But in the 17th century the rights of the people
were as yet _not_ defined: throughout that century they were gradually
defining themselves--and, as happiness to all great practical interests,
defining themselves through a course of fierce and bloody contests. For
the kingly rights are almost inevitably carried too high in ages of
imperfect civilization: and the well-known laws of Henry the Seventh, by
which he either broke or gradually sapped the power of the aristocracy,
had still more extravagantly exalted them. On this account it is just to
look upon democratic or popular politics as identical in the 17th century
with patriotic politics. In later periods, the democrat and the patriot
have sometimes been in direct opposition to each other: at that period
they were inevitably in conjunction. All this, however, is in general
overlooked by those who either write English history or comment upon it.
Most writers _of_ or _upon_ English history proceed either upon servile
principles, or upon no principles: and a good _Spirit of English History_,
that is, a history which should abstract the tendencies and main results
[as to laws, manners, and constitution] from every age of English history,
is a work which I hardly hope to see executed. For it would require the
concurrence of some philosophy, with a great deal of impartiality. How
idly do we say, in speaking of the events of our own time which affect our
party feelings,--'We stand too near to these events for an impartial
estimate: we must leave them to the judgment of posterity!' For it is a
fact that of the many books of memoirs written by persons who were not
merely contemporary with the great civil war, but actors and even leaders
in its principal scenes--there is hardly one which does not exhibit a more
impartial picture of that great drama than the histories written at his
day.
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