will be expected. For it may not be enough to tell us, what usurpations there were, or even by what means they became successful. It should further appear, methinks, that these usurpations, though they suspended the exercise of the people’s liberties, did not destroy them; did not, at least, annihilate the Constitution from which those liberties were derived.

BP. BURNET.

All this will naturally come in our way, as we go along. And, since you will have me usurp the chair on this occasion, and, like the princes I am speaking of, take to myself an authority to which I have no right, let me presume a little on my new dignity; and, in what follows, discourse to you, as our manner is, without interruption or reply.

SIR J. MAYNARD.

This, it must be owned, is carrying the prerogative of the chair to its utmost height. But, if we submit to it in other places, is it reasonable you should require us to do so here? Besides, your lordship forgets that I am too old to be a patient hearer. And Mr. Somers too—

MR. SOMERS.

I can engage, in this instance, for passive obedience. And my lord, perhaps, does not insist on the full extent of his prerogative. It is fit, however, we attend with reverence, while such an advocate is pleading in such a cause.

BP. BURNET.

I was saying, that all your demands would be satisfied, as I went along in this discourse. It is true, an attentive reader of our history, who considers what is said of the mixed frame of our government, and the struggles that were occasioned by it, is surprised to find that these contentions at once subsided on the accession of the house of Tudor; and that the tenour of the government thenceforth for many successions is as calm, and the popular influence as small, as in the most absolute and despotic forms. This appearance tempts him to conclude, that the crown had at length redeemed itself from a forced, unconstitutional servitude; and that, far from usurping on the people, it only returned to the exercise of its old and acknowledged rights. For otherwise it will be said, how could the people at once become so insensible, and their representatives in parliament so tame, as to bear with the most imperious of their princes without reluctance; they, who had resented much smaller matters from the gentlest and the best?

But those, who talk in this strain, have not considered, that there were some circumstances in the state of things, from the time we are speaking of, that DISABLED the nation from insisting, and many more that INDISPOSED them to insist, on their ancient and undoubted rights.

I took notice, that the ruinous contentions of the two houses of York and Lancaster, from which the nation was at last delivered by the accession of Henry VII. disposed all men to submit with satisfaction to the new government. Such a conjuncture was favourable, of itself, to the increase of the regal power. But the truth is, there was little danger of any successful opposition to the crown, if the nation had been ever so ill inclined towards it. The great lords or barons were, in former days, both by the feudal constitution, and by the vast property they had in their hands, the proper and only check on the sovereign. These had been either cut off, or so far weakened at least by the preceding civil wars, that the danger seemed entirely over from that quarter. The politic king was aware of his advantage, and improved it to admiration. One may even affirm, that this was the sole object of his government.

For the greater security, and majesty of his person, he began with the institution of his LIFEGUARD. And having thus set out with enlarging his own train, his next care was to diminish that of his nobles. Hence the law, or rather laws (for, as Lord Bacon observes, there was scarcely a parliament through his whole reign which passed without an act to that purpose) against Retainers. And with how jealous a severity he put those laws into execution, is sufficiently known from his treatment of one of his principal friends and servants, the earl of Oxford[7].

It was also with a view to this depression of the nobility, that the court Of Star-chamber was considered so much, and confirmed by act of parliament in his reign: “That which was principally aimed at by it being, as his historian frankly owns, Force, and the two chief supports of Force, COMBINATION OF MULTITUDES, and maintenance of HEADSHIP OF GREAT PERSONS.”

To put them still lower in the public estimation, he affected to fill the great offices with churchmen only. And it was perhaps, as much to awe the nation by the terror of his prerogative as to fill his coffers, that he executed the penal laws with so merciless a rigour on the very greatest of his subjects.

Still further to prevent the possibility of a return, in any future period, of the patrician power, this politic prince provided with great care for the encouragement of trade, and the distribution of property. Both which ends were effected at once by that famous act, which was made to secure and facilitate the alienation of estates by fine and proclamation.

All these measures, we see, were evidently taken by the king to diminish the credit and suppress the influence of his nobles; and of consequence, as he thought, to exalt the power of the crown above control, if not in his own, yet in succeeding ages. And his policy had this effect for some time; though in the end it served, beside his expectation, to advance another and more formidable power, at that time little suspected or even thought of, the POWER OF THE PEOPLE[8].

The truth is, Henry’s policy was every way much assisted by the genius of the time. Trade was getting up: and Lollardism had secretly made its way into the hearts of the people. And, though liberty was in the end to reap the benefit of each, prerogative was the immediate gainer. Commerce, in proportion to its growth, brought on the decline of the feudal, that is, aristocratic power of the barons: and the authority of the church, that other check on the sovereign, was gradually weakened by the prevailing spirit of reformation.

Under these circumstances, Henry found it no difficulty to depress his great lords; and he did it so effectually, that his son had little else left him to do, but to keep them down in that weak and disabled state, to which his father had reduced them. ‘Tis true, both he and his successors went further. They never thought themselves secure enough from the resistance of their old enemies, the barons[9]; and so continued, by every method of artifice and rapine, to sink them much lower than even the safety of their own state required. But the effects of this management did not appear till long afterwards. For the present, the crown received a manifest advantage by this conduct.

There was, besides, another circumstance of great moment attending the government of the younger Henry. He was the first heir of the white and red roses: so that there was now an end of all dispute and disaffection in the people. And they had so long and so violently contended about the title to the crown, that, when that mighty point was once settled, they did not readily apprehend that any other consideration deserved, or could justify, resistance to their sovereign.

With these advantages of situation, Henry VIII. brought with him to the throne a spirit of that firm and steady temper as was exactly fitted to break the edge of any rising opposition. Besides the confidence of youth, he was of a nature so elate and imperious, so resolved and fearless[10], that no resistance could succeed, hardly any thought of it could be entertained against him. The commons, who had hitherto been unused to treat with their kings but by the mediation of the great lords, being now pushed into the presence, were half discountenanced in the eye of majesty; and durst scarcely look up to the throne, much less dispute the prerogatives with which so awful a prince was thought to be invested.

And when the glaring abuse of his power, as in the exaltation of that great instrument of his tyranny, Wolsey, seemed afterwards to provoke the people to some more vigorous resolutions, a singular event happened, which not only preserved his greatness, but brought a further increase to it. This was the famous rupture with the court of Rome: in consequence of which, the yoke of papal usurpations, that yoke under which our kings had groaned for so many ages, was in a moment broken off, and the crown restored to its full and perfect independency.

Nor was this all. The throne did not only stand by itself, as having no longer a dependence on the papal chair. It rose still higher, and was, in effect, erected upon it. For the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was not annihilated, but transferred; and all the powers of the Roman pontiff now centered in the king’s person. Henceforth then we are to regard him in a more awful point of view; as armed with both swords at once; and, as Nat. Bacon expresses it in his way, as a strange kind of monster, “A king with a pope in his belly[11].”

The remainder of his reign shews that he was politic enough to make the best use of what his passions had brought on, and thus far accomplished. For though the nation wished, and, without doubt, hoped to go much further, the king’s quarrel was rather with the court, than the church of Rome. And the high authority in spirituals, which he had gained, enabled him to hold all men, who either feared or desired a further reformation, in the most entire dependence.

In the mean time, the nation rejoiced with great reason at its deliverance from a foreign tyranny: and the lavish distribution of that wealth, which flowed into the king’s coffers from the suppressed monasteries, procured a ready submission, from the great and powerful, to the king’s domestic tyranny.

In a word, every thing contributed to the advancement of the regal power; and, in that, to the completion of the great designs of Providence. The amazing revolution, which had just happened, was, at all events, to be supported: and thus, partly by fear, and partly by interest, the parliament went along with the king, in all his projects; and, beyond the example of former times, was constantly obsequious to him, even in the most capricious and inconsistent measures of his government.

And thus matters, in a good degree, continued till the accession of Queen Elizabeth. It is true, the weak administration of a minor king, and a disputed title at his death, occasioned some disorders. But the majesty of the crown itself was little impaired by these bustles; and it even acquired fresh glory on the head of our renowned Protestant princess.

For that astonishing work of reformation, so happily entered upon by Henry, and carried on by his son, was after a short interruption (which only served to prove and animate the zeal of good men) brought at length by her to its final establishment. The intolerable abuses and shameless corruptions of popery were now so notorious to all the world, and the spirit of reformation, which had been secretly working since the days of Wickliff, had now spread itself so generally through the nation, that nothing but an entire renunciation of the doctrine and discipline of the church of Rome could be expected. And, by the happiest providence, the queen was as much obliged by the interest of her government and the security of her title, as by her own unshaken principles, to concur with the dispositions of her subjects.

Thus, in the end, Protestantism prevailed, and obtained a legal and fixed settlement. But to maintain it, when made, against the combined powers that threatened its destruction, the crown on which so much depended, was to be held up in all its splendor to the eyes of our own and foreign nations. Hence the height of prerogative in Elizabeth’s days, the submission of parliaments, and, I may almost say, the prostration of the people.

And when this magnanimous princess, as well by her vast spirit and personal virtues, as the constant successes of her long reign, had derived the highest dignity and authority on the English sceptre, it passed into the hands of the elder James; who brought something more with him than a good will, the accession of a great kingdom, and the opinion of deep wisdom, to enable him to wield it.

