ance, because unless we can discriminate between a credible testimony and a suspicious one, we shall never be able to avoid the evil either of unreasonable scepticism or of unreasonable credulity. And the result of such an inquiry wil be what we could most wish; that there is an historical truth attainable by those who truly desire it, however easily and indeed inevitably missed by the unfair or even the careless historian, whatever may be his external advantages. This question, with one or two points connected with it, will be almost more than sufficient to occupy the time which we shall be able to afford to them.

NOTES

TO

LECTURE VII

NOTE 1.-Page 316.

Coleridge has spoken of "the revolution" as "wise and necessitated confirmation and explanation of the law of England, erroneously entitled the English Revolution of 1688."—"The Friend,' iii. p. 130; and again, in the 'Table Talk,' ii. p. 172: "The great reform brought into act by and under William the Third, combined the principles truly contended for by Charles the First and his Parliament respectively."

NOTE 2.-Page 319.

"It is the misfortune of France that her 'past' cannot be loved or respected; her future and her present cannot be wedded to it; yet how can the present yield fruit, or the future have promise, except their roots be fixed in the past? The evil is infinite, but the blame rests with those who made the past a dead thing, out of which no healthful life could be produced."

'Life and Correspondence,' Appendix C, x. 7.

In his 'Vindication of Niebuhr's History,' Archdeacon Hare quotes the following passage from the first edition, with the remark that in it "the author seems almost to have snatched a feather out of Burke's plumage:"

"Notwithstanding that they established the festival of the Regifugium, and abolished the name of King for ever, the Romans were very far from looking back with any ferocity of hatred at the times of their monarchal government. The statues of the Kings, that of the last Tarquinius himself, it would seem among the rest,

were preserved, and probably even multiplied; their laws and institutions in civil as well as ceremonial matters were maintained in full force. The change in the constitution did not at first go beyond this single branch; and never did it enter the heads of the Romans to beggar themselves of their rich inheritance of laws and recollections. It was reserved for our days to see the fruits of that madness, which led our fathers, with an unexampled kind of arrogance, to brand themselves falsely with being a degraded and slavish race, at the same time that they falsely asserted they were called to an unparalleled degree of perfection; of that madness which bragged it would form a new earth by demolishing the old one only once has the world beheld-and we have been the spectators-universal contempt invoked upon the whole of the past, and people proud of the title of slaves broken loose. Something similar, indeed, and attended with similar results, had been experienced in religious revolutions: the protestant communities have cast away the saints and fathers of the church, and they have not done so with impunity it has been the same in the revolutions of science and literature. On the other hand, the lessons of all experience teach us, that a nation cannot possess a nobler treasure than the unbroken chain of a long and brilliant history. It is the want of this that makes all colonies so sickly. Those of the Greeks indeed seldom cut off their recollections altogether from the root of their mother city modern colonies have done so: and this unnatural outrage has perhaps operated still more than other circumstances to plunge them into a state of incorrigible depravity."

NOTE 3.-Page 322.

This was the feeling when Theramenes separated from the oligarchical party that had set up the government of the Four Hundred,' and just before the counter-revolution which overturned it, when Phrynichus was assassinated, in the 92d Olympiad, A. C. 411. The words of Thucydides referred to are— ἐκεῖνοι γὰρ μάλιστα μὲν ἐβούλοντο ὀλιγαρχούμενοι ἄρχειν καὶ τῶν ξυμμάχων, εἰ δὲ μὴ, τάς τε ναῦς καὶ τὰ τείχη ἔχοντες αὐτονομεῖσθαι, ἐξειργόμενοι δὲ καὶ τούτου μὴ οὖν ὑπὸ τοῦ δήμου γε αὖθις γενομένου αὐτοὶ πρὸ τῶν ἄλλων μάλιστα διαφθαρῆναι, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοὺς πολεμίους ἐσαγαγόμενοι ἄνευ τειχῶν καὶ νεῶν ξυμβῆναι καὶ ὁπωσοῦν τὰ τῆς πόλεως ἔχειν, εἰ τοῖς γε σώμασι σφῶν ἄδεια ἔσται.”

NOTE 4.-Page 322.

Speaking of Arthur Young's Travels in France, Dr. Arnold writes: "He shows how deadly was the hatred of the peasantry towards the lords, and how in 1789 the châteaux were destroyed and the families of the gentry insulted from a common feeling of hatred to all who had made themselves and the poor two orders, and who were now to pay the penalty of having put asunder what God had joined."

'Life and Correspondence,' Letter Doc. 24, 1830.

NOTE 5.-Page 325.

A forcible illustration of the evils of the false Conservatism' involved in the maxim Dr. Arnold is alluding to, is given by a writer in a late number of the 'English Review,' (Dec. 1844.) He speaks of " an oracular maxim most usually expressed in the French language, France having been the scene of its most prodigal application. Laissez faire are the words of potency which, from one generation to another, have formed the chief trust and confidence of rulers, and statesmen, and economists. . . . Still, for the most part, revolution is one legitimate result of the long and undisturbed predominance of laissez faire. Witness that terrific convulsion, actually seen, throughout the whole course of its development, by many men now living, and which made History stand aghast at the sore and frightful task which it has laid upon her. For what was that explosion but the inevitable issue of a thousand years of selfish, ignorant, heartless, and we might justly add, godless non-interference. A considerable portion of the preceding century more especially, was the very riot and revelry of the grand master-principle of 'Let alone.' Its influence pervaded all ranks of the community. Let the philosophers and atheists write and talk as they list; let the wits point slanderous epigrams and licentious vers de société; let the court dance minuets, give petits soupers; let the King quarrel with his parliaments, and take the occasional diversion of a lettre de cachet; above all, let his majesty provide himself with that one thing needful, a parc aux cerfs; and all this while, lel the people live as they please and as they can! What could be more

captivating than the seeming liberality of this very comfortable doctrine? And yet, some how or other it proved, after all, to be a most destructive imposture. It was truly remarked by Charles Fox, that the government and aristocracy of France seemed to have been long smitten by it, with a judicial infatuation. They had eyes, and would not see; they had ears, and would not hear. They were surrounded with degraded and almost famishing millions, but they would behold nothing but princes and nobles. At length the measure of iniquity was complete. The phials of wrath were filled to the very brim; and at the fated moment their fury was poured out. The issue is known to all. First, the sans-culotterie, with its September massacres, and its reign of terror; then the conscription, and the empire; and lastly, all Europe on the verge of ruin!"-Vol. ii. p. 257.

NOTE 6.-Page 325.

"Meanwhile the judges naturally adhered to their established doctrine; and in prosecutions for political libels were very little inclined to favour what they deemed the presumption, if not the licentiousness of the press. They advanced a little farther than their predecessors; and, contrary to the practice both before and after the revolution, laid it down at length as an absolute principle, that falsehood, though always alleged in the indictment, was not essential to the guilt of the libel; refusing to admit its truth to be pleaded, or given in evidence, or even urged by way of mitigation of punishment. But as the defendant could only be convicted by the verdict of a jury, and jurors both partook of the general sentiment in favour of free discussion, and might in certain cases have acquired some prepossessions as to the real truth of the supposed libel, which the court's refusal to enter upon it could not remove, they were often reluctant to find a verdict of guilty; and hence arose by degrees a sort of contention, which sometimes showed itself upon trials, and divided both the profession of the law and the general public. The judges and lawyers for the most part, maintained that the province of the jury was only to determine the fact of publication; and also whether what are called the inuendoes were properly filled up, that is, whether the libel meant that which