ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PRESENT EDITION. IT is unnecessary to pronounce any formal panegyric upon the present work of MR. DE LOLME. It will, perhaps, be sufficient to state, as a testimony of its utility, that it has been adopted and received as the grammar of political education, and is the first of those elemental books, whose design is to instruct us in the practical wisdom of the British Constitution, which is put into the hands of the student. To this might be added, if it were necessary to say more, that it has obtained the high approbation of BURKE, and the author of the LETTERS OF JUNIUS; the authority of the former, as a philosophical statesman, is as unquestionable, as is that of the latter, as one of the best informed in the nature and principles of the British Constitution. The present Edition, independently of its elegance, the convenience of its size, and relative cheapness, has many advantages entitling it to superiority over every other edition of this work hitherto published. HAD It embraces many points of constitutional knowledge, and legal value, applicable to its subject, WHICH NOT OCCURRED DURING THE AUTHOR'S LIFE. The British Constitution is a rule of practical wisdom and universal benevolence, and therefore, when the exigencies of occasion suggest any changes and improvement, it opens itself readily to receive them. It abhors innovation, but it covets improvement. iv ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PRESENT EDITION The present Edition, therefore, will comprehend, in the shape of Notes and an Appendix, all such changes as are material, and notice them in the order wherein they have occurred since the author's death. It will thus carry down our Constitutional History to the PERIOD AT WHICH IT IS PUBLISHED. No book, perhaps, ought more confidently to be placed in the hands of youth. January 1, 1814. ADVERTISEMENT. BY THE AUTHOR. THE book on the English Constitution, of which a new edition is here offered to the public, was first written in French, and published in Holland. Several persons have asked me the question, how I came to think of treating such a subject. One of the first things in this country, that engages the attention of a stranger, who is in the habit of observing the objects before him, is the peculiarity of its government: I had moreover been lately a witness of the broils which had for some time prevailed in the republic in which I was born, and of the revolution by which they were terminated. Scenes of that kind, in a state which, though small, is independent, and contains within itself the principles of its motions, had naturally given me some competent insight into the first real principles of governments: owing to this circumstance, and perhaps also to some moderate share of natural abilities, I was enabled to perform the task I had undertaken, with tolerable success. I was twenty-seven years old when I first came to this country: after having been in it only a year, I began to write my work, which I published about nine months afterwards; and I have since been surprised to find that I had committed so few errors of a certain kind: 1 certainly was fortunate in avoiding to enter deeply into thofe articles with which I was not sufficiently acquainted. The book met with rather a favourable reception on the continent; three successive editions having been made of it. And it also met here with approbation, even from men of opposite parties; which, in this country, was no small luck for a book on systematical politics. Allowing that there was some connection and clearness, as well as novelty, in the arguments, I think the work was of some peculiar utility, if the epoch at which it was published is 4 considered; which was, though without any design from me, at the time when the disputes with the colonies were beginning to take a serious turn, both here and in America. A work which contained a specious, if not thoroughly true, confutation of those political notions by the help of which a disunion of the empire was endeavoured to be promoted, which confutation was moreover noticed by men in the highest places, should have procured to the author some sort of real encouragement; at least the publication of it should not have drawn him into any inconvenient situation. When my enlarged English edition was ready for the press, had I acquainted ministers that I was preparing to boil my tea-kettle with it, for want of being able conveniently to afford the expence of printing it, I do not pretend to say what their answer would have been; but I am firmly of opinion, that, had the like arguments in favour of the existing government of this country, against republican principles, been shewn to Charles the first, or his ministers, at a certain period of his reign, they would have very willingly defrayed the expences of the publication. In defect of encouragement from great men, and even from booksellers, I had recourse to a subscription; and my having expected any success from such a plan, shews that my knowledge of this country was at that time but very incomplete.* * In regard to two subscribers in particular, I was, I confess, sadly disappointed. Though all the booksellers in London had at first refused to have any thing to do with my English edition, notwithstanding the French work was extremely well known, yet, soon after I had thought of the expedient of a subscription, I found that two of them, who are both living, had begun a translation, on the recommendation, as they told me, of a noble lord, whom they named, who had, till a few years before, filled one of the highest offices under the crown. I paid them 10l. in order to engage them to drop their undertaking, about which I understood they already had been at some expence. Had the noble lord in question favoured me with his subscription, I would have celebrated the generosity and munificence of my patron; but as he did not think proper so to do, I shall only observe that his recommending my work to a bookseller, cost me 10l. At the time the above subscription for my English edition was advertising, a copy of the French work was asked of me for a noble earl, then invested with a high office in the state; none being at that time to be found at any bookseller's in London. I |