What followed in his and the succeeding reigns, I need not be at the pains to recount to you. These things are too recent for me to dwell upon: and you, my Lord Commissioner, do not only remember them perfectly, but have yourself acted a great part in most of them. Allow me only to say, that from this brief history of the regal authority, and the means by which it arrived at so unusual a greatness, it is no wonder that the Stuart family were somewhat dazzled by the height to which they were raised, and that more than half a century was required to correct, if it ever did correct, the high but false notions they had entertained of the imperial dignity.

SIR J. MAYNARD.

If you permit me, at last, to break in at the opening which this conclusion of your discourse seems to give me; I would say, That, on your principles, the house of Stuart had great reason for the high notions you ascribe to them. For what other conclusion could they make, but that a power, which had domineered for so long a time, and that by the full allowance of parliament and people, was, both in fact and right, absolute and uncontrolable?

BP. BURNET.

It is certain, the Stuart family did draw that conclusion. But a great deal too hastily; as may appear from your own observation, that the exercise of this extraordinary power was committed, or more properly indulged to them, by the people. This is so strictly true, that from the first to the last of the Tudor line, imperious and despotic as they were of their own nature, no extraordinary stretch of power was ventured upon by any of them, but under the countenance and protection of an act of parliament. Hence it was, that the Star-chamber, though the jurisdiction of this court had the authority of the common law, was confirmed by statute; that the proceedings of Empson and Dudley had the sanction of parliament; that Henry the VIIIth’s supremacy, and all acts of power dependent upon it, had the same foundation: in a word, that every thing, which wore the face of an absolute authority in the king, was not in virtue of any supposed inherent prerogative in the crown, but the special grant of the subject. No doubt, this compliance, and particularly if we consider the lengths to which it was carried, may be brought to prove the obsequious and even abject dispositions of the times; though we allow a great deal, as I think we should, to prudence and good policy. But then the parliaments, by taking care to make every addition to the crown their OWN PROPER ACT, left their kings no pretence to consider themselves as absolute and independent.

MR. SOMERS.

I doubt, considering the slavish disposition of the times, that, if the people still possessed a shew of liberty, this advantage was owing to the pure condescension of the crown, and not to their own policy. A king that could obtain of his parliament to have his proclamations pass for laws[12], might have ventured on this step without the concurrence of parliament.

BP. BURNET.

I acknowledge the act you glance at was of an extraordinary kind; and might seem, by implication at least, to deliver up the entire legislative authority into the hands of the sovereign. But there is a wide difference between the crown’s usurping this strange power, and the parliament’s bestowing it. The case was (and nothing could be more fortunate for the nation) that at the time when the people were least able to controul their prince, their prince’s affairs constrained him to court his people. For the rejection of the papal power and the reformation of religion were things of that high nature, and so full of hazard, that no expedient was to be overlooked, which tended to make the execution of these projects safe or easy. Hence it was, that no steps were taken by the crown but with the consent and approbation of the two houses. And if these were compelled by the circumstances of their situation to favour their prince’s interest or caprice by absurd and inconsistent compliances, this benefit at least they drew to themselves, that their power by that means would appear the greater and more unquestionable. For what indeed could display the omnipotency of parliaments more than their being called in to make and unmake the measures of government, and give a sanction, as it were, to contradictions? Of which there cannot be a stronger instance than the changes they made from time to time, as Henry VIII’s passions swayed him, in the rule of succession.

Thus we see that, through the entire reigns of the house of Tudor, that is, the most despotic and arbitrary of our princes, the forms of liberty were still kept up, and the constitution maintained, even amidst the advantages of all sorts which offered for the destruction of both. The parliament indeed was obsequious, was servile, was directed, if you will; but every proceeding was authorised and confirmed by parliament. The king in the mean time found himself at his ease; perhaps believed himself absolute, and considered his application to parliaments as an act of mere grace and popular condescension. At least, after so long experience of their submission, the elder James certainly thought himself at liberty to entertain this belief of them. But he was the first of our princes that durst avow this belief plainly and openly. He was stimulated, no doubt, to this usurpation of power in England, by the memory of his former subjection, of servitude rather, to the imperious church of Scotland. But this was not all. Succeeding to so fair a patrimony as that of a mighty kingdom, where little or no opposition had been made for some reigns to the will of the sovereign; to a kingdom too, securely settled in the possession of its favoured religion, which had occasioned all the dangers, and produced all the condescension, of the preceding princes; bringing, besides, with him to the succession, an undisputed title and the additional splendor of another crown; all these advantages meeting in his person at that point of time, he ventured to give way to his natural love of dominion, and told the people to their face, that the pretended rights of their parliaments were but the free gifts and graces of their kings: that every high point of government, that is, every point which he chose to call by that name, was wrapt up in the awful mystery of his prerogative: and, in a word, that “it was sedition for them to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power[13].”

Such, you know, was the language, the public language to his parliaments, of James the First. But these pretences, which might have been suffered perhaps, or could not have been opposed, under the Tudor line, were unluckily out of season, and would not pass on a people who knew their own rights, had saved to themselves the exercise of them, and came now at length to feel and understand their importance. For, as I before observed, the principal cause that had lifted the crown so high, was the depression of the barons. The great property which had made them so formidable, was dispersed into other hands. The nobility were therefore too low to give any umbrage to the crown. But the commons were rising apace; and in a century had grown to that height, that on the accession of the Scotch family, the point of time when the new king dreamed of nothing but absolute sovereignty[14], they were now in a condition to assert the public liberty, and, as the event shewed but too soon, to snatch the sceptre itself out of their king’s hands.

However, in that interval of the dormant power of the commons it was, that the prerogative made the largest shoots, till in the end it threatened to overshadow law and liberty. And, though the general reason is to be sought in the humiliation of the church, the low estate of the barons, and the unexerted, because as yet unfelt, greatness of the commons, the solution will be defective if we stop here. For the regal authority, so limited by the ancient constitution, and by the continued use of parliaments, could never in this short space have advanced itself beyond all bounds, if other reasons had not co-operated with the state of the people; if some more powerful and special causes had not conspired to throw round the person of the sovereign those rays of sacred opinion, which are the real strength as well as gilding of a crown.

Of these I have occasionally mentioned several; such as “the personal character and virtues of the princes themselves; the high adventurous designs in which they were engaged; the interest, the people found or promised to themselves in supporting their power; the constant successes of their administration; and the unremitting spirit and vigour with which it was carried on and maintained.” All these considerations could not but dispose the people to look up with reverence to a crown, which presented nothing to their view but what was fitted to take their admiration, or imprint esteem. Yet all these had failed of procuring to majesty that profound submission which was paid to it, or of elevating the prince to that high conceit of independency which so thoroughly possessed the imagination of King James, if an event of a very singular nature, and big with important consequences, had not given the proper occasion to both.

SIR J. MAYNARD.

I understand you to mean the overthrow of the papal dominion, which had so long eclipsed the majesty of our kings; and held them in a state of vassalage, not only to the triple crown, but, which was more disgraceful, to the mitre of their own subjects.

BP. BURNET.

Rather understand me to mean, what was indeed the consequence of that event, THE TRANSLATION OF THE POPE’S SUPREMACY TO THE KING. This, as I take it, was the circumstance of all others which most favoured the sudden growth of the imperial power in this nation. And because I do not remember to have seen it enlarged upon as it deserves, give me leave to open to you, somewhat copiously, the nature of this newly-acquired headship, and the numerous advantages which the prerogative received from it.

The PAPAL SUPREMACY, as it had been claimed and exercised in this kingdom, was a power of the highest nature. It controlled every rank and order in the state, and, in effect, laid the prince and people together at the mercy of the Roman pontiff. There is no need to recount the several branches of this usurped authority. It is enough to say, that it was transcendant in all respects that could in any sense be taken to concern religion. And who, that has looked into the papal story, needs be told that, by a latitude of interpretation, every thing was construed to be a religious concern, by which the pope’s power or interest could be affected?

Under the acknowledgment then of this super-eminent dominion, no steps could possibly be taken towards the reformation of religion, or even the assertion of the just rights and privileges of the crown. But the people were grown to have as great a zeal for the former of these considerations, as the king for the latter. And in this juncture it was, that Henry, in a sudden heat, threw off the supremacy; which the parliament, to prevent its return to the pope, very readily invested in the king.

There was something so daring, and, according to the prejudices of that time, so presumptuous and even prophane, in this attempt to transfer the spiritual headship to a secular power, that the pope himself little apprehended, and nothing but the king’s dauntless temper could have assured, the success of it. The repugnancy which the parliament themselves found in their own notions betwixt the exercise of the spiritual and temporal power, was the reason perhaps for inserting in the act of supremacy those qualifying clauses, we find in it[15].

MR. SOMERS.

It is possible, as you say, that the parliament might be at a loss to adjust in their own minds the precise bounds of the spiritual jurisdiction, as united to the civil, in the king’s person. Yet, in virtue of these clauses, the regal supremacy was, in fact, restrained and limited by act of parliament: and the import of them was clearly to assert the independency of the crown on any foreign judicature, and not to confer it in the extent in which it was claimed and exercised by the see of Rome.

BP. BURNET.

It is true, that no more was expressed, or perhaps intended, in this act. But the question is, how the matter was understood by the people at large, and in particular by the king himself and his flatterers. Now it seems to me that this transfer of the supremacy would be taken for a solemn acknowledgment, not only of the ancient encroachments and usurpations of the papacy, but of the king’s right to succeed to all the powers of it. And I conclude this from the nature of the thing itself, from the current notions of the time, and from the sequel of the king’s government.

