than any of his Norman predecessors, upon the people, for the supplies necessary to the continuance of his martial enterprises, he was induced, to secure their support, to make those concessions of undue prerogative, by which their support was most readily to be obtained; and, at length, the statute de tallagio non concedendo formally decreed, that the imposition of taxes, of every kind, should in future be only by and with the joint consent of the lords and commons in parliament assembled.

The constitution now rapidly approached to the degree of perfection of which it was capable, as applying to the as yet limited wants of a people, whose moral cultivation, and whose thirst for liberty as a consequence, were yet equally so. Under the sway of the second Edward, the right of petitioning, the dawn of legislating in their own persons, was more fully ascertained by the practice of the Commons; and under that of Edward the Third, they not only expressly declared that they would acknowledge no laws to which their assent had not been formally obtained, but they commenced the exercise of that important privilege, upon which is poised one of the nicest equilibria of the state, the privilege of impeaching royal ministers. Henry the Fourth beheld them insisting upon the wisest conditions, in return for their acknowledgment of his autho

rity; and even withholding their subsidies, until answers to their petitions had been granted. Afterward, though, in consequence of the protracted war with France, and the intestine commotions so long fomented by the houses of York and Lancaster, improvement in the forms of government was a thing but little attended to, yet the commencement of every reign was generally made the occasion of procuring for the Commons some additions to their eminence in the state, and some accessions to the general liberty of the people. But at length, after the tranquil settlement of Henry the Seventh, in whom both the opposing factions that had so long desolated the kingdom found a representative, by his union with a princess of the rival house, the constitution at first became stationary, and then by degrees most unhappily retrograded. The causes of this great national calamity, for such in after times it proved, it will be in unison with these remarks briefly to enquire.

Civil commotions, it would sometimes appear, are useful or injurious to the progress of a free constitution, according as they are limited in their disastrous effects, or rather in the time of their operation. If they are of no long continuance, and therefore do not prove very generally destructive to the lives or properties of the community, the agitation they excite

may be favourable to the march of liberty, by exciting those healthy collisions of ideas on political subjects, by which the spirit of liberty is most effectually generated. But, on the contrary, when intestine conflicts are protracted, the opposite rancours of men's minds, extended on either side to large bodies of the nation, at length produce such demoniacal consequences, that the very name of opposition to the authority, in the arms of which the state has at last settled, becomes hateful to be contemplated; and the power thus ultimately gaining the ascendant may, for a time, govern at will, provided only that it secures to the people the now sole object of their wishes-repose. And if, to this sad issue of a long civil war, be added the destruction of all, or the major part, of those, who were formerly most dreaded by the power eventually triumphant, and of course the removal of every intermediate check between its government and the people to be governed, its operations are, indeed, likely to be direful. Thus situated, in both respects, was England, at the close of the long rivalry between the houses of York and Lancaster.

Both the nobility and the people had suffered to an immense extent, and Henry alone had come a gainer out of the contest. The nobility were almost exterminated; and the people, so long accustomed to seek supporters in their lords,

and as yet without an idea of popular leaders who could make an efficient head against royalty, had not a resource in the then order of things; and even though they had, they were so weighed upon by the languor produced by previous over excitement, that they would have been unable to take advantage of it. As matters stood, it became of the most imminent necessity to restore counterpoise to the state, by the restoration of some considerable portion of the ancient consequence of the nobility in political affairs; and this as a mean to prevent the dangers that must ultimately accrue to the crown itself, from the people finding themselves unconstitutionally governed by it, without an operative middle order of men, to break, and occasionally to repel, the descent of the increased authority it held over them. But Henry, feeling the power of the crown to be superior to what it had ever been since the Conquest, (more particularly in his having acquired the prerogative, enjoyed by no former sovereign, William perhaps excepted, of creating Peers without consent of the Upper House, and at pleasure,) was naturally unsolicitous to replace an influence, that, sustained by the people, had proved the most effectual curb to the pretensions of his predecessors: doubtless, he was even pleased to perceive not the shadow of a rival near the throne,' and

had besides his private revenges to appease on the remnant of a nobility, now utterly deserted and defenceless. Nay, he went farther, for he shewed a disposition to elevate the people at their expence ; but the people were too supine to avail themselves, to any extent, of the opportunity. In fine, that his reign, though sufficiently tyrannical, was not so much so as under all the circumstances might have been expected, appears to have been owing to the, novelty of his situation, and to his not perceiving, or perhaps not relishing, the political victim, immolated before his eyes upon the altar of national discord, with the intuitive gust, with which nature appears to have endowed his successor.

That successor, the too notorious Henry the Eighth, reigned rather like the worst of the Roman emperors, than the head of a limited monarchy. The ancient nobility, whom he yet farther humbled and insulted, bent unresistingly to his most extravagant and most arbitrary caprices. Parliament was the minister of his will, rather than a restraint upon his tyranny and every the faintest murmur died upon the lips of the dejected populace. Still, there were two indisputable facts, in close connection with his government, which, had it been the age to philosophise, would have afforded hope to consideration, and balm to the aggriev