Latin language, to which they had entrusted it; and they have left but obscure traces in literary history. Such is the present state of Holland; and there is much reason to fear that this gradual decline will continue, until the population shall be too scanty to maintain that perpetual contest with the surrounding elements, upon which the existence of the territory depends, and the soil itself shall return to the ocean. But whatever may be its present or its future fate, it will always be interesting to elevated and generous minds, as a spot. which was once the favourite abode of freedom, industry, learning, and the arts.. The seats of liberty and civilization, like the fine monuments of Grecian architecture, are graceful and attractive even in their ruins.

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CHAP. VII.

GREAT BRITAIN.

THE HE country which first gave the example of a free and well regulated government is naturally an object of curiosity and interest to the friends of liberty; and to this distinction Great Britain seems to be fairly entitled. We find in the fierce democracies of Greece and Rome, and in the modern Italian republics, many traces of high spirit and independent feeling, many exhibitions of the loftiest qualities that belong to our nature; characters perhaps that have never been excelled or equalled in England; but the political institutions of these states were all irregular and vicious; and some of the most celebrated of them, as Athens, were also deficient in the necessary resources for embodying the principle of liberty in a powerful and imposing form. The illustrious characters that adorned all these republics, and the charm of poetry and eloquence that has been thrown about them in description, have given a sort of conventional celebrity to their political institutions, which vanishes at the slightest touch of critical examination. Holland is perhaps the country

which has the best right to contest with England the glory of giving the world the first example of a liberal and well regulated constitution; but although the republic of the Seven United Provinces made a nearer approach to the attainment of this object than its predecessors, it was far from reaching it. It was reserved therefore for England to solve this great problem; and to exhibit, for the first time, the phenomenon of a vigorous and permanent political system, founded on the basis of liberty and equality. All the new representative governments on the continent of Europe are avowedly imitations of this; although they have not copied the British constitution in every part, and where they intended to copy have often failed to do it from not understanding the model. In the United States we have brought, as we suppose, the forms of government to still greater perfection; have cleared away many abuses, avoided many errors, and introduced great improvements in the details of administration; but we are still proud and happy to look to Great Britain, as the source from which we derive the spirit and the love of liberty, and from which we have drawn all our political institutions, with the alterations necessary to accommodate them to our situation and habits; and some of the most valuable-as the habeas corpus act and trial by jury without any alteration at all. The jury-without American constitution, as was justly remarked by the illustrious Fox, is that of England improved

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by the results of the experience of a thousand years. The British islands, therefore, whatever may be the future fate of their inhabitants, will always be reckoned as classical and sacred ground by the friends of liberty; and their history and constitution will ever be studied with singular attention, by all who wish to obtain correct notions of political science.

The greatness and glory to which the British empire has arisen, under the operation of these liberal institutions, furnish one of the strongest proofs of their practicability and intrinsic excellence. To assert that the prosperity of England has been wholly owing to the favourable influence of free government, would perhaps be hazardous. Much of it may justly be attributed to her geographical position, which favoured commercial skill and enterprise, while it afforded security from foreign invasion; and much to the native excellence of the German character, the Saxons and Normans being among the most distinguished branches of this estimable race. But to whatever cause this prosperity may be immediately traced, its existence establishes, in the first place, beyond the possibility of doubt, an important position, which always has been and still is denied by the partisans of despotism, to wit, that a high degree of political power and prosperity is compatible with liberal institutions; and as their effect on private happiness is uncontested, this fact alone would decide the question in

their favour. When, however, we consider the vast influence of political institutions in the formation of character, and on the state of social intercourse, of industry, and of property, we shall perhaps feel but little hesitation in referring the success of the British nation almost wholly to the operation, direct and indirect, of these institutions. It is in this particular, principally, that their situation has varied in these latter times from that of the conti. nental branches of the same race; and it is precisely since this difference existed, that they have exhibited so remarkable a superiority in many important respects over these nations; some of whom are at least their equals in natural advantages, and personal qualities. Indeed, the prosperity of England has continued to advance exactly in the same proportion as her government has become more and more liberal. Even in the golden days of good Queen Bess, England was not sorry to be relieved by an intervention of providence, from the attack of the invincible armada. Under the arbitrary government of the Stuarts, she was an isolated and secondary state; though Protestant, she took no part in the thirty years' war, and left it to Sweden to hold the balance of power at the peace of Westphalia. It was not till the government, after the commotions of the commonwealth, and the revolution of 1688, had settled down firmly and permanently upon a liberal basis, that we find the prodigious developement of power and wealth, that has since