If we attend to the nature of the complaints which the kingdom was perpetually making, in the days of popery, of the Roman usurpations, we shall find that they did not so much respect these usurpations themselves, as the person claiming and enjoying them. The grievance was, that appeals should be made to Rome; that provisions should come from thence; in a word, that all causes should be carried to a foreign tribunal, and that such powers should be exercised over the subjects of this realm by a foreign jurisdiction. The complaint was, that the pope exercised these powers; and not that the powers themselves were exercised. So, on the abolition of this supremacy, the act that placed it in the person of the king, would naturally be taken to transfer upon him all the privileges and pre-eminencies, which had formerly belonged to it. And thus, though the act was so properly drawn as to make a difference in the two cases, yet the people at large, and much more the king himself, would infer from the concession, “that the pope had usurped his powers on the crown;” that therefore the crown had now a right to those powers. And the circumstance of this translation’s passing by act of parliament, does not alter the matter much, with regard to the king’s notion of it. For in that time of danger, and for the greater security of his new power, he would chuse to have that ratified and confirmed by statute, which he firmly believed inherent in his person and dignity.

Then, to see how far the current opinions of that time were favourable to the extension of the regal authority, on this alliance with the papal, we are to reflect, that, however odious the administration of the pope’s supremacy was become, most men had very high notions of the plenitude of his power, and the sacredness of his person. “Christ’s vicar upon earth” was an awful title, and had sunk deep into the astonished minds of the people. And though Henry’s pretensions went no further than to assume that vicarial authority within his own kingdom, yet this limitation would not hinder them from conceiving of him, much in the same way as of the pope himself. They, perhaps, had seen no difference, but for his want of the pope’s sacerdotal capacity. Yet even this defect was, in some measure[16], made up to him by his regal. So that between the majesty of the kingly character, and the consecration of his person by this mysterious endowment of the spiritual, it is easy to see how well prepared the minds of men were, to allow him the exercise of any authority to which he pretended.

And to what degree this spiritual character of head of the church operated in the minds of the people, we may understand from the language of men in still later times, and even from the articles of our church, where the prerogative of the crown is said to be that which GODLY KINGS have always exercised: intimating that this plenitude of power was inherent in the king, on account of that spiritual and religious character, with which, as head of the church, he was necessarily invested. The illusion, as gross as we may now think it, was but the same as that which blinded the eyes of the greatest and wisest people in the old world. For was it not just in the same manner, that by the policy of the Roman emperors in assuming the office of pontifex maximus, that is, incorporating the religious with their civil character, not only their authority became the more awful, but their persons sacred?

We see then, as I said, how conveniently the minds of men were prepared to acquiesce in Henry’s usurped prerogative. And it is well known that this prince was not of a temper to balk their expectations. The sequel of his reign shews that he took himself to be invested with the whole ecclesiastical power, legislative as well as executive; nay, that he was willing to extend his acknowledged right of supremacy even to the ancient papal infallibility, as appears from his sovereign decisions in all matters of faith and doctrine. It is true the parliament was ready enough to go before, or at least to follow, the head of the church in all these decisions. But the reason is obvious. And I need not repeat to you in what light the king regarded their compliance with him.

MR. SOMERS.

It is very likely, for these reasons, that the king would draw to himself much authority and reverence, at least, from his new title of supremacy. But it does not, I think, appear that the supremacy had all that effect on the people’s rights and the ancient constitution, which your lordship’s argument requires you to ascribe to it.

BP. BURNET.

I brought these general considerations only to shew the reverend opinion which of course would be entertained of this mixt person, THE SUPREME HEAD OF THE CHURCH, compounded of a king and a pope; and how natural a foundation it was for the superstructure of despotic power in all its branches. But I now hasten to the particulars which demonstrate that this use was actually made of that title.

And, first, let me observe, that it gave birth to that great and formidable court of the HIGH-COMMISSION; which brought so mighty an accession of power to the crown, that, as experience afterwards shewed, no security could be had for the people’s liberties, till it was totally abolished. The necessity of the times was a good plea for the first institution of so dangerous a tribunal. The restless endeavours of papists and puritans against the ecclesiastical establishment gave a colour for the continuance of it. But, as all matters that regarded religion or conscience were subjected to its sole cognizance and inspection, it was presently seen how wide an entrance it gave to the most tyrannical usurpations.

It was, further, natural that the king’s power in civil causes should keep pace with his authority in spiritual. And, fortunately for the advancement of his prerogative, there was already erected within the kingdom another court of the like dangerous nature, of ancient date, and venerable estimation, under the name of the court of STAR-CHAMBER; which brought every thing under the direction of the crown that could not so properly be determined in the high-commission. These were the two arms of absolute dominion; which, at different times, and under different pretences, were stretched forth to the oppression of every man that presumed to oppose himself to the royal will or pleasure. The star-chamber had been kept, in former times, within some tolerable bounds; but the high and arbitrary proceedings of the other court, which were found convenient for the further purpose of reformation, and were therefore constantly exercised, and as constantly connived at by the parliament, gave an easy pretence for advancing the star-chamber’s jurisdiction so far, that in the end its tyranny was equally intolerable as that of the high-commission.

Thus the king’s authority in all cases, spiritual and temporal, was fully established, and in the highest sense of which the words are capable. Our kings themselves so understood it; and when afterwards their parliaments shewed a disposition to interfere in any thing relating either to church or state, they were presently reprimanded; and sternly required not to meddle with what concerned their prerogative royal and their high points of government. Instances of this sort were very frequent in ELIZABETH’S reign, when the commons were getting up, and the spirit of liberty began to exert itself in that assembly. The meaning of all this mysterious language was, that the royal pleasure was subject to no control, but was to be left to take its free course under the sanction of these two supreme courts, to which the cognizance of all great matters was committed.

This, one would think, were sufficient to satisfy the ambition of our kings. But they went further, and still under the wing of their beloved supremacy.

The parliament were not so tame, or the king’s grace did not require it of them, to divest themselves entirely, though it was much checked and restrained by these courts, of their legislative capacity. But the crown found a way to ease itself of this curb, if at any time it should prove troublesome to it. This was by means of the DISPENSING POWER; which, in effect, vacated all laws at once, further than it pleased the king to countenance and allow them. And for so enormous a stretch of power (which, being rarely exercised, was the less minded) there was a ready pretence from the papal privileges and pre-eminencies to which the crown had succeeded. For this most invidious of all the claims of prerogative had been indisputable in the church; and it had been nibbled at by some of our kings, in former times, from the contagious authority of the pope’s example, even without the pretence which the supremacy in spirituals now gave for it.

The exercise of this power, in the popes themselves, was thought so monstrous, that Matthew Paris honestly complains of it in his time, as extinguishing all justice—EXTINGUIT OMNEM JUSTICIAM[17]. And on another occasion, I remember, he goes so far, in a spirit of prophecy, almost, as to tell us the ill use that hereafter kings themselves might be tempted to make of it[18]. His prediction was verified very soon: for Henry III. learned this lesson of tyranny, and put it in practice. On which occasion one of his upright judges could not help exclaiming, CIVILIS CURIA EXEMPLO ECCLESIASTICÆ CONQUINATUR[19]. And afterwards, we know, Henry VII. claimed and exercised this dispensing power in the case of sheriffs, contrary to act of parliament[20]. It was early indeed in his reign, and when the state of his affairs was thought to give a colour to it.

I mention these things to shew, that since the pope’s example had been so infectious in former times, it would now be followed very resolutely, when the translation of the very supremacy, from which it had sprung, seemed to justify it. And we have a remarkable instance in Elizabeth’s reign, by which it may appear that this prerogative was publickly and solemnly avowed. For upon some scandal taken by the popish party upon pretence that the book of consecration of bishops was not established by law, the queen made no scruple to declare by her letters-patent, that she had, by her supreme authority, dispensed with all causes or doubts of any imperfection or disability in the persons of the bishops. My learned friend, Dr. Stillingfleet, in commenting this case, acknowledges the very truth. “It was customary,” says he, “in the pope’s bulls, to put in such kind of clauses; and therefore she would omit no power in that case to which the pope had pretended[21].”

And it is in this dispensing spirit that James I, having delivered it for a maxim of state, “that the king is above law,” goes on to affirm, in one of his favourite works, that general laws, made publickly in parliament, may, upon known respects to the king, by his authority be mitigated and SUSPENDED upon causes only known to him[22].

We perceive the ground of that claim, which was carried so high by the princes of the house of Stuart, and, as we have just seen, brought on the ruin of the last of them. And to how great a degree this prerogative of the dispensing power had at length possessed the minds even of the common lawyers, (partly from some scattered examples of it in former times, and partly from reasons of expediency in certain junctures, but principally from the inveteracy of this notion of the papal supremacy) we had an alarming proof in Hale’s case, when eleven out of the twelve judges declared for it.

SIR J. MAYNARD.

Your lordship has indeed shewn that the poison of the papal supremacy began to work very fatally. If this blessed revolution had not happened, what could have been expected but that the next step would be, to set the crown above all divine as well as human law? And methinks, after such a judgment in Westminster-Hall, it could not be surprising if another set of men had served the king, in the office of the pope’s janissaries, and maintained his right of dispensing with the gospel itself[23], as well as the statute-book.

MR. SOMERS.

I must needs think, Sir John, you are a little severe, not to say unjust, in this insinuation; for which the churchmen of our days have surely given you no reason. And as for the reverend judges, methinks my lord of Salisbury might be allowed to expose their determination, at the same time that he so candidly accounts for it.

BP. BURNET.

I perceive, my Lord Commissioner, with all his goodness and moderation, is a little apt to surmise the worst of our order. But I will try to reconcile him to it; and it shall be in the way he most likes, by making a frank confession of our infirmities.

