may be done; and in the king's name; but it cannot be the king who did it [the king cannot constitutionally be supposed the person who did it]. By this exquisite political refinement, the old tyrannical maxim was disarmed of its sting; and the entire redress of all wrong, so indispensable to the popular liberty, was brought into perfect reconciliation with the entire inviolability of the sovereign, which is no less indispensable to the popular liberty. There is moreover a double wisdom in the new sense: for not only is one object [the redress of wrong] secured in conjunction with another object [the king's inviolability] hitherto held irreconcilable,-- but even with a view to the first object alone a much more effectual means is applied, because one which leads to no schism in the state, than could have been applied by the blank negation of the maxim; _i.e._ by lodging the responsibility exactly where the executive power [_ergo_ the power of resisting this responsibility] was lodged. Here then is one example in illustration of my thesis--that the English constitution was in a great measure gradually evolved in the contest between the different parties in the reign of Charles I. Now, if this be so, it follows that for constitutional history no period is so important as that: and indeed, though it is true that the Revolution is the great era for the constitutional historian, because he there first finds the constitution fully developed as the 'bright consummate _flower_,' and what is equally important he there first finds the principles of our constitution _ratified_ by a competent authority,--yet, to trace the _root_ and growth of the constitution, the three reigns immediately preceding are still more properly the objects of his study. In proportion then as the reign of Charles I. is Important to the history of our constitution, in that proportion are those to be taxed with the most dangerous of all possible falsifications of our history, who have misrepresented either the facts or the principles of those times. Now I affirm that the clergy of the Church of England have been in a perpetual conspiracy since the era of the restoration to misrepresent both. As an illustration of what I mean I refer to the common edition of Hudibras by Dr. Grey: for the proof I might refer to some thousands of books. Dr. Grey's is a disgusting case: for he swallowed with the most anile credulity every story, the most extravagant that the malice of those times could invent against either the Presbyterians or the Independents: and for this I suppose amongst other deformities his notes were deservedly ridiculed by Warburton. But, amongst hundreds of illustrations more respectable than Dr. Grey's I will refer the reader to a work of our own days, the Ecclesiastical Biography [in part a republication of Walton's Lives] edited by the present master of Trinity College, Cambridge, who is held in the highest esteem wherever he