, still more,
the great veneration and esteem for that magnanimous princess, which
were for many years the ruling principle--we might almost say, the
darling passion--of Englishmen, enabled her to keep at bay the dangerous
animosities which her miserable successor had neither dexterity to
conciliate nor vigour to subdue. In his time the cravings, moral and
intellectual, of the English nation discovered themselves in forms not
to be mistaken--some more, some less formidable to established
government; but all announcing that the time was come when concession to
them was inevitable. No matter whether it was the Puritan who complained
of the rags of popery, or the judge who questioned the prerogative of
the sovereign, or the patriot who bewailed the profligate expenditure of
James's polluted court, or the pamphleteer whom one of our dramatists
has described so admirably, or the hoarse murmur of the crowd execrating
the pusillanimous murder of Raleigh--whosesoever the voice might be,
whatever shape it might assume, petition, controversy, remonstrance,
address, impeachment, libel, menace, insurrection, the language it spoke
was uniform and unequivocal; it demanded for the people a share in the
administration of their government, civil and ecclesiastical--it
expressed their determination to make the House of Commons a reality.

The observations that follow are fraught with the most profound wisdom,
and afford an admirable exemplification of the manner in which history
should be read by those who wish to find in it something more than a
mere register of facts and anecdotes:--

"Under these circumstances there were now working together in
the same party many principles which, as we have seen, are
sometimes perfectly distinct. For instance the popular
principle, that the influence of many should not be overborne
by that of one, was working side by side with the principle of
movement, or the desire of carrying on the work of the
Reformation to the furthest possible point, and not only the
desire of completing the Reformation, but that of shaking off
the manifold evils of the existing state of things, both
political and moral. Yet it is remarkable that the spirit of
intellectual movement stood as it were hesitating which party
it ought to join: and as the contest went on, it seemed rather
to incline to that party which was most opposed to the
political movement