For another source of the regal dominion in latter times, and still springing from out of the rock of supremacy (which followed and succoured the court-prerogative, wherever it went, just as the rock of Moses, the Rabbins say, journeyed with the Jewish camp, and refreshed it in all its stations) was the opinion taken up and propagated by churchmen, from the earliest æra of the Reformation, concerning the irresistible power of kings, and the PASSIVE OBEDIENCE that is due to it.

SIR. J. MAYNARD.

Aye, there it is, I am afraid, that we are principally to look for the origin of the high pretences of our kings to absolute government.

BP. BURNET.

I shall dissemble no part of the clergy’s blame on this occasion; and there is the less need, if I were ever so tender of their reputation, as their inducements to preach up this doctrine were neither slight in themselves, nor unfriendly to the public interest.

It cannot be doubted that the churchmen especially, both by interest and principle, would be closely connected with the new head of the church. Their former subjection in spirituals to the papal authority would of itself create a prejudice in favour of it, as now residing in the king’s person. And the disposal of bishopricks and other great preferments being now entirely in the crown, they would of course, you will say, be much addicted to his service.

But these were not the sole, or even the principal, reasons that induced so wise and so disinterested persons, as our first reformers, to exalt the royal prerogative. They were led into this pernicious practice by the most excusable of all motives, in their situation, an immoderate zeal against popery.

It is true, a very natural prejudice mixed itself with their other reasonings. “The crown had been declared supreme, and to have chief government of all estates of this realm, and in all causes.” And, though this declaration was levelled only against the pretensions of every foreign, and particularly the papal power, yet, the clergy were given to conceive of it as a general proposition. The reason was, that the people, from whom the just right of supremacy is derived, having, at this juncture, not yet attained the consideration, which the nobles had lost, they forwardly concluded, that if the royal estate were independent of the pope, it was unquestionably so of every other power. They could not, on the sudden, be brought to think so reverendly of the poor people, even in their representatives, as to allow that they had any pretension to restrain their sovereign.

SIR J. MAYNARD.

I could swear to the truth of this account. One of the popes, I forget which, is said to have called the deputies of the third estate in France, on a certain occasion, Nebulones Ex fæce plebis[24]. And though that might not be the language of churchmen in England, at this time, it was not far, perhaps, from expressing their sentiments. It is certain, they soon taught their princes, who put themselves to school to the hierarchy[25], to talk in this strain; as appears from many of Elizabeth’s and James’s speeches to the commons.

BP. BURNET.

Something of this sort, I grant you, but not in the degree you put it, might have an influence on the political reasonings of the clergy. But their zeal for reformation was what prevailed with them most, and carried them furthest into these notions. It is something curious to see how this happened.

Henry’s usurpation of the supremacy, as it was called at Rome, appeared so prodigious a crime to all good Catholics, that no severities were great enough to inflict upon him for it. Their writers proceeded to strange lengths. Even our cardinal Pole so far forgot the greatness of his quality, and the natural mildness of his temper, as to exceed the bounds of decency, in his invectives against him. And when afterwards, in right of this assumed headship, the crown went so far as to reject the authority of the church as well as court of Rome, all the thunders of the Vatican were employed against this invader of the church’s prerogative. The pope, in his extreme indignation, threatened to depose Edward. He did put his threat in execution against Elizabeth. Yet, in spite of religious prejudices, this was esteemed so monstrous a stretch of power, and so odious to all Christian princes, that the jesuits thought it expedient, by all means, to soften the appearance of it. One of their contrivances was, by searching into the origin of civil power; which they brought rightly, though for this wicked purpose, from the people. For they concluded, that, if the regal power could be shewn to have no divine right, but to be of human and even popular institution, the liberty, which the pope took in deposing kings, would be less invidious. Thus the jesuits reasoned on the matter. The argument was pushed with great vigour by Harding and his brethren in Elizabeth’s reign, but afterwards with more learning and address by Bellarmine, Mariana, and others[26].

To combat this dangerous position, so prejudicial to the power of kings, and which was meant to justify all attempts of violence on the lives of heretical princes, the Protestant divines went into the other extreme; and, to save the person of their sovereign, preached up the doctrine of DIVINE RIGHT. Hooker, superior to every prejudice, followed the truth. But the rest of our reforming and reformed divines stuck to the other opinion; which, as appears from the HOMILIES, the INSTITUTION OF A CHRISTIAN MAN, and the general stream of writings in those days, became the opinion of the church, and was indeed the received Protestant doctrine.

And thus unhappily arose in the church of England that pernicious system of divine indefeasible right of kings: broached indeed by the clergy, but not from those corrupt and temporizing views to which it has been imputed. The authority of those venerable men, from whom it was derived, gave it a firm and lasting hold on the minds of the clergy: And being thought to receive a countenance from the general terms, in which obedience to the civil magistrate is ordained in scripture, it has continued to our days, and may, it is feared, still continue, to perplex and mislead the judgments of too many amongst us.

Yet it could hardly have kept its ground against so much light and evidence as has been thrown at different times on this subject[27], but for an unlucky circumstance attending the days of reformation. This was, the growth of puritanism and the republican spirit; which, in order to justify its attack on the legal constitutional rights of the crown, adopted the very same principles with the jesuited party. And under these circumstances it is not to be thought strange that a principle, however true, which was disgraced by coming through such hands, should be generally condemned and execrated. The crown and mitre had reason to look upon both these sorts of men as their mortal enemies. What wonder then they should unite in reprobating the political tenets, on which their common enmity was justified and supported?

This I take to be the true account of what the friends of liberty so often object to us, “That the despotism of our later princes has been owing to the slavish doctrines of the clergy.” The charge, so far as there is any colour for it, is not denied: and yet I should hope to see it urged against us with less acrimony, if it were once understood on what grounds these doctrines were taken up, and for what purposes they were maintained by the clergy.

MR. SOMERS.

Besides the candour of this acknowledgment, the part, which our clergy have lately acted, is, methinks, enough to abate and correct those hard sentiments, which, as you say, have been entertained against them.

SIR J. MAYNARD.

This apology seems indeed the best that can be made for them. But when one considers the baleful tendency of those doctrines, which were calculated to enslave the very souls and consciences of men, and by advancing princes into the rank of gods, to abet and justify their tyranny, one cannot help feeling a strong resentment against the teachers of them, however they might themselves be imposed upon by several colourable pretences. Your lordship knows, I might proceed to further and still harder reflexions. But I have no pretence to indulge in them at this time, when a bishop is pleading so warmly in the cause of liberty.

BP. BURNET.

This tenderness to your friends, Sir John, is very obliging. But I would willingly engage your candour, in behalf of our order. Let me presume, for such a purpose, to second Mr. Somers’s observation, “That the English clergy have at length atoned, in some measure, for former miscarriages.”

SIR J. MAYNARD.

By their behaviour in a late critical conjuncture: and yet, to speak my mind frankly, the merit of their services, even on that occasion, is a little equivocal, when one reflects how unwilling they seemed to take the alarm, till they were roused, at length, by their own immediate object, the church’s danger!

BP. BURNET.

And can you wonder that what concerned them most, what they best understood, and was their proper and peculiar charge, should engage their principal attention? Besides, they went on principle, and with reason too, in supposing that no slight or partial breaches of law were sufficient to authorise resistance to the magistrate[28]. But when a general attack was made upon it, and the dispensing power was set up in defiance of all law, and to manifest the subversion of the constitution, the clergy were then as forward as any others to signalize themselves in the common cause of liberty.

SIR J. MAYNARD.

Their old favourite doctrine of non-resistance was, I doubt, at the bottom of this cautious proceeding. But it was high time for them to lay it aside, when they saw it employed as the ready way for the introduction of that popery, which, as you say, it was its first intention to keep out.

BP. BURNET.

It certainly was.—But, not to pursue this argument any further, let me return to the main point I had in view, which was, “to account for the growth of the regal power from the influence of the transferred supremacy.” There is still another instance behind, which shews how well our princes understood the advantage they had gained, and how dextrously they improved it.

It seems prodigious, at first sight, that when the yoke of Rome was thrown off, the new church, erected in opposition to it, should still continue to be governed by the laws of the old. The pretence was, that this was only by way of interim, till a body of ecclesiastical laws could be formed; and, to cover this pretence the better, some steps were, in fact, taken towards the execution of such a design. But the meaning of the crown certainly was, to uphold its darling supremacy, even on the old footing of the CANON LAWS.

This conclusion seems probable, if one considers that those canons proceeded from an absolute spiritual monarch, and had a perpetual reference to his dominion; that they were formed upon the very genius, and did acknowledge the authority of the civil laws, the proper issue, as my Lord Commissioner has shewn us, of civil despotism. Whoever, I say, considers all this, will be inclined to think that the crown contrived this interim from the use the canon law was of to the extension of the prerogative. Accordingly it is certain, that the succeeding monarchs, Elizabeth, James, and Charles, would never suffer us to have a body of ecclesiastical laws, from a sense of this utility in the old ones; and a consciousness, if ever they should submit a body of new laws to the legislature, that the parliament would form them altogether in the genius of a free church and state[29]; and perhaps would be for assuming a share in their darling supremacy itself.

With those canon laws, and for the same purpose, as was observed to us, these princes retained a great affection for the interpreters of them, the canon and civil lawyers; till the genius of liberty rising and prevailing in the end, over all the attempts of civil despotism, both the one and the other fell into gradual desuetude and contempt: and as the canonists were little regarded, so their law is now considered no further than as it is countenanced and supported by the law of England.

