to any eye at that time, and, what is still more to the purpose, that the dangerous ascendency of Louis XIV. resulted in great measure from the betrayal of England by Charles II., and would have been impossible had, we will not say a second Cromwell, but a Protestant or patriotic monarch, sat on the Protector's throne. Bolingbroke suggests, and Mr. Arnold embraces the suggestion, that Charles I., by making war on France, showed himself more sagacious with regard to foreign policy than Cromwell. But Mr. Arnold, in recommending Bolingbroke's philosophy to a generation which he thinks has too much neglected it, has discreetly warned us to let his history alone. Charles I., or rather Buckingham, in whose hands Charles was a puppet, made war on Spain, though in the most incapable manner, and with a most ignominious result: he at one time lent the French Government English ships to be used against the Protestants of Rochelle, whose resistance, apart from the religious question, was the one great obstacle to the concentration of the French power; and though he subsequently quarrelled with France, few will believe--assuredly Clarendon did not believe--that among the motives for the change, policy of any kind predominated over the passions and the vanity of the favourite. That Cromwell would have lent a steady and effective support to the Protestants, and thus have prevented the concentration of the French power, is as certain as any unfulfilled contingency can be. Mr. Arnold is evidently anxious to bring Bolingbroke into fashion. "Hear Bolingbroke upon the success of Puritanism." Hear Lovelace on Dr. Johnson; one critic would be about as edifying as the other. Bolingbroke, a sceptical writer and a scoffer at Anglican doctrine, to say nothing about his morals, allied himself for party purposes with the fanatical clergy of the Anglican Establishment, well represented by Sacheverel, and, to gratify his allies, passed as Minister persecuting laws, about the last of the series, against Nonconformists. This, perhaps, is a proof in a certain way, of philosophic largeness of view. But if Bolingbroke is to be commended to ingenuous youth as a guide superior to party narrowness or bias, it may be well to remember the passage of his letter to Sir William Wyndham, in which he very frankly describes his own aims, and those of his confederates on their accession to office, admitting that "the principal spring of their actions was to have the government of the State in their hands, and that their principal views were the conservation of this power, great employments to themselves, and great opportunities of rewarding those who had helped to raise them, and of hurting those who stood in opposition to them;" though he has the grace to add that with these considerations of party and private interest were intermingled some which had for their object the public good. In another place he avows that he and his party