al to France in infidelity and profligacy in the course of
the Reign. Again the war of William with France closed the Continent
upon the national intercourse, and the manliness of the national
character partially revived. But with the death of Anne the intercourse
was renewed, and the result was a renewal of the corruption. The war of
the French Revolution again and utterly broke off the intercourse for
the time; and it is undeniable, that the national character suddenly
exhibited a most singular and striking return to the original virtues of
the country--to its fortitude, to its patriotism, and to the purity of
its religious feelings.

The period from the Treaty of Utrecht to the war of the French
Revolution, has always appeared to us a blot on the annals of England.
It is true that it contained many names of distinction, that it
exhibited a graceful and animated literature, that it was characterised
by striking advances in national power, and that towards its close it
gave the world a Chatham, as if to reconcile us to its existence and
throw a brief splendour over its close.

But no period of British history developed more unhappily those vices
which naturally ripen in the hot bed of political intrigue. The names of
Harley, Bolingbroke, Walpole, and Newcastle, might head a general
indictment against the manliness, the integrity, and the honour of
England. The low faithlessness of Harley, who seems to have been
carrying on a Jacobite correspondence at the foot of the throne--the
infamous treachery of his brother-minister, St John--the undenied and
undeniable corruption of Walpole, and the half-imbecility which made the
chicane of Newcastle ridiculous, while his perpetual artifice alone
saved his imbecility from overthrow,--altogether form a congeries,
which, like the animal wrecks of the primitive world, almost give in
their deformity a reason for its extinction.

There can be no question of the perpetual villany which then assumed the
insulted name of politics; none, of the utter sacrifice of public
interests to the office-hunting avarice of all the successive parties;
none, of the atrocious corruptibility of them all; none, of that general
decay of religion, morals, and national honour, which was the result of
a time when principle was laughed at, and when the loudest laugher
passed for the wisest man of his generation.

The cause was obvious. Charles II. had brought with him from France all
the vices of a court,