But to see how convenient the doctrine of the canon law was for the maintenance of an absolute supremacy, it needs only be observed to you, that one of these canons is, “That it is not lawful for any man to dispute of the pope’s power.” And to see how exactly our kings were disposed to act upon it, one needs only recollect that immortal apophthegm of the elder James, already taken notice of, “That it is sedition for the subject to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power.”

And as the canon laws are the pope’s laws, so we are told, on the same supreme authority, that the English laws are the king’s. For thus on another occasion his majesty expresses himself.—“Although a just prince” (I believe I repeat his very words) “will not take the life of any of his subjects without a clear law: yet the same laws, whereby he taketh them, are made by himself, or his predecessors; and so the power flows always from himself.”—And again, “Although a good king will frame all his actions to be according to the law, yet is he not bound thereto but of his good will, and for good example giving to his subjects[30].”

Thus decreed that great school-master of the whole land (to give his majesty no harder a title than he was pleased to give himself); and it is difficult to say whence his supremacy extracted this golden rule of free monarchies, if not from the pope’s own code of imperial canons.

Thus it appears what misconceptions arose, and what strange conclusions were drawn, from the king’s supremacy in spirituals. One might proceed further in contemplation of this subject; but I have wearied you too much already. You will see from these several particulars how it came to pass that the Reformation, which was founded on the principles of liberty and supported by them, was yet for some time the cause of strengthening the power of the crown. For though the exercise of private judgment, which was essential to Protestantism, could not but tend to produce right notions of civil liberty, as well as of religious faith and discipline, and so in the end was fated to bring about a just form of free government (as after some struggles and commotions, we see, it has happened), yet the translation of supremacy from the pope to the civil magistrate brought with it a mighty accession of authority, which had very sensible effects for several reigns afterwards. The mysterious sacredness and almost divinity which had lodged in the pope’s person, was now inshrined in the king’s; and it is not wonderful that the people should find their imaginations strongly affected by this notion. And with this general preparation, it followed very naturally, that, in the several ways here recounted, the crown should be disposed and enabled to extend its prerogative, till another change in the government was required to limit and circumscribe it, almost as great as that of the Reformation.

MR. SOMERS.

I have listened with much pleasure to this deduction which your lordship has made from that important circumstance of the crown’s supremacy in spirituals. I think it throws great light on the subject under consideration, and accounts in a clear manner for that appearance of despotism which the English government has worn from the times of reformation. I have only one difficulty remaining with me: but it is such an one as seems to bear hard on the great hypothesis itself, so learnedly maintained by my Lord Commissioner in our late conversation, of the original free constitution of the English government. For, allowing all you say to be true, does not the very translation of the pope’s supremacy to the king, considered in itself, demonstrate that we had then, at least, no free constitution at all, to be invaded by the high claims of that prerogative? If we admit the existence of any such, the supremacy of the church should, naturally, I think, have devolved upon the supreme civil power; which with us, according to the present supposition, is in the three estates of the legislature. But this devolution, it seems, was on the king alone; a public acknowledgment, as I take it, that the constitution of the government was at that time conceived to be, in the highest sense of the word, absolutely MONARCHICAL.

BP. BURNET.

I was not, I confess, aware of this objection to our theory, which is very specious. Yet it may be sufficient, as I suppose, to reply to it, that the work of reformation was carried on and established by the whole legislature; and that the supremacy, in particular, though it of right belonged to the three estates, was by free consent surrendered and given up into the hands of the king. It is certain this power, though talked of as the ancient right of the crown, was solemnly invested in it by act of parliament.

SIR J. MAYNARD.

There may be something in this. Yet your lordship, I think, does not carry the matter quite far enough; and, with your leave, I will presume to give another, and perhaps the truer, answer to Mr. Somers’s difficulty. The subject is a little nice, but I have not those scruples which may reasonably be conceived to restrain your lordship from enlarging upon it.

I reply then directly, and without softening matters, that this irregular translation of the supremacy is no proof that there was not then a FREE CONSTITUTION, with a legitimate power in it, to which the supremacy belonged. And my reason, without offence to my lord of Salisbury, is this. When the papal authority was abolished, and the question came into parliament, “who now became the head of the church;” the search after him was not carried, where it should have been, into the constitution of the kingdom; but, as it was a matter of religion, they mistook that, which was only an affair of church discipline, to be a doctrine of theology; and so searched, for a solution of the question, in the New Testament, and Ecclesiastical History. In the New Testament, obedience is pressed to the person of Cæsar, because an absolute monarchy was the only government in being: and, for the same reason, when afterwards the empire became Christian, the supremacy, as we know from ecclesiastical story, was assumed by the emperor: just as it would have been by the consul and senate, had the republic existed. Hence our Reformers, going altogether by spiritual and ecclesiastical example, and hoping thereby to preserve their credit against the reproaches of Rome, which, as your lordship knows, was perpetually charging them with novelties and innovations in both respects, recurred to early antiquity for that rule.

This attention to ecclesiastical example was, I suppose, a consideration of convenience with the wise fathers of our church: the other appeal to the Gospel, might be a matter of conscience with them. And thus by force of one text, ill-understood, render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s, they put the spiritual sword into the king’s hands; just as by another, he beareth not the sword in vain (for I know of no better authority), the temporal sword had also been committed to his care.

MR. SOMERS.

This last intimation, I am apprehensive, would bear a further debate[31]. But I acquiesce in your answer to my particular question; I mean, unless the bishop of Salisbury warns me against submitting to so heretical a doctor.

BP. BURNET.

My Lord Commissioner chuses to let slip no opportunity of exposing what he takes to be an error in ecclesiastical management. Either way, however, I am not displeased to find that his main thesis keeps its ground; and that, even according to his own account of the matter, the nation, when it gave up the supremacy to the king, was in possession of a free and legal constitution.

On the whole, you give me leave then to presume that the considerations, now offered to you, afford a reasonable account of that despotic form under which the English government has appeared, from the union of the two roses down to the subversion of the constitution in Charles the First’s time.

Other causes concurred; but the Reformation was the chief prop and pillar of the imperial dignity, while the constitution itself remained the same, or rather was continually gaining strength even by the necessary operation of those principles on which the Reformation was founded. Religious liberty made way for the entertainment of civil, in all its branches. It could not be otherwise. It disposed the minds of men to throw off that sluggishness, in which they had slumbered for many ages. A spirit of inquiry prevailed. Inveterate errors were seen through; and prejudices of all sorts fell off, in proportion to the growth of letters, and the progress of reason.

The increasing trade and wealth of the nation concurred with the temper of the times. The circulation of property brought on a natural relaxation of the feudal system. The plan of liberty was extended and enlarged; and the balance of power soon fell into the hands of the people. This appeared very plainly from the influence of parliaments, and the daring attacks of many particular members on the highest and most favoured claims of prerogative. Our kings were sensible of the alteration: but, instead of prudently giving way to it, they flew into the opposite extreme, and provoked the spirit of the times by the very reluctance they shewed on all occasions to comply with it. Every dormant privilege of the crown, every phantom of prerogative, which had kept the simpler ages in awe, was now very unseasonably conjured up, to terrify all that durst oppose themselves to encroaching royalty. Lawyers and church-men were employed in this service. And in their fierce endeavour to uphold a tottering throne by false supports, they entirely overthrew it. The nation was out of all patience to hear the one decree the empire of the kings of England to be absolute and uncontrolable by human law: and the other gave more offence, than they found credit, by pretending that the right of kings to such empire was divine[32]. Every artifice indeed of chicane and sophistry was called in to the support of these maxims of law and theology. But the season for religious and civil liberty to prevail over the impotent attempts of each, was at hand. The near approach of the divine form created an enthusiasm, which nothing could resist. It frustrated the generous views even of her first and sincerest worshipers. In the career of those ecstatic orgies, the unhappy king could not prevent his ministers, first, and afterwards the constitution itself, from falling a victim to that fury, which, in the end, forced off his own head.

Such was the issue of this desperate conflict between prerogative and liberty. The wonder was, that this fatal experience should not have rectified all mistakes, and have settled the government on a sure and lasting basis at the Restoration. The people were convinced, that nothing more was requisite to their happiness, than the secure possession of their ancient legal constitution. The re-called family were not so wise. And in their attempts to revive those old exploded claims, which had succeeded so ill with their predecessors, they once more fell from the throne, and left it to the possession of that glorious prince whom the greatly-injured nation has now called to it.

This then will be considered by grateful posterity as the true æra of English liberty. It was interwoven indeed with the very principles of the constitution. It was inclosed in the ancient trunk of the feudal law, and was propagated from it[33]. But its operation was weak and partial in that state of its infancy. It acquired fresh force and vigour with age, and has now at length extended its influence to every part of the political system.

Henceforward, may we not indulge in the expectation that both prince and people will be too wise to violate this glorious constitution: the only one in the records of time, which hath ever attained to the perfection of civil government? All the blessings of freedom which can consist with kingly rule, the people have: all the prerogatives of royalty, which can consist with civil freedom, are indulged to the king. From this just intermixture of the popular and regal forms, planted together in the earliest days, but grown up at length to full maturity, there arises a reasonable hope that the English constitution will flourish to the latest ages; and continue, through them all, the boast and glory of our country, and the envy and admiration of the rest of the world.

MR. SOMERS.

