His

Henry VI., was proclaimed at Paris as well as at London. reign was a series of weakness and misfortunes. The French conquests were gradually lost, and the English barons returned into their island exasperated against each other, habituated to the power and licence of war, and as much discontented with the monkish virtues of Henry, as with the masculine spirit and foreign connexions of his queen, Margaret of Anjou. The pretensions of Richard, Duke of York, and of his son Edward IV., inflamed the discontent into civil war. Hereditary right was pleaded against long possession; the banners of the white and red roses met in many a bloody field, and the votes of parliament varied with the chance of arms. Edward of York assumed the title of king, revenged the death of his father, and triumphed over the Lancastrian party; but no sooner was the imprudent youth seated on the throne, than he cast away the friendship of the great Earl of Warwick, and with it the English sceptre. That warlike and popular nobleman, impatient of indignities, drove Edward into exile, and brought back Henry (scarcely conscious of the change) from the tower to the palace. Edward's activity soon retrieved his indiscretion. He landed in England with a few followers, called an army to his standard, obtained the decisive victories of Barnet and Tewkesbury, and suffered no enemy to live who might interrupt the security and pleasure of his future reign. The crimes of Richard III., who ascended the throne by the murder of his two nephews (Edward V. and his brother), reconciled the parties of York and Lancaster. Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, was invited over from Brittany as the common avenger, vanquished and slew the tyrant in the field of Bosworth, and uniting the two roses by his marriage with the eldest daughter of Edward IV., gave England a prospect of serener days. The kingdom had, however, suffered less than might be expected from the calamities of civil war. The frequent revolutions were decided by one or two battles; and so short a time was consumed in actual hostilities as allowed not any foreign power to interpose his dangerous assistance; no cities: were destroyed, as none were enough fortified to sustain a siege. The churches, and even the privilege of sanctuaries, were respected, and the revenge of the conquerors was commonly confined to the princes and barons of the adverse party, who all died in the field or on the scaffold. The power and estates of this old nobility were gradually shared by a multitude of new families, enriched by commerce and favoured by the wise policy of Henry VII.; but between the depression of the aristocracy and the rise of the commons, there was an interval of unresisted despotism.

The factions of Burgundy and Orleans, who disputed the government of Charles VI., filled France with blood and confusion. The Duke of Orleans was treacherously murdered in the streets of Paris, and John, Duke of Burgundy, who avowed and justified the deed, was some years afterwards assassinated in the presence, and probably with the consent, of the young dauphin. That prince, persecuted by his mother, disinherited by the treaty of Troyes, and on every side pressed and surrounded by the victorious English, assumed

the title of Charles VII. on his father's death, and appealed, though with little hopes of success, to God and his sword. The French monarchy was on the brink of ruin, but like the Othman empire in the same century, rose more powerful from its fall. A generous enthusiasm first revived the national spirit, and awakened the young monarch from his indolent despair. A shepherdess declared a divine commission to raise the siege of Orleans, and to crown him in Rheims. She performed her promises; and the consternation of the English was still greater than their loss. The genius of Charles, seconded by his brave and loyal nobility, seemed to expand with his fortune. The Duke of Burgundy was reconciled to his kinsman and sovereign, Paris opened its gates with willing submission, and at length, after some years of languid operations or imperfect truces, the French recovered Normandy and Guienne, and left the English no footing in their country beyond the walls of Calais. The last years of Charles VIIth's reign were employed in reforming and regulating the state of the kingdom. He is the first modern prince who has possessed a military force in time of peace, or imposed taxes by his sole authority. The former composed of 1500 lances, who with their followers made a body of 9000 horse. The latter did not exceed £360,000 sterling. This great alteration was introduced without opposition, and felt only by its consequences, which gradually affected all Europe.

