our les gouverner, et que peut-etre ce serait le partage d'un de mes
petits-fils qui voudroit regner independamment." April 7/17 1698. "Les
royaumes de Naples et de Sicile ne peuvent se regarder comme un partage
dont mon fils puisse se contenter pour lui tenir lieu de tous ses
droits. Les exemples du passe n'ont que trop appris combien ces etats
content a la France le peu d'utilite dont ils sont pour elle, et la
difficulte de les conserver." May 16. 1698. "Je considere la cession de
ces royaumes comme une source continuelle de depenses et d'embarras. Il
n'en a que trop coute a la France pour les conserver; et l'experience
a fait voir la necessite indispensable d'y entretenir toujours des
troupes, et d'y envoyer incessamment des vaisseaux, et combien toutes
ces peines ont ete inutiles." May 29. 1698. It would be easy to cite
other passages of the same kind. But these are sufficient to vindicate
what I have said in the text.]

[Footnote 16: Dec. 20/30 1698.]

[Footnote 17: Commons' Journals, February 24. 27.; March 9. 1698/9 In
the Vernon Correspondence a letter about the East India question which
belongs to the year 1699/1700 is put under the date of Feb. 10 1698. The
truth is that this most valuable correspondence cannot be used to good
purpose by any writer who does not do for himself all that the editor
ought to have done.]

[Footnote 18: I doubt whether there be extant a sentence of worse
English than that on which the House divided. It is not merely inelegant
and ungrammatical but is evidently the work of a man of puzzled
understanding, probably of Harley. "It is Sir, to your loyal Commons
an unspeakable grief, that any thing should be asked by Your Majesty's
message to which they cannot consent, without doing violence to that
constitution Your Majesty came over to restore and preserve; and did, at
that time, in your gracious declaration promise, that all those foreign
forces which came over with you should be sent back."]

[Footnote 19: It is curious that all Cowper's biographers with whom I am
acquainted, Hayley, Southey, Grimshawe Chalmers, mention the judge, the
common ancestor of the poet, of his first love Theodora Cowper, and
of Lady Hesketh; but that none of those biographers makes the faintest
allusion to the Hertford trial, the most remarkable event in the history
of the family; nor do I believe that any allusion to that trial can be
found in any of the poet's numerous letters.]

[Footnote 20: I give