How generous in your lordship is this patriot augury of immortality to the English constitution! Yet I dare not be so sanguine in my expectations[35]. And Sir John Maynard, I suspect, who has seen the madness of kings and people, in their turns, will hardly expect it from me. It may be sufficient that we put up our ardent vows to Heaven, for the long continuance of it. Less than this cannot be dispensed with in an honest man. Every blessing of civil policy is secured to us by this new but constitutional settlement. And may our happy country enjoy it, at least as long as they have the sense to value, and the virtue to deserve it!

SIR J. MAYNARD.

When these fail, our wishes, and even prayers themselves, will hardly preserve us. Vice and folly, as you say, may do much towards defeating the purposes of the best government. What effect these may have, in time, on the English liberty, I would not, for the omen’s sake, undertake to say. You, my lord, and Mr. Somers (who are so much younger men) may be able, hereafter, to conjecture with more certainty of its duration. It is enough for me that I have lived to see my country in possession of it.

DIALOGUE VII. AND VIII.
ON THE
USES OF FOREIGN TRAVEL.
BETWEEN
LORD SHAFTESBURY
AND
MR. LOCKE.

DIALOGUE VII.
ON THE USES OF FOREIGN TRAVEL.
LORD SHAFTESBURY—MR. LOCKE;

TO ROBERT MOLESWORTH, ESQ.

I could not but be much surprised, my dear friend, to receive your commands on a subject, of which You, of all men, are the greatest master. For who could so well advise the party, you speak of, or resolve the general question concerning The Uses of Foreign Travel, considered as a part of modern breeding and education, as He, who has himself profited so much by this practice, and, in a late excellent treatise[36], has given so convincing a proof of its utility?

Besides, your application to me is a little suspicious; and looks as if you wanted to draw from me a confirmation of your own sentiments, rather than a candid examination of them. For how was it possible for you not to foresee the difficulty I must be under, in debating this point with you? When have I been able to dissent from you in any question of morals or policy? and especially what chance for my doing it in this instance, when you know the bias which my own education, conducted in this way, must have left upon me?

I am therefore at a loss, as I said, to account for your fancy in making me of your council on this occasion. But, whatever your purpose might be, since you have thought fit to honour me so far, I must own your Letter of Inquiry could not possibly have found me in a fitter season.

I happened just then to amuse myself with recollecting a conversation, which, not many days before, had passed between me and a certain Philosopher of great note, on that very subject.

You know the esteem I have of this Philosopher; I mean, for such of his writings, as are most popular, and deserve to be so; such as his pieces on Government, Trade, Liberty, and Education. No man understands the world better; or reasons more clearly on those subjects, in which that world takes itself to be most of all, and is, in truth, very nearly concerned.

His Philosophy, properly so called, is not, I doubt, of so good a taste; at least, his notion of morals is too modern for my relish: I had put myself to school to other masters, and had learnt, you know, from his betters what to think of Life and Manners; which they treat in a style quite out of the way of these subverters of ideal worlds[37], and architects on material principles[38].

But on this head, my dear Sir, you have heard me speak often, and may hear from me more at large on some other occasion. With exception to this one article (an important one, however), no man is more able, than Mr. Locke, or more privileged by his long experience, to give us Lectures on the good old chapter of Education; which many others indeed have discussed; but none with so much good sense and with so constant an eye to the use and business of the world as this writer.

The purpose of your inquiry, then, cannot, as I suppose, be any other way so well answered, as by putting into your hands a faithful account of his sentiments on the conduct and use of Travelling: especially, as you will perceive at the same time what my notions are (if that be of any importance to you) on the same subject.

If I were composing a Dialogue in the old mimetical, or poetic form, I should tell you, perhaps, the occasion that led us into this track of conversation. Nay, I should tell you what accident had brought us together; and should even omit no circumstance of time or place, which might be proper to let you into the scene, and make you, as it were, one of us.

But these punctilios of decorum are thought too constraining, and, as such, are wisely laid aside, by the easy moderns. Nay the very notion of Dialogue, such as it was in the politest ages of antiquity, is so little comprehended in our days, that I question much, if these papers were to fall into other hands than your own, whether they would not appear in a high degree fantastic and visionary. It would never be imagined that a point of morals or philosophy could be regularly treated in what is called a conversation-piece; or that any thing so unlike the commerce of our world could have taken place between men, that had any use or knowledge of it.

This, I say, might be the opinion of men of better breeding; of those, who are acquainted with the fashion, and are themselves practised in the conversations, of the polite world. The formalists, on the other hand, would be out of patience, I can suppose, at this sceptical manner of debate, which ends in nothing; and after the waste of much breath, leaves the matter at last undecided, and just as it was taken up.

All this, it must be owned, is very true. But as it is not my intention to submit the following draught to such critics, you, who know me, will accept this recital, made in my own way, and pretty much as it passed. You may well be trusted to make your own conclusions from what is offered on either side of the argument, and will need no officious monitor to instruct you on which side the truth lies.

Not to detain you, by further preliminaries, from the entertainment (such as it is) which I have promised you; you may suppose, if you please, Mr. Locke and me, in company with some other of our common friends, sitting together in my library, and entering on the subject in the following manner.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

And is not TRAVELLING then, in your opinion, one of the best of those methods, which can be taken to polish and form the manners of our liberal youth, and to fit them for the business and conversation of the world?

MR. LOCKE.

I think not. I see but little good, in proportion to the time it takes up, that can be drawn from it, under any management; but, in the way in which it commonly is and must be conducted, so long as travel is considered as a part of early education, I see nothing but mischiefs spring from it.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

What! necessarily spring from it? And is there no way to stop their growth; or at least prevent their choking the good plants, which that soil is capable of producing?

MR. LOCKE.

This indeed I must not absolutely affirm: your Lordship’s example, I confess, stands in my way. But if your own education, which was conducted in this form, and creates a prejudice for it, be pleaded against me, I may still say, that the argument extends no further than to qualify the assertion; and that, as in other cases, the rule is general, though with some exceptions.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

It was not my meaning to put your politeness to this proof. I would even take no advantage of the exception which you might consent to make in the case of many other travellers, who have, doubtless, a better claim, than myself, to this indulgence. What I would gladly know of you, is, Whether, in general, Travel be not an excellent school for our ingenuous and noble youth; and whether it may not, on the whole, deserve the countenance of a philosopher, who understands the world, and has himself been formed by it?

MR. LOCKE.

Your Lordship, I think, will do well to put philosophy out of the question. There is so much to be said against Travel in that view, that the matter would clearly be determined against you. It is by other rules, and what are called the maxims of the world (which your Lordship understands too well, to join them with philosophy), that the advocate for travelling must demand to have his cause tried, if he would hope to come off, in the dispute, with any advantage.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Yet philosophy was not always of this mind. You know, when the best proficients in that science gave a countenance to this practice, by their own example: a good part of their life was spent in foreign countries; and they did not presume to set up for masters of wisdom, till experience and much insight into the manners of men had qualified them for that great office. Hence they became the ablest and wisest men of the whole world; and their wisdom was not in those days of the less account for the politeness, that was mixed with it.

MR. LOCKE.

Those wise men might have their reasons for this different practice. They most of them, I think, set up for Politicians and Legislators, as well as Philosophers; and in that infancy of arts and commerce, when distant nations had small intercourse with each other, it might be of real advantage to them, at least it might serve their reputation with the people, to spend some years in voyages to such countries as were in the highest fame for their wisdom or good government.

Besides, the Sages of those times made a wondrous mystery of their wisdom: a sure sign, perhaps, that they were not over-stocked with it. It was confined to certain schools and fraternities; or was locked up still more closely in the breasts of particular persons. Knowledge was not then diffused in books and general conversation, as amongst us; but was to be obtained by frequenting the academies or houses of those privileged men, who, by a thousand ambitious arts, had drawn to themselves the applause and veneration of the rest of the world.

All this might be said in favour of your Lordship’s old Sages. Yet one of them, who deserved that name the best, was no great Traveller. I remember to have read, that Socrates had never stirred out of Athens; and that, when his admirers would sometimes ask him why he affected this singularity, he was used to say, That Stones and Trees did not edify him: intimating, I suppose, that the sight of fine towns and fine countries, which the voyagers of those days, as of ours, made a matter of much vanity, was the principal fruit they had reaped to themselves from their fashionable labours.

However, allowing your lordship to make the most of these respectable authorities for the use of travelling, it must still be remembered, that they are wide of our present purpose. They were Sages, that travelled: and we are now inquiring, whether this be the way for young men to become Sages. Plato might pick up more learning in his Voyages, than any body since has been able to understand; and yet a youth of eighteen be little the wiser for staring away two or three years in mysterious Egypt.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Why, truly, if he carried nothing abroad with him but the use of his eye-sight, I should be much of your mind with regard to the improvements he might be expected to bring back with him. But let him hear and observe a little, as well as see; and methinks a youth of eighteen might pick up something of value, though he should not return laden with the mysteries of Egypt.

As to the gaiety on the ancient Sages, I could be much entertained with it, if I did not recollect that the more enlightened moderns have, also, been of their mind in this instance. To say nothing of other countries, which yet have risen in reputation for knowledge and civility in proportion to their acquaintance with the neighbouring nations, surely it must be allowed of our own, that all its valuable acquisitions in both have been forwarded at least, if not occasioned, by this reasonable practice. We are now, without doubt, arrived at the summit of politeness, and may subsist at length upon our own proper stock. But was this always the case? And must it not be acknowledged, that the brightest periods of our story are those, in which our noble youth were fashioned in the school of foreign Travel? You will hardly pretend that the ornaments of the second Charles’ and Elizabeth’s courts were cast in the coarse mould of this home-breeding.

