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the excise with interest; but the principal was never repaid.

From this period banking became a separate business, owing to recent experience, probably a cautiously trusted and not extensive one. No successful attempt appears to have been made to establish a joint-stock or incorporated bank until the commencement of the Bank of England. This was in 1694, and in the following year the National Bank of Scotland was established. They were founded on the model of the great banks of Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands. The English bank was chartered for the twofold purpose of assisting individuals and the government, and the advantageous bargain it made attests the great need of its services. For a loan of 1,200,000l. to government, it stipulated to be paid 8 per cent. interest, and receive 4000l. a year for the expenses of management. The Bank was not allowed to trade, but required to restrict its transactions to dealings in bullion and bills of exchange, to making advances on the security of goods, which pledges, if not redeemed within the time specified, might be sold by auction. Owing less to a deficiency of wealth than of currency, the Bank afforded extensive aid to private credit, and was very useful to the government, especially in the great recoinage of silver in this reign.

The age had become decidedly fiscal and commercial in its attributes. Its chief men of letters, like Sir William Petty, Gregory King, and Davenant, were investigators of questions of population, prices, public revenue, and other economical and statistical problems. The principal writers who shone in more elegant, serious, or imaginative literature were, Sir William Temple, Cudworth the metaphysician, Tillotson, Baxter, Bunyan, Dryden, and Otway.

CHAPTER XVIII.

REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.

Ascendancy of the Churchills.

War of the Succession.

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but resultless Victories of the Duke of Marlborough. — Exhausting Effects of the War on the Belligerents. Decline of the War Party. - Harley's Plot against the Favourites. - Dismissal of the Marlboroughs from the Queen's Service.- Peace of Utrecht.-Rivalries of Harley and Bolingbroke; St. John's successful Intrigues. — Death of the Queen.- Shortlived Triumph of Bolingbroke, and Accession of the Hanover Family.—Intellectual Age of Anne. - Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton. John Locke and Sir Dudley North. The Essayists.—Wren's and Vanbrugh's Advancement of Architecture.— Defect of St. Paul's Cathedral.

EXPERIENCE may be reckoned among the elements of national progress, for it may be inferred that nations, not less than individuals, will seek to profit by the examples of the past. In this respect the brief but pregnant reign of Queen Anne is instructive, from the diversified lessons it affords of the evolutions of human nature, both in its private and public capacities. It was a period which brought into striking relief some of the chief phases of political life, in the prominence of brilliant if not momentous events, in the characteristics of female government, in the rise and fall of favourites, in the selfish conflict of factions. The principal personage, ostensibly, in the performance, however, derives interest, as is not unusual in dramatic representations, from regal position rather than eminent qualities, or the direct influence she exercised over the varied movements of which she was passively the central figure.

When Marlborough, in the courts of the continent, represented Queen Anne as "a good sort of woman," he in fit words aptly set forth her true character. She would have formed a good citizen's wife, but had no gifts for a throne, unless it was her personal demeanour, which was eminently dignified and gracious. Her virtues were of the domestic order, affectionate and prone to indulge the sympathies of the heart, in the endearments of connubial life, and the relations of family and friendship; but to govern a kingdom transcended her powers, and became an irksome oppression. Notwithstanding, her faculties were naturally of an average quality, but had not been sedulously cultivated, and her notions of government, like those of her family, were narrow and despotic. She preferred the Tories to the Whigs, and was warmly attached to the church, with little tolerance for dissenters. Conscious of intellectual incompetence, the queen had the usual infirmity of persons mistrustful of themselves, in being jealous of the aids she needed, and the appearance of being controlled by them.

The persons under whose guidance the queen began her reign, were the Churchills, especially the Duchess of Marlborough, who, as Miss Sarah Jennings, had obtained an unbounded influence over her while Princess Anne. So intimate did they become in companionship, that differences of rank were ignored, and at the desire of the princess they assumed feigned names; Anne adopted that of Mrs. Morley, and Lady Churchill that of Mrs. Freeman, as most suited to the frankness of her nature. It doubtless made intercourse free and easy to both parties, for the maintenance of etiquette is hardly less irksome than its observance; but it was a levelling down pregnant with perils, and, from the characters of the fond pair, that which happened might have been foreseen. Anne was

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THE WAR OF THE SUCCESSION.

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indolent and unambitious, more under the influence of the heart than the head. Her favourite was the reverse. Consequently the queen's enthronement became more the enthronement of the Marlboroughs than herself. The ascendancy of the duke might have been tolerated, his abilities being unrivalled, and the juncture demanded them; but equal claims could not be urged for his partner. Her temper was violent, haughty, and refractory; and the indiscretion of the duchess finally issued in the overthrow of her lord, his ministry, and the Grand Alliance.

The War of the Succession was a bequest of the preceding reign, occupied ten years out of the twelve of the queen's government, and laid waste some of the finest countries of Europe. The point at issue between France and the Confederates was, whether a grandson of Louis XIV., or the second son of the Emperor of Germany, should succeed to the crown of Spain. England exerted her utmost force in this contest both in men and money, though it was nearly indifferent to her interests whether Austria or France was aggrandised by the acquisition of Spain and her American possessions. At the outset a difference prevailed in council on the best mode of conducting the war - whether by land or sea: the Earl of Rochester, the queen's maternal uncle, and head of the Tory party, was in favour of a naval war; but the interest of the Marlboroughs, seconded by that of their devoted supporter, the Lord Treasurer Godolphin, prevailed, and a vigorous campaign on the continent was determined upon. It favoured all the aspirations of the Churchills, made them supreme in state affairs in England and abroad, and opened for the duke a wide field of honours, emolument, and martial glory.

In England most wars have been popular at the beginning, and the reverse towards the close. It was so with

the Succession war; the passions of the people were excited by the protection afforded to the Stuarts by the French king, his refusal to acknowledge the Protestant settlement in the Hanover family, and inflammatory representations of his restless ambition. But the splendid victories of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, unequalled since the days of Crecy and Agincourt, did not compensate for the decay of trade and the rapid increase of the public debt and taxes, more especially as their greatest achievements had seldom a more decisive result than the capture of a fortress or a military inroad; for it may be observed of these celebrated generals, that they knew better how to win battles than to conquer kingdoms. The nation became clamorous for peace; and its wishes being seconded by a new ministry, whose measures, either from public or factious considerations, were different from those of their predecessors, that of Utrecht was hastily concluded.

The war had been strenuously supported by the Whigs; and as the Treaty of Utrecht was concluded by the Tories, its policy has been sharply contested by the partisans of the rival parties. In concluding a separate peace with the common enemy, England seemed open to the charge of treachery to her allies; but many circumstances could be alleged in extenuation of her secession from the league, in the failure of the allies to perform their part of the compact, and the altered condition of the belligerents. France was humbled by her reverses abroad and exhaustion at home, and had ceased to be dangerous; moreover, the Spanish people had clearly manifested their preference of a French over an Austrian prince; lastly, England had no longer any interest in the war: Louis acknowledged the Protestant settlement; and though Philip was left master of Spain, both he

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