After mentioning the advantages with which my work has not been favoured, it is however just I should give an account of those by which it has been attended. In the first place, as is above said, men of high rank have condescended to give their approbation to it; and I take this opportunity of returning them my most humble acknowledgments. In the second place, after the difficulties by which the publication of the book had been attended and followed, were overcome, I began to share with booksellers in the profits arising from the sale of it. These profits I indeed thought to be but scanty and slow: but then I considered this was no more than the common complaint made by every trader in regard to his gain, as well as by every great man in regard to his emoluments and his pensions. After a course of some years, the net balance formed by the profits in question, amounted to a certain sum, proportioned to the bigness of the performance. And, in fine, I must add to the account of the many favours I have received, that I was allowed to carry

gave the only copy I had (the consequence was, that I was obliged to borrow one, to make my English edition from); and I added, that I hoped his lordship would honour me with his subscription, However, my hopes were here again confounded. As a gentleman, who continues to fill an important office under the crown, accidentally informed me about a year afterwards, that the noble lord here alluded to, had lent him my French work, I had no doubt left that the copy I had delivered had reached his lordship's hand I therefore presumed to remind him by a letter, that the book in question had never been paid for; at the same time apologizing for such liberty from the circumstances in which my late English edition had been published, which did not allow me to lose one copy. I must do his lordship, who is moreover a knight of the garter, the justice to acknowledge, that, no later than a week afterwards, he sent two half-crowns for me to a bookseller's in Fleet-street. A lady brought them in a coach, who took a receipt. As she was, by the bookseller's account, a fine lady, though not a peeress, it gave me much concern that I was not present to deliver the receipt to her myself.

At the same time that I mention the noble earl's great punctuality, I think I may be allowed to say a word of my own merits. I waited, before I presumed to trouble his lordship, till I was informed that a pension of 4000l. was settled upon him (I could have wished much my own creditors had, about that time, shewn the like tenderness to me), and I moreover gave him time to receive the first quarter.

on the above business of selling my book, without any objection being formed against me from my not having served a regular apprenticeship, and without being molested by the inquisition. Several authors have chosen to relate, in writings published after death, the personal advantages by which their performances had been followed: as for me I have thought otherwise; and, fearing that during the latter part of my life I may be otherwise engaged, I have preferred to write now the account of my successes in this country, and to see it printed while I am yet living.

I shall add to the above narrative, whatever the reader may be pleased to think of it, a few observations of rather a more serious kind, for the sake of those persons who, judging themselves to be possessed of abilities, find they are neglected by those having it in their power to do them occasional services, and suffer themselves to be mortified by it. To hope that men will in earnest assist in setting forth the mental qualifications of others, is an expectation which, generally speaking, must needs be disappointed. To procure one's notions and opinions to be attended to, and approved by the circle of one's acquaintance, is the universal wish of mankind. To diffuse these notions farther, to numerous parts of the public, by means of the press or by others, becomes an object of real ambition; nor is this ambition always proportioned to the real abilities of those who feel it: very far from it. When the approbation of mankind is in question, all persons, whatever their different ranks may be, consider themselves as being engaged in the same career: they look upon themselves as being candidates for the very same kind of advantage: high and low, all are in that respect in a state, it may be said, of primæval equality; nor are those who are likely to obtain some prize, to expect much favour from the others.

This desire of having their ideas communicated to, and approved by the public, was very prevalent among the great men of the Roman commonwealth, and afterwards with the Roman emperors; however imperfect the means of obtaining these ends might be in those days, compared with those which are used in ours. The same desire has been equally remarkable among modern European kings,

not to speak of other parts of the world: a long catalogue of royal authors may be produced; nor has it been, we may suppose, every king wishing that a compliment might be paid to his personal knowledge and abilities, that has ventured to give a public specimen of them. Ministers, especially after having lost their places, have shewn no less inclination than their masters, to convince mankind of the reality of their knowledge. Noble persons of all denominations, have treated the public with equal condescension, and have increased the catalogue. And to speak of the country in which we are, there is, it seems, no good reason to make any exception in regard to it and great men in it, or in general those who are at the head of the people, are, we find, sufficiently anxious about the fate of their own performances, about the success of their speeches, their poems, and their pamphlets.