MR. LOCKE.

I shall perhaps carry my pretensions still further, and affirm it had been much better if they had been so.

I know what is to be said for the voyagers in Elizabeth’s time. We were just then emerging from ignorance and barbarity. Learning and the Arts were but then getting up; and were best acquired, we will say, in foreign schools, and the commerce of other nations, which might have the start of us in such improvements. The state of Europe at that time was not unlike what I observed of the old world, when knowledge was in few hands, and the exclusive property, as it were, of particular persons. So that it was to be travelled for, and fetched home, by such as would have it. Italy, in particular, was in those days, as it had long been, the theatre of politeness, and without doubt could furnish us with very much of the learning we most wanted.

This then was the fashionable route of our curious and courtly youth: and many accomplished persons, I can readily admit, were to be found in the number of our Italian Travellers. Yet, methinks, they had done better to stay at home, and at least import the arts of Italy, if they were necessary to them, in sager heads than their own.

I say this, because it is no secret that the civility, we thus acquired, was dearly paid for; and that irreligion, and even Atheism, were packed up among their choicest gleanings, and shewn about, at their return, as curiosities, which could not but very much enhance the consideration of those who had been to gather them beyond the mountains[39].

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Or, shall we say, that this impiety of the time was only employed to correct its superstition? And that the philosophic spirits of that age trafficked in these wares, as thinking them a proper antidote to such as another set of missionaries largely dealt in: I mean, the agnus Dei’s, holy beads, and consecrated medals?

MR. LOCKE.

Take it which way you will, the conclusion, I believe, will scarcely be much in favour of our Italian Travellers.—As to the worthies of Charles’s court, your Lordship, without doubt, is disposed to divert yourself with them. For, if they brought any thing with them from France, besides the dress of its follies and vices (excepting always the sacred babble of their language), it is a secret which it has not been my fortune to be apprized of.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

And so, because Travelling may, by accident, be attended with some ill effects, you roundly determine against the thing itself; as if the national improvement in arts and civility, which unquestionably arose from it, were to go for nothing!

MR. LOCKE.

I would have it go for no more than it is honestly worth; which surely is something less than the price paid for it, our principles and our morals. And I doubt the truth is, that this degeneracy in both was the usual acquisition of our travelled youth, and the improvement, your Lordship speaks of, only the accidental benefit.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Without doubt, there is no extending our acquaintance with the world, but we run the risk of catching its vices, as well as virtues. Yet, push this conclusion as far as it will go, and you shut up mankind in absolute and incurable barbarism. Such is the unhappy condition of human nature, that in striving to cultivate its powers, you furnish the opportunities, at least, of its corruption. Yet to leave it in that sordid state, for fear of those abuses, is methinks but acting with the weak apprehension of fond mothers; who deny their children the liberty of stirring from the fire-side, for fear of the dirt or damp air, which, in their field-exercises, may chance to incommode them.

MR. LOCKE.

The allusion would be apt, if the health of the mind, as of the body, depended on the use of such liberty; or if it were true, that one could as little help breathing the air of vice, as that of the heavens. But, though I have heard much of the dangers to which Virtue is exposed in this bad world, I have never understood that Vice is its proper element.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Yet methinks, Sir, it will be hard to keep clear of it in any part of the world, that I am acquainted with: unless perhaps you take this happy Island of ours to be as free from Vice, as a Neighbouring one, they say, is from Venom.

MR. LOCKE.

There are, however, degrees in Vice, as well as varieties of it; and I cannot think it necessary for us to be greater proficients than we are, or to import new species of it; by rambling into countries where it may chance to rage with greater virulence, or where such modes of it, at least, prevail, as are luckily unknown to us. And such, I doubt, were the fruits of our Italian and French travels.

But allowing that Vice were of every clime, the same every where, and equally malignant, I should still imagine our youth to be safer from the infection at home, under the eye and wing of their own parents or families, than wandering at large in foreign countries, with as little care of others, as prudence of their own, to guard them from this danger.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Yes, if they were turned loose into this wicked world, and left to their own devices. But, what if some sage Philosopher—

MR. LOCKE.

Some God, you would say, in the shape of a Tutor; for a mere mortal Guide of that stamp is not easily met with. Or, if He were, his wisdom, I doubt, would hardly give him the authority, he stands in need of, for the discharge of his function. But I take your Lordship’s raillery, and could say in my turn, But what if some inquisitive and well-disposed young Nobleman—

After all, we may let these two voyagers, so well matched and fitted to each other, proceed on their journey. The question at present is of no such rarities; but of raw, ignorant, ungovernable boys, on the one hand, and of shallow, servile, and interested governors, on the other. And if any good can arise from such worthies as these, sauntering within the circle of the grand Tour, the magic of travelling can call up more than I have ever yet seen.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

It may be true, perhaps, that the advantages of travelling are not so great, or so general, as is sometimes pretended. Yet, on the other hand, that there are advantages, and considerable ones too, can hardly be denied. And to come at length more closely to the point (for what has hitherto passed is but a sort of prelude to the main argument) let me have leave to state those advantages clearly and distinctly to you, and then to request your own proper sense (I mean as a man of the world, according to the advice you just now gave me, and not as a Philosopher) of this practice.

MR. LOCKE.

Is this fair dealing in your Lordship? I supposed that by starting this question you had meant only, as on other occasions, to engage an old man in a little conversation; whereas your purpose, I now find, is to make a formal debate of it.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

Not a formal debate, but a free conference; for which we seem to have leisure enough; and the subject is, besides, of real importance. I may presume to answer for our friends here, that they will not be displeased to assist at it.

I am aware, as you said, that the practice may be sometimes inconvenient, as it is commonly managed, on the side of morals; and I would not be thought to have benefited so little by yours, and the instructions of my other masters, as not to lay the greatest stress on that consideration.

But, after all, these inconveniences may be pretty well avoided, by the choice of an honest and able governor. Such an one it will not be impossible to find, if the persons concerned be in earnest to look out for him: I do not say in Cells, for a Pedant without manners; and still less, you will say, in Camps, for a mannered man, without principles or letters; but, in the world at large, for some learned and well-accomplished person, who, yet, may not disdain to be engaged in this noblest office of conducting a young gentleman’s education.

Under such a Governor, as this, the danger, to which a young man’s morals may be exposed by early travel, will be tolerably guarded against; and to make amends for the hazard he runs in this respect, I see, on the other hand, so many reasons for breeding young men in this way, so many benefits arising from it at all times, and such peculiar inducements with regard to the present state of our own country, that, I think, we shall hardly be of two minds, when you have attended to them.

MR. LOCKE.

We shall see that in due time. For the present, the serious air, you assume, so different from your wonted manner, secures my attention.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

I cannot tell what may be the opinion of others; but ignorance and barbarity seem to me to be the parents of the most and the worst vices. Conceit, pride, bigotry, insolence, ferocity, cruelty, are the native product of the human mind, kept uncultivated. Self-love, which makes so predominant a part in the constitution of man, that some sufferers by its excesses have mistaken it for the sole spring of all his actions, naturally engenders these vices, when no care is taken to controul its operations by another principle.

On this account, wise men have had recourse to various expedients; such as the provision of Laws; the culture of Arts and Letters; and, in general, all that discipline which comes under the notion of early tutorage and education. But none of these has been found so effectual to the end in view, or is so immediately directed to the purpose of enlarging the mind, and curing it, at once, of all its obstinate and malignant prejudices, as a knowledge of the world acquired in the way of society, and general conversation.

To say nothing of the solitary sequestered life, which all men agree to term Savage, look only on those smaller knots and fraternities of men, which meet together in our provincial towns and cities, and, without any larger commerce, are confined within the narrow enclosure of their own walls or districts. In as much as this condition is more social than the other, it is, without doubt, more eligible. Yet see how many weak views are entertained by these separate clans, how many fond conceits, and over-weening fancies! The world seems to them shrunk up into their own private circle; just as the heavens appear to children to be contained within the limits of their own horizon.

Extend this prospect of mankind to still greater combinations, to states, kingdoms, nations, and what we call a whole people. By this freer intercourse, indeed, their thoughts take a larger range, and their minds open to more generous and manly conceptions. Yet their native barbarism sticks close to them, and requires to be loosened and worn off by a more social habit, by the experience of a still wider and more thorough communication. Tribes of men, although very numerous, yet, if shut up within one territory, and held closely together under the influence of the same political constitution, easily assimilate, as it were; run into the same common sentiments and opinions; and presently take, in the whole extent of their community, one uniform prevailing character.

Hence the necessity of their still looking beyond their own, into other combinations and societies; that so, as the mind strengthens by this exercise, they may be enabled to shake off their local, as we may say, and territorial prejudices.

Those other societies may not be without their defects, which it will be equally proper to keep clear of. But, by this free prospect of the differences subsisting between different nations, each naturally gets quit of his own peculiar and characteristic vices; and those of others, presenting themselves to our unbiassed observation, are not so readily entertained, or do not cling so fast to us, as what have grown up with us, and, by long unquestioned use, are become, as we well express it, a second nature.

Thus, by this near approach and attrition, as it were, of each other, our rude parts give way; our rough corners are insensibly worn off; and we are polished by degrees into a general and universal humanity.

Externi nequid valeat per læve morari,

to use the poet’s words, though with some small difference, I believe in their application.

What says my friend to these principles? are they just and reasonable? or, am I going to build on precarious and insecure foundations?

MR. LOCKE.

