Constitution, as proclaimed and ratified in 1688-9, is in its kind, the noblest work of the human mind working in conjunction with Time, and what in such a case we may allowably call Providence. Of this _chef d'oeuvre_ of human wisdom it were desirable that we should have a proportionable history: for such a history the great positive qualification would be a philosophic mind: the great negative qualification would be this [which to the established clergy may now be recommended as a fit subject for their magnanimity]; viz. complete conquest over those prejudices which have hitherto discolored the greatest era of patriotic virtue by contemplating the great men of that era under their least happy aspect--namely, in relation to the Established Church. Now that I am on the subject of English History, I will notice one of the thousand mis-statements of Hume's which becomes a memorable one from the stress which he has laid upon it, and from the manner and situation in which he has introduced it. Standing in the current of a narrative, it would have merited a silent correction in an unpretending note: but it occupies a much more assuming station; for it is introduced in a philosophical essay; and being relied on for a particular purpose with the most unqualified confidence, and being alleged in opposition to the very highest authority [viz. the authority of an eminent person contemporary with the fact] it must be looked on as involving a peremptory defiance to all succeeding critics who might hesitate between the authority of Mr. Hume at the distance of a century from the facts and Sir William Temple speaking to them as a matter within his personal recollections. Sir William Temple had represented himself as urging in a conversation with Charles II., the hopelessness of any attempt on the part of an English king to make himself a despotic and absolute monarch, except indeed through the affections of his people. [5] This general thesis he had supported by a variety of arguments; and, amongst the rest, he had described himself as urging this--that even Cromwell had been unable to establish himself in unlimited power, though supported by a military force of _eighty thousand men_. Upon this Hume calls the reader's attention to the extreme improbability which there must beforehand appear to be in supposing that Sir W. Temple,--speaking of so recent a case, with so much official knowledge of that case at his command, uncontradicted moreover by the king whose side in the argument gave him an interest in contradicting Sir William's statement, and whose means of information were paramount to those of all others,--could under these circumstances be mistaken. Doubtless, the reader will reply to Mr. Hume, the improbability _is_ extreme, and scarcely to be invalidated by any possible authority--which, at best, must terminate in leaving an equilibrium of opposing evidence. And yet, says Mr. Hume, Sir William was unquestionably wrong, and grossly