considering, as a general specimen of what I conceive to be one of the most common and serious faults that can be objected to in the attractive pages of his history.

In his account of the unfortunate close of the reign of Richard II., Mr. Hume observes, that one man alone, the Bishop of Carlisle, had the courage, amid the general disloyalty and violence, to appear in defence of his unhappy master, and to plead his cause against all the power of the prevailing party.

He then gives a representation of the speech; but if we turn to Sir J. Hayward's history (the authority which Hume himself quotes) we may there see the speech fully given; and it will be found not without its beauties, but certainly very inferior to the representation of it, which is exhibited in Hume. The philosophic observations which are interwoven and added by Mr. Hume, serve to give a great force and finish to the expostulations of the bishop in favour of the fallen monarch; but the more important consideration is, that they serve also to throw over the proceedings of the barons an air of greater violence and criminality, than properly belong to them; for their conduct rises up in still stronger contrast, if such views of the English constitution and of the principles of government could indeed have been taken and urged in such an assembly by a contemporary statesman, a man of like passions and like information with themselves.

I will venture to take up your time by considering more minutely the instance before us. Observe, first, the beautiful reasonings of Hume: it would be not a little marvellous if they had been produced by the Bishop of Carlisle in the time of Richard II. "He represented," says Hume, "to the parliament, that all the abuses of government which could justly be imputed to Richard, far from amounting to tyranny, were merely the result of error and youth, or misguided counsel:" this, though in different words, the bishop did say. "And that this admitted," continues Mr. Hume, "of a remedy more easy and salutary than a total subversion of the constitution" this, which is of a more philosophic cast, the bishop did not say. Now mark what immediately follows in Hume; not any such observation, as was very likely to be offered by the bishop to the barons, or even to have occurred to the

mind of Sir J. Hayward himself, two centuries afterwards, but the very observation which contains the whole of the philosophy of Mr. Hume while writing the History of England; the great principle by means of which he defends all the arbitrary proceedings of our monarchs, and by which he reconciles his unwary readers to the admission of sentiments and opinions unfavourable to the best interests and assured rights of the popular part of our constitution. "The bishop represented to the Lords," continues Mr. Hume, "that even if these abuses of government had been much more violent and dangerous than they really were, they had chiefly proceeded from former examples of resistance, which, making the prince sensible of his precarious situation, had obliged him to establish his throne by irregular and arbitrary expedients:" the bishop said nothing of the sort. And now observe the next remark that follows in Hume; how worthy of the generalizing mind of the philosopher of the eighteenth century-how little likely to have been addressed by a warin hearted ecclesiastic to the disorderly barons of the fourteenth. "That laws could never secure the subject which did not give security to the sovereign; and if the maxim of inviolable loyalty, which formed the basis of the English government, were once rejected, the privileges belonging to the several orders of the state, instead of being fortified by that licentiousness, would thereby lose the surest foundation of their force and stability."

All this is very true and worthy of a great reasoner like Mr. Hume, when applying the powers of his mind to the subject of government; and all this may be cheerfully assented to by the warmest partisan of popular privileges: and the more so, because it is at length understood, that the king can act only by his ministers; and that though the king must be secure, that his mind may be at rest on the subject of his prerogative, and that the security also of his people may be thus undisturbed, still that his ministers need not; that they are responsible at least, though the sovereign be not; that in short, there is some one responsible, and that the community is not left at the mercy of fortune, and without any reasonable means of watching over its own interests.

No such interpretation however of this great principle of

government is added by Mr. Hume; and neither the principle so stated, nor the interpretation, are to be found in Sir J. Hayward; and it was not in this philosophic manner that the bishop reasoned according to the representation of Sir J. Hayward; his arguments were founded merely upon the obvious doctrines of passive obedience and the divine right of kings. "I will not speak," said the bishop, (according to Sir J. Hayward) "what may be done in a popular state or a consular. In these and such like governments, the prince hath not legal rights; but if the sovereign majesty be in the prince, as it was in the three first empires, and in the kingdoms of Judea and Israel, and is now in the kingdoms of England, France, Spain, Scotland, Muscovy, Turkey, Tartaria, Persia, Ethiopia, and almost all the kingdoms of Asia and Africke (very like the philosophic reasonings of Hume, all this! England! Ethiopia! and Africke!)-although for his vices he be unprofitable to the subjects, yea, hurtful, yea intolerable, yet can they lawfully neither harme his person nor hazard his power, whether by judgment or else by force; for neither one nor all magistrates have any authority over the prince from whom all authority is derived, and whose only presence doeth silence and suspend all inferiour jurisdiction and power. As for force, what subject can attempt, or assist, or counsel, or conceal violence against his prince and not incur the high and heinous crime of treason?"