The feudal system, weakened, in France, by these innovations, was annihilated by the severe despotism of Louis XI., into whom the soul of Tiberius might seem to have passed. As it was his constant policy to level all distinctions among his subjects, except such as were derived from his favour, the princes and great nobility took up arms, and besieged him in Paris; but their confederacy, surnamed of the Public Good, was soon dissolved by the jealousy and private views of the leaders, few of whom afterwards escaped the revenge of a tyrant, alike insensible to the sanctity of oaths, the laws of justice, or the dictates of humanity. The gendarmerie of the kingdom was increased to 4000 lances, besides a disciplined militia, a large body of Swiss infantry, and a considerable train of artillery, the use of which had already altered the art of war. The revenue of France was raised to nearly a million sterling, as well by extraordinary impositions, as by the union of Anjou, Maine, Provence, Roussillon, Burgundy, Franche Comté, and Artois to the body of the French monarchy; which, under this wise tyrant, began to improve in domestic policy, and to assume the first station in the great republic of Christendom.

The revolution which restored Burgundy to the French monarchy merits more than common attention. Charles the Bold, of the house of France, Duke of Burgundy, and sovereign of the Netherlands, was the natural and implacable enemy of Louis XI. His subjects of Burgundy were brave and loyal; those of Flanders, rich and industrious; his revenue was considerable, his court magnificent; his troops numerous and well disciplined; and his dominions enlarged by the acquisition of Guelders, Alsace, and Lorraine. But

his vain projects of ambition were far superior either to his power or his abilities. At one and the same time he aspired to obtain the regal title, to be elected king of the Romans, to divide France with the English, to invade Italy, and to lead a crusade against the Turks. The Swiss Cantons, a name till then unknown in Europe, humbled his pride. Many writers, more attentive to the moral precept than to historic truth, have represented the Swiss as a harmless people, attacked without justice or provocation. Those rude mountaineers were, on the contrary, the aggressors: and it appears by authentic documents, that French intrigues, and even French money, had found a way into the senate of Berne. Louis XI., who in his youth had experienced the valour of the Swiss, inflamed the quarrel till it became irreconcileable, and then sat down the quiet spectator of the event. The gendarmerie of Burgundy was discomfited in three great battles, by the firm battalions of Swiss infantry, composed of pikemen and musketeers. At Granson, Charles lost his honour and treasures; at Morat, the flower of his troops; and at Nancy, his life. He left only an orphan daughter, whose rich patrimony Louis might perhaps have secured by a treaty of marriage. Actuated by passion, rather than sound policy, he chose to ravish it by conquest. Burgundy and Artois submitted without much difficulty; but the Flemings, exasperated by the memory of ancient injuries, disdained the French yoke, and married their young princess Mary to Maximilian, son of the emperor Frederic III. The Low Countries became the inheritance of the house of Austria, and the subject as well as theatre of a long series of wars, the most celebrated that have ever disturbed Europe.

son

Such was the growing prosperity of France, that even the disturbances of a minority proved favourable to its greatness. Brittany, the last of the great fiefs, escaped a total conquest only by the marriage of Anne, heiress of that great duchy, with Charles VIII., and successor of Louis XI. The expedition of Charles VIII. into Italy displayed his character, and that of the nation which he commanded. In five months he traversed affrighted Italy as a conqueror, gave laws to the Florentines and the pope, was acknowledged King of Naples, and assumed the title of Emperor of the East. Every thing yielded to the first fury of the French; every thing was lost by the imprudence of their councils. The Italian powers, recovered from their astonishment, formed a league with Maximilian and Ferdinand, to intercept the return of Charles VIII. The kingdom of Naples escaped from his hands, and the victory of Fernova only served to secure his retreat. He died soon afterwards, leaving his kingdom exhausted by this rash enterprise, and weakened by the imprudent cession of Roussillon to the Spaniards, and of Franche Comté and Artois to the house of Austria.

Spain was hastening to assume the form of a powerful monarchy. Castile and Arragon were first under the same family, and not long afterwards under the same sovereigns. Henry IV., King of Castile, a prince odious for his vices, and contemptible for his weakness, was solemnly deposed in a great assembly of his subjects; who despising the

suspicious birth of his daughter Juanna, placed the crown on the head of Isabella, his sister. The marriage of that princess with Ferdinand of Arragon completed the salutary revolution. The Spaniards celebrate, with reason, the united administration of those monarchs; the manly virtues of Isabella, and the profound policy of Ferdinand the Catholic, always covered with the veil of religion, though often repugnant to the principles of justice. After a ten years' war, they executed the great object of delivering Spain from the infidels. The Moors of Grenada defended that last possession with obstinate valour, and stipulated, by their capitulation, the free exercise of the Mahometan religion. Public faith, gratitude, and policy ought to have maintained this treaty; and it is a reproach to the memory of the great Ximenes that he urged his masters to violate it. The severe persecutions of the Mahometans, and the expulsion of many thousands of Jewish families, inflicted a deep but secret wound on Spain, in the midst of its glory. The prosperity of Ferdinand and Isabella was embittered by the death of their only son. Their daughter Juanna married the Archduke Philip, (son of the Emperor Maximilian and of Mary of Burgundy), and the great successions of the houses of Austria, of Arragon, and of Castile, were gradually accumulated on the head of Charles V., the fortunate offspring of that marriage.