I

Several additions were made to this work, at the time gave the first English edition of it. Besides a more accurate division of the chapters, several new notes and paragraphs were inserted in it, for instance in the 11th chapter of the second book; and three new chapters, the 15th, 16th, and 17th, were added to the same book. These three additional chapters, never having been written by me in French, have been inserted in the third edition made at Amsterdam, translated by a person whom the Dutch bookseller employed for that purpose: as I never perused any copy of that edition, I cannot say how well the translator has performed his task. Having now parted with the copy-right of the book, I have farther added four new chapters to it, (10, 11, B.I.; 19, 20, B. II.) by way of taking a final leave of it; and in order the more completely to effect this, I may perhaps give, in a few months, a French edition of the same, which I cannot tell why I have not done sooner, in which all the above-mentioned additions, translated by myself, shall be inserted.

In one of the former additional chapters, the seventeenth, B. II., mention was made of a peculiar circumstance attending the English government, considered as a monarchy, which is the solidity of the power of the crown. As a proof of this peculiar solidity, it was remarked, that

all the monarchs who ever existed, in any part of the world, were never able to maintain their ground against certain powerful subjects, or a combination of them, without the assistance of regular forces at their constant command; whereas it is evident that the power of the crown in England, is not at this day supported by such means; nor even had the English kings a guard of more than a few scores of men, when their power, and the exertions they at times made of it, were equal to what has ever been related of the most absolute Roman emperors.

The cause of this peculiarity in the English government, was said to lie in the circumstance of the great or powerful men in England, being divided into two distinct assemblies, and, at the same time, in the principles on which such division is formed. As a farther proof of the solidity of the power of the crown here alluded to, may be mentioned the facility, and safety to itself and to the state, with which the crown has at all times been able to deprive any particular subjects of their different offices, however overgrown, and even dangerous, their private power may have seemed to be. A very remarkable instance of this kind occurred, when the great duke of Marlborough was suddenly removed from all his employments: the following is the account given by Dean Swift, in his History of the Four last Years of the Reign of Queen Anne.

"So that the queen found herself under a necessity, by removing one person from so great a trust, to get clear of all her difficulties at once: her majesty determined upon the latter expedient, as the shorter and safer course; and during the recess at Christmas, sent the duke a letter to tell him she had no farther occasion for his service.

"There has not perhaps in the present age been a clearer instance to shew the instability of power, which is not founded on virtue: and it may be an instruction to princes, who are well in the hearts of their people, that the overgrown power of any particular person, although supported by exorbitant wealth, can, by a little resolution, be reduced in a moment, without any dangerous consequences. This lord, who was, beyond all comparison, the greatest subject in christendom, found his power,

eredit, and influence crumble away on a sudden; and, except a few friends and followers, the rest dropped off in course, &c."-B. I. near the end.

The ease with which such a man as the duke was suddenly removed, Dean Swift has explained, by the necessary advantages of princes who possess the affection of their people, and the natural weakness of power which is not founded on virtue: but these are very unsatisfactory explanations. The history of Europe, in former times, offers a continued series of examples to the contrary, and exhibits instances without number, of princes either incessantly engaged in resisting in the field the competition of subjects invested with the eminent dignities of the realm, who were not by any means superior to them in point of virtue, or living in a continued state of vassalage under some powerful man, whom they durst not dismiss.*

The cause of the peculiarity, and in short the political phænomenon in the English constitution, which we mention, certainly lies in the frame of the English parliament, and the division of the great men in the state, that takes place in it. To attempt to give a demonstration of this assertion otherwise than by facts, as is done in the chapter here alluded to, would lead into difficulties which the reader is little aware of. In general, the science of politics, considered as an exact science, that is to say, as a science capable of actual demonstration, is infinitely deeper than the reader so much perhaps as suspects. The knowledge of man, on which such a science, with its preliminary axioms and definitions, is to be grounded, has hitherto remained surprisingly imperfect: no tolerable explanation of that continual human phænomenon, laughter, has been given, as yet; and the powerful, complicate, sen

*Certain kings, like Henry the third, of France, in regard to the dukes of Guise, had at last recourse to assassination: and such an expedient is the settled method adopted by the eastern monarchs; nor is it very sure they can always do otherwise. In England, war has indeed sometimes been waged against the king; but it is essential to observe, that it has never been done but by persons who positively laid claim to the crown. As to Cromwell, when he opposed Charles the first, it was (as every one knows, who has read that part of the English history) in the king's own name he made war against him.