abuses will at length slide in. But here the powers, wisely kept in reserve by the parliament, afford the means of remedying them. At the end of each reign, the civil list, and consequently that kind of independence which it procured, are at an end. The successor finds a throne, a sceptre, and a crown; but he finds neither power, nor even dignity; and before a real possession of all these things be given him, the parliament have it in their power to take a thorough review of the state, as well as correct the several abuses that may have crept in during the preceding reign; and thus the constitution may be brought back to its first principles.

England, therefore, by this mean, enjoys one very great advantage,-one that all free states have sought to procure for themselves; I mean that of a periodical reformation. But the expedients which legislators have contrived for this purpose in other countries, have always, when attempted to be carried into practice, been found to be productive of very disadvantageous consequences. Those laws which were made in Rome, to restore that equality which is the essence of a democratical government, were always found impracticable: the attempt alone endangered the overthrow of the republic; and the expedient which the Florentines called ripigliar il stato

proved nowise happier in its consequences. This was because all those different remedies were destroyed beforehand, by the very evils. they were meant to cure; and the greater the abuses were, the more impossible it was to correct them.

But the mean of reformation which the parliament of England has taken care to reserve to itself, is the more effectual, as it goes less directly to its end. It does not oppose the usurpations of prerogative, as it were, in front: it does not encounter it in the middle of its career, and in the fullest flight of its exertion: but it goes in search of it to its source, and to the principle of its action. It does not endeavour forcibly to overthrow it; it only enervates its springs.

What increases still more the mildness of the operation, is, that it is only to be applied to the usurpations themselves, and passes by what would be far more formidable to encounter, the obstinacy and pride of the usurpers.

Every thing is transacted with a new sovereign, who, till then, has had no share in public affairs, and has taken no step which he may conceive himself bound in honour to support. In fine, they do not wrest from him what the good of the state requires he should give up: he himself makes the sacrifice.

G

The truth of all these observations is remarkably confirmed by the events that followed the reign of the two last Henries. Every barrier that protected the people against the incursions of power had been broken through. The The parliament, in their terror, had even enacted that proclamations, that is, the will of the king, should 'have the force of laws*: the constitution seemed really undone. Yet, on the first opportunity afforded by a new reign, liberty began again to make its appearancet. And when the nation, at length recovered from its long supineness, had, at the accession of Charles the First, another opportunity of a change of sovereign, that enormous mass of abuses, which had been accumulating, or gaining strength, during five successive reigns, was removed, and the ancient laws. were restored.

To which add, that this second reformation, which was so extensive in its effects, and might be called a new creation of the constitution, was accomplished without producing the least con

*Stat. 31 Hen. VIII. chap. S.

+ The laws concerning treason, passed under Henry the Eighth, which judge Blackstone calls " an amazing heap of "wild and new-fangled treasons," were, together with the statute just-mentioned, repealed in the beginning of the reign of Edward VI.

vulsion. Charles the First, in the same manner as Edward the sixth (or his uncle, the regent duke of Somerset) had done in former times, assented to every regulation that was passed; and whatever reluctance he might at first manifest, yet the act called the Petition of Right (as well as the bill which afterwards completed the work) received the royal sanction without bloodshed.

It is true, great misfortunes followed; but they were the effects of particular circumstances. The nature and extent of regal authority not having been accurately defined during the time which preceded the reigns of the Tudors, the exorbitant power of the princes of that house had gradually introduced political prejudices, of even an extravagant kind: those prejudices, having had a hundred and fifty years to take root, could not be shaken off but by a kind of general convulsion; the agitation continued after the action, and was carried to excess by the religious quarrels that arose at that time.

CHAPTER VIII.

New Restrictions.

THE Commons, however, have not entirely relied on the advantages of the great prerogative with which the constitution has intrusted them.

Though this prerogative is, in a manner, out of danger of an immediate attack, they have nevertheless shown at all times the greatest jealousy on its account. They never suffer, as we have observed before, a money-bill to begin any-where but with themselves; and any alteration that may be made in it, in the other house, is sure to be rejected. If the commons had not most strictly reserved to themselves the exercise of a prerogative on which their very existence depends, the whole might at length have slidden into that other body, which they might have suffered to share in it equally with them. If any other persons, besides the representatives of the people, had a right to make an offer of the produce of the labour of the people, the executive power would soon have forgotten that it only exists for the advantage of the public*.

*As the crown has the undisputed prerogative of assenting to, and dissenting from, what bills it thinks proper, as