Germany, Italy, and Spain, he was at this very time employing his thoughts in the establishment of the French Academy. He held meetings in his palace of the most celebrated literary geniuses of the age; he cultivated the belles lettres with success, and composed himself some dramatic pieces, which were exhib ited on the French theatre.

The war against Austria, however, did not succeed to his wishes, till the duke of Weimar gained at length a complete victory, in which he took prisoners four of the imperial generals; and till the Spanish branch of the house of Austria was stripped of Portugal by the revolution in that kingdom, and dispossessed likewise of Catalonia by an open rebellion in the year 1640.

Louis XIII., who, though a prince of a gloomy disposition, had his favorites among the court ladies, was weak enough sometimes to listen to those reports which they were fond of circulating to the prejudice of the cardinal de Richelieu. The queen herself, Anne of Austria, had been so imprudent as to signify her aversion to him. Richelieu laid his hands upon her father confessor; ordered the queen's papers to be seized, on the pretence of a correspondence with the enemies of the state; and Anne of Austria had very nearly undergone the same fate with Mary de Medicis. The king himself had sometimes hastily expressed his indignation at the violent conduct of his minister. A favorite of the king, the young marquis de Cinque Mars, encouraged by these expressions, which he took for a certain presage of the downfall of Richelieu, entered into a conspiracy with Gaston, duke of Orleans, and the duke de Bouillon, against the cardinal's life. The plot was discovered; Cinque Mars was put to death, the duke de Bouillon had his estate confiscated, and Gaston, after making an humble submission, consented to remain a prisoner at the castle of Blois. The detection of this conspiracy was the last scene of the life of cardinal de Richelieu, as well as that of Louis XIII., who survived him but a few months.

The administration of cardinal de Richelieu, though stained with factions, with civil war, and with daily executions, was, on the whole, extremely glorious for the kingdom.

France, in his time, was opulent at home; her finances were in good order; and she was most respectable abroad. There appeared at this time likewise the dawn of that good taste which led to such distinguished splendor in the succeeding age of Louis XIV.

SPAIN.

From the period of the death of Philip II., the Spanish monarchy visibly declined in its influence abroad- though, at the same time, the authority of its sovereigns, or the power of the prince over the subject, was daily increasing. The government, absolute as it was, was ill administered. There was no regulation

So great

or system of supplies for the exigencies of the state. was the neglect and the disorder of the revenues during the reign of Philip III., that in the war which still continued with the United Provinces, he had not money to pay his troops. His naval forces were inferior to those of Holland and Zealand, and they stripped him of the Molucca Islands and of Amboyna in the East Indies, while, at the same time, his armies in the Netherlands could make no impression on the power of this infant republic. He was obliged, in fine, to conclude a truce with Holland for twelve years, to leave the Dutch in possession of all they had acquired, to promise them a free trade to the East Indies, and to restore to the house of Nassau its estates situated within the dominions of the Spanish monarchy.

It is impossible to fathom the reasons of a policy so very destructive as that which was embraced by Philip III. in this juncture of national weakness. The Moors, who had still subsisted in Spain from the period of the conquest of Grenada, and were a peaceable, an useful, and a most industrious race of subjects, were computed to amount at this time to six or seven hundred thousand. Some trifling insurrections, occasioned by the persecutions of the inquisition, attracted the notice of the sovereign, who, with the most indiscreet, impolitic, and destructive zeal, decreed, that all the Moors should be expelled from the kingdom of Spain. Two years were spent by Philip in transporting the most industrious part of his subjects out of the kingdom, and in depopulating his dominions. A few of these wretched exiles betook themselves to France; the rest, and the greatest part, returned to Africa, their ancient country. Spain became an immense body without vigor or motion. The court of Philip III. was a chaos of intrigues, like that of Louis XIII. The monarch was governed by the duke of Lerma; but the confusion in which every thing was involved, at length drove him from his station of a minister. The disorders increased under Philip IV., who was ruled by Olivarez, as his father had been by Lerma. It is a curious fact, that the best information we have of the court intrigues during these reigns, and of the character of the prime ministers, Lerma and Olivarez, is to be found in a book of romance, the Adventures of Gil Blas, written by M. le Sage, who, in treating occasionally of state affairs, has interspersed a great deal of genuine history. We may observe, at the same time, that the account which the same author has given of the state of literature in Spain is extremely just, and that his picture of the manners of the people is in general very faithful.

Spain, during the reign of Philip IV., was as impotent abroad as she was miserable at home. Every species of commerce was repressed by the most exorbitant taxes. The Flemish manufactures supplied the whole kingdom, for the Spaniards had neither arts of their own, nor industry. In short, notwithstanding her

immense territories, and those prodigious sources of wealth which she possessed in America, Spain was so exhausted, that the ministry under Philip IV. found themselves reduced to the necessity of coining money of copper, to which they gave the value of silver. This reign was one continued series of losses and defeats. The Dutch, at the expiration of the truce, made themselves masters of Brazil. The province of Artois was invaded by the French, and Catalonia, jealous of her privileges, which the crown had encroached upon, revolted and threw herself into the arms of France.

The revolt of Catalonia was the signal for another of much more importance. Portugal, at this very period, shook off the yoke of Spain, and recovered her former independence as a kingdom. No revolution was ever effected with more speed or with more facility. The imprudent and impolitic administration of Olivarez had alienated the minds of the Portuguese from all allegiance to the Spanish crown.