Whatever defect there may be in this foundation, your Lordship, as a wise architect, is for sparing no cost or pains in providing for its stability. Yet, methinks, you go deeper for it, than you need. At least, I did not expect your defence of Travelling would require you to make these profound researches into human nature.

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

I take your meaning. These researches, you would say, are so little profound, that I might have spared myself the trouble of making them at all, at least in conversation with a philosopher. Be that as it will; provided the principles themselves, I am contending for, be well founded. For the conclusion necessarily follows, “That therefore FOREIGN TRAVEL is, of all others, the most important and essential part of Education.”

The youth of the most accomplished people in Europe would have much to correct in themselves, and something, perhaps, to learn, in their voyages into the neighbouring nations; however inferior to their own, in the general state of knowledge and politeness. What then must be the case of our English youth, confined in this remote corner among themselves, and indulged in their own rustic and licentious habits?

Our country has never been famous for the civility of its inhabitants. We have, rather, been stigmatized in all ages, and are still considered by the rest of Europe, as proud, churlish, and unsocial. The very circumstance of our Island-situation seems to expose us to the just reproach of inhospitality. And if, with this disadvantage, we should cherish, and not correct, those vices which so naturally spring from it, what less could we expect than to be distinguished by such names, as our ill-manners would well deserve, though our pride might suffer from the application of them?

It seems then to be an inevitable consequence of what has been said, that we of this country have a more than ordinary occasion for the benefits of foreign travel. And the reason of the thing shews, they cannot be obtained too soon. Young minds are the fittest to take the ply of civility and good manners. The task is less easy, and the success more uncertain, when we enter upon this business late in life; when intractable humours have gathered strength, and the unsocial manner is become habitual to us. Whatever may be objected to the incapacity of this age in other respects, youth is out of question the time for acquiring right propensities and virtuous habits.

MR. LOCKE.

Your Lordship has so many good words at command upon all occasions, that one cannot but be entertained, at least, with your rhetoric, if not convinced by it. But my present concern is, to have a clear conception of your argument, which in plain terms, as I apprehend it, stands thus; “That every nation has many vices and follies to correct in itself; that this is perhaps more especially the case of our own; and that early Travel is the only, at least the most proper, cure for them.”

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

That, Sir, is my meaning; and, though expressed in more words than may be necessary, it is surely not coloured by any rhetorical exaggerations. But you must allow me to proceed in my own way, and enforce the general argument, I have delivered, by applying it to the particular exigencies and necessities of our English youth.

You, who have been abroad in the world, and have so just a knowledge of other states and countries, tell me, if there can be any thing more ridiculous than the idiot PREJUDICES of our home-bred gentlemen; which shew themselves, whenever their own dear Island comes, in any respect, to be the topic of conversation. What wondrous conceits of their own prowess, wisdom, nay of their manners and politeness! With what disdain is a foreigner mentioned by them, and with what apparent signs of aversion is his very person treated! They scarcely give you leave to suppose that any virtuous quality can thrive out of their own air, or that good sense can be expressed in any foreign language. Nay, their foolish prepossession extends to their very soil and climate. Such warm patriots are they, such furious lovers of their country, that they will have it to be the theatre of all convenience, delight, and beauty.

“To hear their discourse among themselves, one would imagine that the finest lands near the Euphrates, the Babylonian or Persian Paradises, the rich plains of Egypt, the Græcian Tempe, the Roman Campania, Lombardy, Provence, the Spanish Andalusia, or the most delicious tracts in the Eastern or Western Indies, were contemptible countries in respect of what they dote upon under the name of Old England[40].”

Now, if it were only for the sake of truth and decency, if it were but to avoid the ridicule to which these palpable absurdities and childish fancies expose them, one cannot but wish that our countrymen would open their eyes, and extend their prospect beyond their own foggy air, and dirty acres.

But this is the least inconvenience of their home breeding. How many low HABITS and sordid practices grow upon our youth of fortune, and even of quality, from the influence of their family, or at best provincial, education!

They retain so much of their Saxon or Norman character, that their noblest passion is that of the Chace; unless a horse-race may, haply, contend with it. Their ideas are all taken from the stable or kennel; and they have hardly words for any other sort of conversation.

In conjunction with this habit, or in direct consequence of it, they plunge themselves into the brutalities of the bottle and table. Having little use of the faculty of thinking or discoursing on any reasonable subject, they care not how soon they disable themselves for either. To this end, their surloins are of sovereign effect; and if any spark of the divine particle be still unsubdued, they quench it forthwith in the strongest wines, or, which suits their taste and design best, in their own country liquor.

This sottish debauch leads to others. My young master will be denied no animal gratification. And thus low intrigues and vulgar amours follow of course, in which the sum of his refined pleasures is, at length, completed.

The rest of his life runs on in this drowzy tenour; unless perhaps you except those intervals, which can hardly be called lucid, when his half-closed understanding seems stunned, rather than awakened, by party-rage, election bustle, and the noise of faction.

Admirable patriots these! and usefuller citizens by far, than if they had acquired some relish of temperance, decency, and reason, in foreign courts, and the more improved societies of Europe.

But suppose our young gentleman to have escaped this sordid taste, and by better luck than ordinary to have finished his home education without much injury to his morals. Nay, suppose him to be inured, in good time, to better discipline, and to have had the advantage of what is called amongst us, by a violent figure of speech, a liberal education.

To put the case at the best, suppose him to have been well whipped through one of our public schools, and to come full fraught, at length, with Latin and Greek, from his college. You see him, now, on the verge of the world, and just ready to step into it. But, good heavens, with what PRINCIPLES and MANNERS? His spirit broken by the servile awe of pedants, and his body unfashioned by the genteeler exercises! Timid at the same time, and rude; illiberal and ungraceful! An absurd compound of abject sentiments, and bigoted notions, on the one hand; and of clownish, coarse, ungainly demeanor, on the other! In a word, both in mind and person, the furthest in the world from any thing that is handsome, gentlemanlike, or of use and acceptation in good company!

Bring but one of these grown boys into a circle of well-bred people, such as his rank and fortune entitle him, and in a manner oblige him, to live with: and see how forbidding his air, how embarrassed all his looks and motions! His awkward attempts at civility would provoke laughter, if, again, his rustic painful bashfulness did not excite one’s pity. What wonder if the young man, under these circumstances, is glad to shrink away, as soon as possible, from so constraining a situation; and to seek the low society of his inferiors, at least of such as himself among his equals, where he can be at ease, and give a loose to his unformed and disorderly behaviour!

But now, on the other hand, let a young gentleman, who has been trained abroad; who has been accustomed to the sight and conversation of men; who has learnt his exercises, has some use of the languages, and has read his Horace or Homer in good company; let such an one, at his return, make his appearance in the best societies; and see with what ease and address he sustains his part in them! how liberal his air and manner! how managed and decorous his delivery of himself! In short, how welcome to every body, and how prepared to acquit himself in the ordinary commerce of the world, and in conversation!

I should think, if there were no other advantage of early travel, beside this of manners, it were well worth setting against all the other inconveniences, whatever they be, of this sort of Education.

MR. LOCKE.

Good my Lord——

LORD SHAFTESBURY.

I know what you would say: that manners, in the proper acceptation of the word, at least in the sense of wise men, implies much more than the ease, assurance, civility, (call it what you will) which a young Traveller is supposed to acquire in his intercourse with the politer nations. Without doubt, it does. But give me this foundation of good breeding to work upon; and if I had the tutorage of a noble youth, I durst be answerable for all the rest, which even a philosopher includes in his sublime notion of manners: whereas, without it, his improvements of other sorts would be almost thrown away; nay, his virtues themselves would be offensive and unlovely.

But do not imagine I confine myself to manners in the obvious meaning of that term. I further understand by it an ability for ingenuous, useful, and manly conversation. For a traveller, that makes the proper use of his opportunities, will be all of a piece, and return as polished in his mind and understanding, as in his person.

And here, again, how deficient is the turn and course of our ordinary education! Whither would you send our young pupil, to accomplish himself in the necessary art of speaking handsomely and thinking justly? What companions have you provided for him, or what instructors in this man-science will you direct him to? shall he court the acquaintance of some lettered pedagogue in the schools, or solicit the precious communication of some famed professor in the occult sciences? Wonderful models of correct wit, sublime sense, and elegant expression!

I have read of an ancient Rhetorician, that took upon him to teach others the art of speaking; but in such a way, says my author, that if a man had a mind to learn the art of not speaking, he could not have been directed to an abler master.

I forbear the application of my little tale, out of pure respect to the modern disciples and ornaments of this ancient school; and, without pushing matters so far, it will be owned, that whatever advantage of this sort may be left at home, the loss will be amply made up to an inquisitive traveller, on the Continent. France, and even Italy, abounds in men of distinguished literature and politeness. Nay, a German Professor may supply the place of an University Doctor. Think, what illustrious persons may be sometimes met with even in a Dutch town: and how many instructive hours you and I have passed in conversation with such knowing, candid, and accomplished scholars, as Le Clerc and Limborch. Philosophy, and even Divinity, could take a liberal air, under their management; and eloquence itself might be learned, on almost every subject, in their company.

I consider then the acquaintance and familiarity of men of eminent parts and genius, as another considerable benefit resulting from this way of foreign education.

Still there are higher things in view (for, now I have ventured thus far in the dogmatic tone, I find myself, like our authorized teachers, a little impatient of control, and in a humour to run myself out without lett or interruption); still, I say, there are higher advantages in view from travelled culture and education.