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stinate of tyrants, in a foreign country, the seat of despotismand superstition; in a country where the last traces of liberty •had disappeared; where the States General had ceased tomeet; where parliaments had long registered without one re-monstrance the most oppressive edicts of the sovereign;where valour, genius, learning, seemed to exist only for thepurpose of aggrandising a single man; where adulation wasthe main business of the press, the pulpit, andthestage; andwhere one chief subject of adulation was the barbarous perse-cution of the Reformed Church. Was the boy likely to learn,under such tuition and in such a situation, respect for the in-stitutions of his native land? Could it be doubted that hewould be brought up to be the slave of the Jesuits and theBourbons, and that he would be, if possible, more bitterlyprejudiced than any preceding Stuart against the laws ofEngland?

Nor did the Whigs think that, situated as the countrythen was, a departure from the ordinary rule of successionwas in itself an evil. They were of opinion that, till that rulehad been broken, the doctrines of indefeasible hereditaryright and passive obedience would be pleasing to the court,would be inculcated by the clergy, and would retain a stronghold on the public mind. The notion would still prevail thatthe kingly office is the ordinance of God in a sense differentfrom that in which all government is his ordinance. It wasplain that, till this superstition was extinct, the constitutioncould never be secure. For a really limited monarchy cannotlong exist in a society which regards monarchy as somethingdivine, and the limitations as mere human inventions. Roy-alty, in order that it might exist in perfect harmony with ourliberties, must be unable to show any higher or more venerabletitle than that by which we hold our liberties. The Kingmust be henceforth regarded as a magistrate, a great ma-gistrate indeed and highly to be honoured, but subject, likeall other magistrates, to the law, and deriving his powerfrom heaven in no other sense than that in which the Lordsand the Commons may be said to derive their power fromheaven. The best way of effecting this salutary change would

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less.