and to hinder it from being destroyed, by preventing too much power from falling into one scale, has been the principle of all the wife councils of Europe, relatively to France and to the house of Auftria, through the whole period that began at the aera we have fixed, and fubfifts at this hour. To make a careful and juft obfervation, therefore, of the rife and decline of thefe powers, in the two laft centuries and in the prefent, of the projects which their ambition formed, of the means they employed to carry these projects on with fuccefs, of the means employed by others to defeat them, of the iffue of all thefe endeavours in war and in negociation, and particularly to bring your obfervations home to your own country and your own use; of the conduct that England held, to her honor or dishonor, to her advantage or difadvantage, in every one of the numerous and important conjunctures that happened-ought to be the principal fubject

of

of your lordship's attention in reading and reflecting on this part of modern history.

Now to this purpose you will find it of great use, my lord, when you have a general plan of the history in your mind, to go over the whole again in another method, which I propose to be this. Divide the entire period into fuch particular periods as the general course of affairs will mark out to you fufficiently, by the rife of new conjunctures, of different schemes of conduct, and of different theatres of action. Examine this period of history as you would examine a tragedy or a comedy; that is, take first the idea or a general notion of the whole, and after that examine every act and every fcene apart. Confider them in themfelves, and confider them relatively to one another. Read this hiftory as you would that of any ancient period; but Atudy it afterwards, as it would not

bę.

be worth your while to study the other

;

nay as you could not have in your power the means of studying the other, if the ftudy was really worth your while. The former part of this period abounds in great historians: and the latter part is fo modern, that even tradition is authentie enough to fupply the want of good hiftory; if we are curious to enquire, and if we hearken to the living with the fame impartiality and freedom of judgment as we read the dead: and he that does one will do the other. The whole period abounds in memorials, in collections of public acts and monuments, of private letters, and of treaties. All these must come into your plan of ftudy, my lord: many not to be red through, but all to be confulted and compared. They must not lead you, I think, to your enquiries, but your enquiries must lead you to them. By joining hiftory and that which we call the materia historica together in this manner, and by drawing your informa

tion from both, your lordship will acquire not only that knowledge which many have in fome degree, of the great tranfactions that have paffed, and the great events that have happened in Europe during this period, and of their immediate and obvious caufes and confequences; but your lordship will acquire a much fuperior knowledge, and fuch a one as very few men possess almost in any degree, a knowledge of the true political fyftem of Europe during this time. You will fee it in it's primitive principles, in the constitutions of governments, the fituations of countries, their national and true interests, the characters and the religion of people, and other permanent circumstances. You will trace it through all its fluctuations, and obferve how the objects vary seldom, but the means perpetually, according to the different characters of princes and of those who gothe different abilities of those who ferye; the courfe of accidents, and a multitude

yern;

multitude of other irregular and contin gent circumstances.

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

time.

YOUR lordship will find this divifion as apt and as proper, relatively to the parti cular histories of England, France, Spain, and Germany, the principal nations concerned, as it is relatively to the general history of Europe.

THE death of queen ELIZABETH, and the acceffion of king JAMES the first, made a vaft alteration in the government of our nation at home, and in her conduct abroad, about the end of the first of these periods. The wars that religion occafioned,