The dominion of Spain was extended into a new hemisphere, which had never yet been visited by the nations placed on our side of the planet. Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, obtained from the ministers of Isabella, after long solicitations and frequent repulses, three small barks and ninety men, with which he trusted himself to the unknown Atlantic. His timid and ignorant sailors repeatedly exclaimed, that he was carrying them beyond the appointed limits of nature, whence they could never return. Columbus resisted their clamours, and at the end of thirty-three days from the Canaries, showed them the island of Hispaniola, abounding in gold, and inhabited by a gentle race of men. In his subsequent voyages, undertaken with a more considerable force, he discovered many other islands, and saw the great continent of America, of whose existence he was already convinced from speculation.

The discoveries of Columbus were the effort of genius and courage; those of the Portuguese, the slow effect of time and industry. They sailed round the continent of Africa; found, by the Cape of Good Hope, a new and more independent route to the East Indies, and soon diverted the commerce of the east from Alexandria and Venice to Lisbon.

A new world was opened to the studious as well as to the active part of mankind. It was scarcely possible for the Italians to read Virgil and Cicero, without a desire of being acquainted with Homer, Plato, and Demosthenes. Their wishes were gratified by the assistance of many learned Greeks, who fled from the Turkish arms. The manuscripts which they had saved, or which were discovered in old libraries, were quickly diffused and multiplied by the useful invention of printing, which so much facilitated the acquisition of

knowledge. For some time, however, the genius of the Italians seemed overpowered by this sudden accession of learning. Instead of exercising their own reason, they acquiesced in that of the ancients; instead of transfusing into their native tongue the taste and spirit of the classics, they copied, with the most awkward servility, the language and ideas suited to an age so different from their

own.

If we turn from letters to religion, the Christian must grieve, and the philosopher will smile. By a propensity natural to man, the multitude had easily relapsed into the grossest polytheism. The existence of a Supreme Being was indeed acknowledged; his mysterious attributes were minutely, and even indecently, canvassed in the schools; but he was allowed a very small share in the public worship, or the administration of the universe. The devotion of the people was directed to the Saints and the Virgin Mary, the delegates, and almost the partners, of his authority. From the extremities of Christendom thousands of pilgrims, laden with rich offerings, crowded to the temples and statues the most celebrated for their miraculous powers. New legends and new practices of superstition were daily invented by the interested diligence of the mendicant friars; and as this religion had scarcely any connexion with morality, every sin was expiated by penance, and every penance indulgently commuted into a fine. The popes, bishops, and rich abbots, careless of the public esteem, were soldiers, statesmen, and men of pleasure; yet even such dignified ecclesiastics blushed at the grosser vices of their inferior clergy.

ESSAY ON THE STUDY OF LITERATURE.

The following is in French, in Mr. Gibbon's handwriting, on the back of the title-page of his own interleaved copy.

My friends made me publish this work, so to speak, in spite of myself. This hackneyed excuse of authors is not, however, such with me. My father wished me to publish it last winter. My youth, and a considerable stock of vanity, which renders me more sensitive to criticism than to praise, prevented me from acceding to his design. But being in the country with him in the month of March, he renewed his request in so pressing a manner, that I could not avoid it. Mr. Mallet introduced me to a bookseller named Becket, to whom I gave up my manuscript, agreeing for forty copies for myself.-Mr. Maty corrected the sheets. The printing of the work, which was commenced at the beginning of May, was not finished till the end of June, and my book was not published till towards the middle of the following month. Mr. Mallet took charge of the distribution of the greatest part of those which I wished to give as presents. The following is extracted from a letter he wrote me on the 9th of June, 1761 :

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