restoration, usually the most dangerous and worst of all
revolutions? To some of these questions the answers may, from the
experience of past ages, be easy, but to many of them far otherwise.
And he will read history with most profit who the most canvasses
questions of this nature, especially if he can divest his mind for
the time of the recollection of the event as it in fact succeeded.

The next period, as it is that which immediately precedes the
commencement of this history, requires a more detailed examination;
nor is there any more fertile of matter, whether for reflection or
speculation. Between the year 1640 and the death of Charles II. we
have the opportunity of contemplating the state in almost every
variety of circumstance. Religious dispute, political contest in
all its forms and degrees, from the honest exertions of party and
the corrupt intrigues of faction to violence and civil war;
despotism, first, in the person of a usurper, and afterwards in that
of an hereditary king; the most memorable and salutary improvements
in the laws, the most abandoned administration of them; in fine,
whatever can happen to a nation, whether of glorious of calamitous,
makes a part of this astonishing and instructive picture.

The commencement of this period is marked by exertions of the
people, through their representatives in the House of Commons, not
only justifiable in their principle, but directed to the properest
objects, and in a manner the most judicious. Many of their leaders
were greatly versed in ancient as well as modern learning, and were
even enthusiastically attached to the great names of antiquity; but
they never conceived the wild project of assimilating the government
of England to that of Athens, of Sparta, or of Rome. They were
content with applying to the English constitution, and to the