WORKS

OF

HENRY, LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S.

MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, AND of

THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF NAPLES.

VOL. I.

LONDON AND GLASGOW:

RICHARD GRIFFIN AND COMPANY,

PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

1855.

OF

PHILOSOPHERS

OF THE TIME OF GEORGE III.

BY

Bars.

HENRY, LORD BROUGHAM, F.R.S.,

MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, AND OF

THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF NAPLES.

THIRD EDITION.

LONDON AND GLASGOW:

RICHARD GRIFFIN AND COMPANY,

PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

1855.

PREFACE.

THE reign of George III. may in some important respects be justly regarded as the Augustan age of modern history. The greatest statesmen, the most consummate captains, the most finished orators, the first historians, all flourished during this period. For excellence in these departments it was unsurpassed in former times, nor had it even any rivals, if we except the warriors of Louis XIV.'s day, one or two statesmen, and Bolingbroke and Massillon as orators. But its glories were not confined to those great departments of human genius. Though it could show no poet like Dante, Milton, Tasso, or Dryden; no dramatist like Shakspeare or Corneille; no philosopher to equal Bacon, Newton, or Locke,—it nevertheless in some branches, and these not the least important of natural science, very far surpassed the achievements of former days, while of political science, the most important of all, it first laid the foundations, and then reared the superstructure. The science of chemistry almost entirely, of political economy entirely, were the growth of this remarkable era; while even in the pure mathematics a progress was made which nearly changed its aspect since the days of Leibnitz and Newton. The names of Black, Watt, Cavendish, Priestley, Lavoisier, Davy, may justly be placed far above the Boyles, the Stahls, the Hales, the Hookes of former times; while Euler, Clairaut, D'Alembert, Lagrange, La Place, must be ranked

as analysts next after Newton himself, and above Descartes, Leibnitz, or the Bernouillis; and in economical science, Hume, Smith, and Quesnai really had no parallel, hardly any forerunner. It would also be vain to deny great poetical and dramatic genius to Goldsmith, Voltaire, Alfieri, Monti, and the German school, how inferior soever to the older masters of song.

But, above all, it must not be forgotten, that in our times the mighty revolution which has been effected in public affairs, and has placed the rights of the people throughout the civilized world upon a new and a firm foundation, was brought about, immediately indeed by the efforts of statesmen, but prepared, and remotely caused, by the labours of philosophers and men of letters. The diffusion of knowledge among the community at large is the work of our own age, and it has made all the conquests of science both in recent and in older times of incalculably greater value, of incomparably higher importance to the interests of mankind, than they were while scientific study was confined within the narrow circles of the wealthy and the learned.

Having, therefore, on retiring from office, more time left for literary pursuits than professional and judicial duties had before allowed me, I was not minded to waste, indolent and inactive, or enslaved by lower occupations, that excellent leisure :-"Non fuit consilium socordiâ atque desidiâ bonum otium conterere; neque vero agrum colendo, aut venando, servilibus officiis intentum, ætatem agere. Statutum res gestas populi nostri carptim, ut quæque memoriâ digna videbantur, perscribere; eo magis quod mihi a spe, metû, partibus reipublicæ, animus liber erat."* For I conceived that as portrait-painting is true historical painting

*Sall., Cat., cap. iv.