ablished--Despondency of good men--Charles's death; his
character--Reflections upon the probable consequences of his reign and
death.

In reading the history of every country there are certain periods at
which the mind naturally pauses to meditate upon, and consider them, with
reference, not only to their immediate effects, but to their more remote
consequences. After the wars of Marius and Sylla, and the incorporation,
as it were, of all Italy with the city of Rome, we cannot but stop to
consider the consequences likely to result from these important events;
and in this instance we find them to be just such as might have been
expected.

The reign of our Henry VII. affords a field of more doubtful speculation.
Every one who takes a retrospective view of the wars of York and
Lancaster, and attends to the regulations effected by the policy of that
prince, must see they would necessarily lead to great and important
changes in the government; but what the tendency of such changes would
be, and much more, in what manner they would be produced, might be a
question of great difficulty. It is now the generally received opinion,
and I think a probable opinion, that to the provisions of that reign we
are to refer the origin, both of the unlimited power of the Tudors and of
the liberties wrested by our ancestors from the Stuarts; that tyranny was
their immediate, and liberty their remote, consequence; but he must have
great confidence in his own sagacity who can satisfy himself that,
unaided by the knowledge of subsequent events, he could, from a
consideration of the causes, have foreseen the succession of effects so
different.

Another period that affords ample scope for speculation of this kind is
that which is comprised between the years 1588 and 1640, a period of
almost uninterrupted tranquillity and peace. The general improvement in
all arts of civil life, and, above all, the astonishing progress of
literature, are the most striking among the general features of that
period, and are in themselves causes sufficient to produce effects of the
utmost importance. A country whose language was enriched by the works of
Hooker, Raleigh, and Bacon, could not but experience a sensible change in
its manners and in its style of thinking; and even to speak the same
language in which Spenser and Shakespeare had written seemed a sufficient
plea to rescue the commons of England from the appellation of brutes,
with which Henry VIII. had