way, they
have no sting. 'Certum pete finem', have some one object for those
leisure moments, and pursue that object invariably till you have attained
it; and then take some other. For instance, considering your destination,
I would advise you to single out the most remarkable and interesting eras
of modern history, and confine all your reading to that ERA. If you pitch
upon the Treaty of Munster (and that is the proper period to begin with,
in the course which I am now recommending), do not interrupt it by
dipping and deviating into other books, unrelative to it; but consult
only the most authentic histories, letters, memoirs, and negotiations,
relative to that great transaction; reading and comparing them, with all
that caution and distrust which Lord Bolingbroke recommends to you, in a
better manner, and in better words than I can. The next period worth your
particular knowledge, is the Treaty of the Pyrenees: which was calculated
to lay, and in effect did lay, the succession of the House of Bourbon to
the crown of Spain. Pursue that in the same manner, singling, out of the
millions of volumes written upon that occasion, the two or three most
authentic ones, and particularly letters, which are the best authorities
in matters of negotiation. Next come the Treaties of Nimeguen and
Ryswick, postscripts in, a manner to those of Munster and the Pyrenees.
Those two transactions have had great light thrown upon them by the
publication of many authentic and original letters and pieces. The
concessions made at the Treaty of Ryswick, by the then triumphant Lewis
the Fourteenth, astonished all those who viewed things only
superficially; but, I should think, must have been easily accounted for
by those who knew the state of the kingdom of Spain, as well as of the
health of its King, Charles the Second, at that time. The interval
between the conclusion of the peace of Ryswick, and the breaking out of
the great war in 1702, though a short, is a most interesting one. Every
week of it almost produced some great event. Two partition treaties, the
death of the King of Spain, his unexpected will, and the acceptance of it
by Lewis the Fourteenth, in violation of the second treaty of partition,
just signed and ratified by him. Philip the Fifth quietly and cheerfully
received in Spain, and acknowledged as King of it, by most of those
powers, who afterward joined in an alliance to dethrone him. I cannot
help making this observation upon that