revolution of 1688 was contemporaneous with a
revolution in physics, shown by Harvey's discovery of the
circulation of the blood; with a revolution in astronomical
thought, shown by Newton's "Principia"; with a small revolution
in literature, shown by the rise of English prose; with a
revolution in popular feeling all over the world, as shown by the
riots against excessive taxation in France and the ejection of de
Witt in Holland. All the different threads of life seem to run
interwoven, and one cannot be disturbed without disturbing the
others.

The character of Frederick the Great was stained by many infamous
deeds; he was in many ways unscrupulous, yet he was never petty,
and he was devoted to his country. He was the greatest genius in
practical reforms and in the art of war that the eighteenth
century produced.

Frederick the Great has had a far stronger and better influence
on history than a selfish, callous person like Louis XIV.

Of all the benevolent despots there is only one, Frederick the
Great, to whom can be fitly applied what Johnson said of
Goldsmith: "Let not his faults be remembered: he was a very great
man."

Under a despotism the aristocracy loses all its powers, and,
except for the bureaucracy and "King's friends," there is no
privileged class unless the King is a weak man and under the
thumb of his court (e.g., contrast the France of Louis XIV with
that of Louis XV).

Carlyle in his "French Revolution" paints a wonderfully vivid
picture of the idle, voluptuous noblesse of the eighteenth
century: compare the views of de Tocqueville.

Carlyle in his grim account of the death-bed of Louis XV writes:
"We will pry no further into the horrors of a sinner's
death-bed." Paul's comment: "cf. the episode of the death of
Front-de-Boeuf in 'Ivanhoe.'"

Lord Chesterfield saw clearly the symptoms of the coming
Revolution in France. Only two other men in Europe foresaw that
immense event: Goldsmith and Arthur Young. Note Gibbon's
complacent attitude _in re_ France to illustrate the general lack
of vision on the subject.

Voltaire's summing up of the consequences of Turgot's fall may be
expressed in Sir Edward Grey's phrase: "Death, disaster and
damnation."

If Louis XVI had been wiser and more capable