spirit disdained to speak to them of their ease and their commerce, and their wealth and their safety. No! She touched another chord—she spoke of their national honor, of their dignity as Englishmen, of “the foul scorn that Parma or Spain _should dare_ to invade the borders of her realms.” She breathed into them those grand and powerful sentiments which exalt vulgar men into heroes, which led them into the battle of their country, armed with holy and irresistible enthusiasm; which even cover with their shield all the ignoble interests that base calculation and cowardly selfishness tremble to hazard, but shrink from defending. A sort of prophetic instinct, if I may so speak, seems to have revealed to her the importance of that great instrument for rousing and guiding the minds of men, of the effects of which she had no experience, which, since her time, has changed the condition of the world, but which few modern statesmen have thoroughly understood or wisely employed; which is, no doubt, connected with many ridiculous and degrading details, which has produced, and which may again produce, terrible mischiefs, but of which the influence must, after all, be considered as the most certain effect and the most efficacious cause of civilization, and which, whether it be a blessing or a curse, is the most powerful engine that a politician can move—I mean the press. It is a curious fact that in the year of the Armada, Queen Elizabeth caused to be printed the first gazettes that ever appeared in England; and I own, when I consider that this mode of rousing a national spirit was then absolutely unexampled, that she could have no assurance of its efficacy from the precedents of former times, I am disposed to regard her having recourse to it as one of the most sagacious experiments, one of the greatest discoveries of political genius, one of the most striking anticipations of future experience that we find in history. I mention it to you to justify the opinion that I have ventured to state of the close connection of our national spirit with our press, even our periodical press. I can not quit the reign of Elizabeth without laying before you the maxims of her policy, in the language of the greatest and wisest of men. Lord Bacon, in one part of his discourse on her reign, speaks thus of her support of Holland: “But let me rest upon the honorable and continual aid and relief she hath given to the distressed and desolate people of the Low Countries—a people recommended unto her by ancient confederacy and daily intercourse, by their cause so innocent and their fortune so lamentable!” In another passage of the same discourse, he thus speaks of the general system of her foreign policy as the protector of Europe, in words too remarkable to require any commentary. “Then it is her government, and her government alone, that hath been the sconce and fort of all Europe, which hath let this proud nation from overrunning all. If any state be yet free from his