John, duke of Braganza, who was descended from the ancient race of the Portuguese monarchs, had at this time the command of the army. Instigated by the ambition of his duchess, a woman of great spirit, and seeing the disposition of the nation completely favorable to his views, he caused himself to be proclaimed king in the city of Lisbon; and this example of the capital was immediately followed all over the kingdom, and in all the Portuguese settlements abroad. Portugal, from that era, became an independent sovereignty, after having been for sixty years an appanage or dependency of the kingdom of Spain.

The government of Portugal approaches to an absolute monarchy. Nominally, indeed, in most important articles which regard the liberty of the subject, the consent of the states is necessary; these, however, are but rarely convoked. The ordinary business of the government is conducted entirely by the king and his council of state, which is appointed by himself. The revenue of the crown arises from its domains, the duties on exports and imports, the taxes, and, formerly, from a stated proportion of the gold imported from the Brazils. Commerce and manufactures are in a very low state in Portugal; their trade, being conducted with no enlarged views or liberal policy, is of little solid advantage to the country; and with a soil and climate equal to any in Europe, the agriculture of the kingdom is greatly neglected.

This period, between the reign of Philip II. and the end of th. reign of Philip IV., though it saw the diminution of the Spanis greatness in point of power, was the era of its highest lustre i point of literary genius. The entertainments of the stage we far superior to those of any other European nation; and the Spa: ards likewise carried poetical composition, romance, and ev history, to a considerable degree of perfection. The mechar and the useful arts were, however, in a very rude state. T

Spaniards, during these reigns, had very few of the refined pleasures of life, but in return they were free from those miseries which fell to the lot of their neighbors. While France and England exhibited a painful scene of faction, civil war, and bloodshed, the Spaniards passed their days in indolent and tranquil insignificance. It is somewhat curious to remark, that at the time when, in all the rest of the European nations, the scale of the people was acquiring weight against the power of the sovereign, the reverse was the case in Spain. The kingdom, from being once elective, had for some ages become hereditary; but it was not till the reign of Charles V. that the king of Spain became an absolute prince.

There is no question that Spain was once an elective kingdom. In treating formerly of the manners of the Gothic nations, we took notice, that during the reign of the Visigoth princes in Spain, these sovereigns were always chosen by the proceres or nobles; although at the same time this assembly of the proceres generally paid the greatest regard to the family of the last prince, or to the person whom he, upon his death-bed, had designed as his successor. This, it must be allowed, is a very near approach to hereditary succession, and through length of time commonly changes into that constitution. Accordingly, for many centuries past, there appears not the least trace of an elective monarchy in Spain; the crown devolving always, of course, without any form or ceremony, on the nearest in blood to the last prince. The kings of Spain have sometimes limited the succession to certain families, ranks, and persons; of which the first instance was that of Philip III., in the year 1619, and the second, of Philip V., in 1713.

The power of the king was formerly limited by the cortes, or parliament of the kingdom. These, which formerly, especially in Castile, had great prerogatives, and were a powerful restraint upon the authority of the sovereign, were in a manner annihilated by Charles V., who deprived the nobles and the prelates of their seat in those assemblies; allowing only a convention of the depu ties or agents of the towns, who have very little power, and are absolutely at the devotion of the sovereign.

The king of Spain now governs with the advice of his cabinet council, the Consejo Real, who are the secretary of state, and three or four of the principal nobility, with whom he chooses to consult upon the affairs of government. There is no body or department in the constitution which is entitled to restrain or regulate the will of the sovereign, who is therefore an absolute prince.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

OF

GERMANY FROM THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V. TO THE PEACE WESTPHALIA. Ferdinand I.-Thirty Years' War-Ferdinand II.-Palatinate laid waste-Gustavus Adolphus-Ferdinand III.-Peace of Westphalia.

AT the time when France was in a very flourishing situation under Henry IV., England, under Elizabeth, and Spain extremely formidable under Philip II., the empire of Germany made by no means so respectable a figure. Since the abdication of Charles V. till the reign of Leopold, it had no influence whatever in Italy. The contrary pretensions of the emperors to nominate the popes, and those of the pontiffs to confer the imperial dignity, were insensibly fallen into oblivion. Germany was a republic of princes over whom the emperor presided, and these princes, having constant interferences of interest, generally maintained a civil war, which was fomented by the three contending sects of religion, the Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists. Yet the political fabric of the empire, amidst all its disturbances, remained unshaken.

Ferdinand I. endeavored to unite the three religious sects, and to effect a harmony between the princes of the empire: but the attempt was vain. Maximilian II. was less absolute than Ferdinand, and could still less bring about such a coalition; and his successor, Rodolph II., was yet inferior to him in the necessary talents of a sovereign. He was fonder of philosophical researches than of the cares of the empire, and spent that time with Tycho Brahé, the astronomer, which would have been more profitably employed in opposing the measures of Henry IV., a prince, who, had he reigned but a few years longer, would in all probability have annihilated, or at least very greatly abridged, the power of the house of Austria. The religious dissensions continued daily to increase in virulence and animosity, and at length the catholic and protestant leagues plunged Germany into a civil war of thirty years' continuance, and reduced that empire to the greatest extremity of national distress. Upon the death of Matthias, the successor of Rodolph, Ferdinand, archduke of Gratz, was elected emperor. He was a zealous catholic, and the protestants of Bohemia, who had suffered under the government of Matthias, were apprehensive of still greater restraint under Ferdinand. They determined, therefore, to be governed by a prince of their own persuasion; and they accordingly conferred the crown of