was fubfifting on eleemofynary flattery, bestowed in pity to her real, but misapplied abilities, Alfred was exercifing his talents like the father of his country. He did not confider study as a mere gratification of his own taste. He knew that a king has nothing exclufively his own, not even his literary attainments. He threw his erudition, like his other poffeffions, into the public stock. He diffused among the people his own knowledge, which flowed in all directions, like streams from their parent fountain, fertilizing every portion of the human foil, fo as to produce, if not a rapid growth, yet a difpofition both for fcience and virtue, where fhortly before there had been a barbarous wafte, a complete moral and mental defolation,

CHAP.

CHAP. XXVI.

Obfervations on the Age of Louis XIV. and on Voltaire:

IF in the prefent work we frequently cite

Louis XIV. it is because on fuch an occafion his idea naturally prefents itself. His reign was fo long; his character fo prominent; his qualities so oftenfible; his affairs were fo interwoven with those of the other countries of Europe, and efpecially with those of England; the period in which he lived produced fuch a revolution in manners; and, above all, his encomiastic hiftorian, Voltaire, has decorated both the period and the king with so much that is great and brilliant, that they fill a large space in the eye of the reader. Voltaire writes as if the Age of Louis XIV. bounded the circle of human

glory; as if the antecedent hiftory of Europe were among thofe inconfiderable and obfcure annals, which are either loft in fiction, or funk in infignificance; as if France at the period he celebrates, bore the fame relation to the modern, that Rome did to the ancient world, when the divided. the globe into two portions, Romans and barbarians; as if Louis were the central fun from which all the leffer lights of the European firmament borrowed their feeble radiance.

But whatever other countries may do, England at least is able to look back with triumph to ages anterior to that which is exclufively denominated the age of Louis XIV. Nay, in that vaunted age itself we venture to dispute with France the palm of glory. To all they boast of arms, we need produce no other proof of fuperiority than that we conquered the boafters. To all that they bring in fcience, and it must be al lowed that they bring much, or where would

be

be the honour of eclipfing them? we have to oppofe our Locke, our Boyle, and our Newton. To their long lift of wits and of poets, it would be endlefs, in the way of competition, to attempt enumerating, star by ftar, the countlefs conftellation which illuminated the bright contemporary reign of Anne.

But the principal reafon for which we fo often cite the conduct, and, in citing the conduct, refer to the errors of Louis, is, that there was a time, when the fplendour of his character, his impofing magnificencé and generofity, made us in too much danger of confidering him as a model. The illufion has in a good degree vanifhed; yet the inexperienced reader is not only still liable, by the dazzling qualities of the king, to be blinded to his vices, but is in danger of not finding out that thofe very qualities were themselves little better than vices.

But it is not enough for writers, who with to promote the best interests of the great, to expofe vices, they fhould also confi

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confider it as part of their duty to ftrip off the mask from falfe virtues, especially those to which the highly born and the highly flattered are peculiarly liable. To thofe who are captivated with the fhining annals of the ambitious and the magnificent; who are ftruck with the glories with which the brows of the bold and the profperous are encircled; fuch calm, unobtrusive qualities as justice, charity, temperance, meekness, and purity, will make but a mean figure; or, at beft, will be confidered only as the virtues of the vulgar, not as the attributes of Kings. While in the portrait of the conqueror, ambition, fenfuality, oppreffion, luxury, and pride, painted in the least offenfive colours, and blended with the bright tints of perfonal bravery, gaiety, and profufe liberality, will lead the fanguine and the young to doubt whether the former clafs of qualities can be very mischievous, which is fo blended and loft in the latter; efpecially when they find that hardly any abatement is made by the hiftorian for the

one,