The bishop then goes on to quote the instance of Nebuchadnezzar, of Baltazar, of Saul, and then insists that not only our actions but our speeches also and our very thoughts are strictly charged with duty and obedience unto princes, whether they be good princes or evil; that the law of God ordaineth that he which doeth presumptuously against the ruler of the people, shall dye; that we are not to touch the Lord's anointed, nor rail upon the judges, neither speak evil against the ruler of the people; that the apostles do demand further that even our thoughts and soules bee obedient to higher powers; and least any one should imagine that they meant of good princes only, they speak generally of all; and further to take away all doubt, they may (make) expresse mention of the evil princes, &c. &c.

The bishop then goes on to illustrate his doctrine by the

consideration of the domestic relation of parent and child. "The son must not lift up his hand," says he, "against the father, though for all excesse of villanies, odious and execrable both to God and man; but our country is dearer unto us than our parents, and the prince is Pater Patriæ the father of our country, and therefore, &c. &c. not to be violated. Doth he (the prince) command or demand our persons or our purses, we must not shun for the one nor shrink for the other: for, as Nehemiah saith," continues the bishop, "kings have dominion over the bodies and over the cattle of their subjects at their pleasure. Yea, the church hath declared it to bee an heresie to hold that a prince may be slain or deposed by his subjects for any disorder or fault either in life or else in government." Such is the reasoning of the bishop, as given by Sir J. Hayward. And his philosophy, when it appears, is the following: "There will be faultes so long as there are men: and as we endure with patience a barren year, if it happen, and unseasonable weather, and such other defects of nature, so must wee tollerate the imperfections of rulers and quietlye expecte eyther reformation or else a change."

This is the first specimen of it, and the only remaining philosophic position that I can observe, is the following:

"Oh! how shall the worlde be pestered with tyrantes, if subjects may rebell upon every pretence of tyranny!" The instances that followed to illustrate this remark are not well chosen by the bishop. "If they levy a subsidy or any other taxation, it shall be claymed oppression," &c. &c.

And now what will my hearer suppose, if I tell him that I believe the speech thus given by Sir J. Hayward to the good bishop is wholly a composition of Sir J. himself; and that though the general statement of passive obedience may have been expressed by the bishop, no such words were uttered as he describes. Walsingham takes no notice of the bishop's speech. Another historian, Hall, but about the time of Sir J. Hayward, says that the bishop did rise up in his place and speak; and the doctrines of passive obedience are put into his mouth by Hall. The same is done in the play of Richard II. by Shakespeare, and these doctrines were possibly the topics that he chiefly insisted upon; but the only fact that can now be ascertained, is, that he was thrown into prison for

words spoken in parliament in opposition to the usurpation of Henry; and on this has been founded the very elaborate speech of Sir J. Hayward, and the very improbable arguments ascribed to him by Hume. Now all this is not to write history either in Mr. Hume or in Sir J. Hayward.

And this instance will be sufficient to show you, as before, the paticular description of fault, which may be objected to Mr. Hume, that of colouring the materials before him, and attributing to the personages of history the sentiments of his own philosophic mind: and this second description of fault is to be added to the former, which I have mentioned, that of not accurately representing the very passages he quotes.

In the next page of his history indeed, when Mr. Hume comes to comment upon the title of Henry IV. to the crown, he attributes a speech to the king, and properly, for he can extract from the rolls of parliament the very words which the king made use of. This Mr. Hume does, and this is to write history.

The words extracted are certainly very remarkable, and very descriptive of the scene and the age; but it is relics of this kind, that an historian should produce and make the subject of the philosophic meditation of his reader, not offer him modern views and sentiments of his own.

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

It is upon this account, and it is to impress this lesson upon your recollection, that I have gone into this detail, and perhaps, not a little exercised your patience. It is for this reason and for another, to shew you the importance of the political principles of men; a point which I must for ever enforce in the course of these lectures. First observe the general remarks of Hume.-"Though some topics," says Mr. Hume, while introducing the passages I have just quoted from him, "though some topics employed by that virtuous prelate, the bishop of Carlisle, may seem to favour too much the