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posed, by Mr. Hallam, to have continued to the end of the American war.

Both the executive and popular branches of the constitution acquired strength. A standing army in peace of 16,000 men had now become an admitted item of the public establishments. The Scotch rebellion of 1745, and the absurd fears propagated by the press of a descent by the French in flat-bottomed boats, afforded pretexts for the maintenance of this unconstitutional force. The increase of the revenue, and of revenue laws summarily administered, tended still further to augment the influence of the crown. Popular power was strengthened, first, by the passing of a Place Bill, which reduced the enormous number of the dependants of the court in the House of Commons; next, by the publication of the debates. This had begun in the last reign, in Boyer's "Annual Register," and was continued monthly in this in the "Gentleman's Magazine." Being in direct violation of a resolution of the Commons passed in 1729, it was very stealthily ventured upon, and the initials and final letters of the speakers' names only were printed. It was evidently considered a bold experiment, either to report the speeches or reflect on the conduct of public men; for it is observable, in the contemporary "History of England" by Dr. Smollett, that the names are given with similar precautions when the historian comments on the measures or characters of the chief members of the administration.

The commerce of the country continued to increase during this reign, less from the policy of the government than the natural progress of industry, skill, and enterprise. War, which generally obstructs the traffic of nations, had opened new sources of trade to English merchants, by our successes in America and the East

Indies. The superiority of our navy had crushed the navigation of France, our chief rival in commerce; so that England now supplied, on her own terms, all those foreign markets at which she had, during the peace, been undersold by her competitor.

The partial favour shown to agriculture, by a bounty on the exportation of its produce, has been already noticed; rural industry also obtained a great impulse from the inventions and writings of Jethro Tull, on experimental farming. He introduced the drill-husbandry, and recommended the substitution of labour and arrangements in the place of manure and fallowing in the culture of land. A rotation of crops, and the cultivation of turnips, clover, and potatoes became more general. That agriculture was rapidly extending is attested by the course of legislation. In the warlike reign of King William not a single act was passed for the inclosure of wastes. In the equally warlike reign of Queen Anne there were only two inclosure acts; but in that of George I. the number was twenty-six, and in that of George II. 226.

Although the age was not remarkable for originality, the powers of the intellect were in full activity, and abounded in many ingenious and clever writers. Berkeley, Hartley, and Hutcheson excited astonishment by the novelty of their metaphysical researches. In natural philosophy, the phenomena of electricity and magnetism had begun to attract attention. Mathematics were successfully cultivated by Halley, Bradley, Maclaurin, Sanderson, and the two Simpsons. The medical art was elucidated by the writings of Hunter, Pringle, Mead, Huxham, and Monro. In theology were many distinguished names; the Establishment being proud of its Hoadley, Potter, Herring, and Sherlock, and the Dissenters, of Lardner, Doddridge, Watts, and Leland, both

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joining battle in defence of their common faith, assailed by the writings of Toland, Woolston, Tindal, and Morgan. History and biography were cultivated by the copious Guthrie, the circumstantial Ralph, the laborious Carte, and the classic Middleton. Upon these in the next reign rose a more brilliant historical constellation, in the illustrious names of Hume, Gibbon, and Robertson. In philology and criticism, Bentley, Warburton, and Boyle were the dazzling meteors. The genius of Cervantes and Le Sage was transfused into the novels of Fielding and Smollett, who painted the characters and ridiculed the follies of life with equal force, wit, and aptitude. Richardson, in his "Pamela " and "Grandison," had the merit of originating a new species of writing, in which works of imagination were sought to be made the vehicle of moral precepts and examples. Young, Thomson, Akenside, Blair, Gray, and Armstrong, in poetry, and Congreve, Gay, Home, and Cibber, in the drama, were the most distinguished celebrities.

Music had become a fashionable study: the Italian opera was encouraged, and concerts formed in every corner of the metropolis. Handel, Arne, Boyce, and Greene were the chief professors. Painting, which had been hitherto little cultivated, now produced some artists of extraordinary merit. Hogarth was unrivalled in exhibiting the scenes of ordinary life, in humour and character. Reynolds and Ramsay were preeminent in portraits; in sculpture, Roubilliac; in engraving, Strange; and in architecture, Burlington.

CHAPTER XXI.

RETROSPECTIVE SUMMARY.

Ir may not be unadvisable to pause awhile, before entering on the long and chequered vista at which we have arrived. This preliminary deference appears due to the protracted term of its duration, if not to the varied and pregnant events with which it was fraught, or to any signal progressive transition that marked its commence

ment.

In considering the past, and the prominent changes and occurrences by which its successive phases have been sought to be exemplified, it must be manifest that Great Britain, from a state of barbarism, had, on the accession of George III., attained a high pitch of civilisation, measured by any contemporary or antecedent example in the progress of nations. In such advancement, however, there had been no deviation, any more than in the future that awaited her, from the settled institutes which ordinarily govern the economy of nature. In all progress it is the early stages of existence which are the most onerous, in which the signs of life are most slow, indistinct, and elaborated; and it is only by the accumulated force thence acquired, that subsequent movements become accelerated. England formed no exception to this law; her future was great because her past had not been fruitless, but had enabled her to enter on the rich inheritance of wealth and power, laws and institutions, transmitted by the illustrious of preceding generations. Before, however opening this chapter of her career, it

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may, I repeat, be fit to recapitulate by name, if not detailed exposition, the leading attributes of the meritorious past that have pioneered the recent and more rapid advances of the empire to preeminence.

Although deeply buried and obscured, like the mosaic pavements of old Rome, the substratum of British civilisation is doubtless due to imperial dominion. The Saxons who succeeded the first invaders were essentially more barbarous than the people they mastered; but they introduced popular institutions, and brought along with them those notions of equal rights which they held in common with all German nations. Our third and final subjugation imparted a still more ample and distinctive share of national benefits. In civilisation the Normans were superior to the Saxons; cultivated a higher learning, and were more advanced in the tasteful and useful arts. Instead of wasting their revenues in sensual indulgences, their pride was to devote a large portion of them to works of preeminent utility or embellishment, to the building of castles, churches, and monasteries. Architecture is considered to have had its rise with them, and it is also probable that to the Normans is due important improvements in agriculture and the extension of commerce. But the paramount gain of the Conquest was unquestionably its political issues, in the consolidation of a number of petty antagonistic states into a powerful kingdom, having one head, one law, one language, and one supreme legislature. A new and united power, of unknown destinies, thus took its place in Europe, distinctly recognisable by the elder nations of the Continent.

Under the Normans, the feudal system culminated; it was a severe form of polity, but not unproductive. It inaugurated order, property, and civil subordination; and