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A complete hiftory of England, deduced from the defcent of Julius Cæfar, to the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748. Containing the transactions of one thoufand eight hundred and three years. By T. Smollet, M. D. Volume the fourth, confifting of eighty fheets, given gratis to the purchafers of the three former volumes. Rivington and Fletcher.

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F all the literary enterprifes which an author can undertake, that of writing the modern hiftory of England is, we apprehend, the most dangerous and difficult. In a nation divided, as we are, into two inveterate factions, it is impoffible to specify any domestic occurrence that deferves a place in hiftory, without running the risque of giving offence to one party, and very often of disobliging both, by a candid investigation of the truth. For this reafon, almost every British hiftorian fince the reformation has exprefly written as a partifan of foine particular faction, which he has endeavoured to justify in every article of its conduct; well knowing, that should his work be condemned by one fet of people, it would be warmly supported and glorified by the other. Thus we find Clarendon and Ludlow alternately extolled and vilified by the tories and whigs: thus we trace the Jacobite in Carte, and the Calvinist in Rapin. Befides, there are other objections that lie against him who writes the history of his own times. With all his defire of guarding against prejudice, he will hardly be able to represent with candour those scenes in which he himself acted a part; and what author is so inconfiderable or neutral in a community, as not to have interested himself at fome time or other in the difputes of his country? He will, moreover, find a professed critic, and in fome measure a fevere judge, in every reader; as every person was an eye-witnefs of fome of the tranfa&tions which he relates and, this being the cafe, his errors and mistakes will VOL. V. Jan. 1758. B

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be the more easily detected; nor can it be fuppofed, that any author should be altogether free from mistakes, who must cull his materials from a variety of contradictory evidence. Finally, a writer who exercises his pen on the latter periods of English history, cannot properly avoid entering into dry difquifitions concerning the finances, the money'd corporations, the intrigues of corrupt minifters, the multiplication of ftatutes, and the venality of pts: difquifitions that will naturally tire and disgust a reader of fenfibility and imagination. Our author finding himself encumbered by this unpleafing task, exclaims, p. 483, This, of all others, is the most unfavourable æra for an hiftorian. A reader of fentiment and imagination cannot be entertained or interested by a dry detail of fuch tranfactions as admit of no warmth, no colouring, no embellishment; a detail which ferves only to ex•hibit an inanimated picture of taftelefs vice and mean degeneracy.' Thefe are hardships under which the hiftorians of other countries do not labour. M. de Voltaire, for example, writes the hiftory of an united people, univerfally attached to their monarch, by the ties of duty and inclination; a people governed by laws that are not inceffantly accumulating into contradiction, confusion and anarchy; a people whofe politics are not eternally fluctuating between faction and caprice; a people fo well regulated by an admirable police, that they break out into no violence, sustain no convulfion, but remain quiet and uniform in their deportment and allegiance, and find themselves happy even under the exactions of an arbitrary government. The modern hiftory of fuch a people, is fimple, eafy, and interefting. It is, in effect, a detail of their monarch's tranfactions at home and abroad, unentangled in party, unoppofed by difaffection; an agreeable tiflue of external conquefts, and curious regulations for the benefit of the community. The hiftory of England, for the laft thirty years, exhibits fcenes of a very different nature; and fome allowance on this score will be made to the author of the work now under our inspection; a work which we may imagine will be better relished by pofterity, than by the present age, in as much as it breathes throughout a spirit of impartiality and moderation, that will, in all probability, be equally difagrecable to those who are perfonally concerned on both fides of our political difputes. The tories will flight him as a lukewarm friend; the whigs will brand him as a disguised Jacobite; For our parts, were we allowed to judge of his principles 'from this performance, we fhould conclude, that he is fo far a i tory, as to love and revere the monarchy and hierarchy; and fo much a whig, as to laugh at the notions of indefeasible right and non-refiftance. With respect to the execution of this fourth volume, the reader will judge of it from the quotations we fhall give: the ftile is, in general, equal, and in many places fuperior to that of the preceding volumes: neverthelefs, we cannot help owning, that we perceive in it marks of hurry and overfight, which we hope

will vanish in the next edition, as well as many errors of the prefs, owing to the hafte in which the sheets have been caft off. These little blemishes, however, we ought to forgive, when we remember the old proverb, that a gift-horse must not be looked in the mouth. We believe there are very few inftances of fuch a prefent to the public; and therefore we hope the proprietor will find his account in his unparallelled generofity. The author had been thought by fome readers, too fparing of his own reflections in the preceding volumes; but in this he has avoided that imputation, and perhaps will now be thought too liberal of his own obfervations, especially by those whom he has not fcrupled to ftigmatize as pfeudo-patriots and underftrappers in the art and mystery of ministerial corrup tion. The reader, we apprehend, will not be difpleased with the following introduction.

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The conftitution of England had now affumed a new aspect. • The maxim of hereditary, indefeasible right, was at length renounced by a free parliament. The power of the crown was acknowledged to flow from no other fountain than that of a contract with the people. Allegiance and protection were declared reciprocal ties depending upon each other. The repre• sentatives of the nation made a regular claim of rights in behalf of * their conftituents; and William III. afcended the throne in confequence of an exprefs capitulation with the people. Yet on. "this occafion, the zeal of the parliament towards their deliverer feems to have overfhot their attachment to their own liberty and privileges or at least they neglected the faireft: opportunity that ever occurred, to retrench thofe prerogatives of the crown to which they imputed all the late and former calamities of the kingdom. Their new monarch retained the old regal power over parliaments, in its full extent. He was left at liberty to convoke, adjourn, prorogue, and diffolve them at his pleasure. He was enabled to influence elections and opprefs corporations. He poffeffed the right of chufing his own council; of nominating. all the great officers of the ftate, and of the houshold, of the army,' the navy, and the church. He referved the abfolute command of the militia: fo that he remained master of all the inftruments and engines of corruption and violence, without any other restraint than his own moderation, and prudent regard to the claim of rights and principle of refiftance on which the revolution was founded. In a word, the fettlement was finished with fome precipitation, before the plan had been properly digefted and matured; and this will be the cafe in every establishment formed upon a fudden emergency in the face of opposition. • It was observed, that the king, who was made by the people, ⚫ had it in his power to rule without them; to govern jure divino, though he was created jure humano; and that, though the change proceeded from a republican fpirit, the fettlement was built upon tory maxims; for, the execution of his government • continued

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'continued ftill independent of his commiffion, while his own perfon remained facred and inviolable. The prince of Orange ⚫ had been invited to England by a coalition of parties, united by a common fenfe of danger; but this tie was no fooner broken, than they flew afunder, and each refumed its original bias. • Their mutual jealousy and rancour revived, and was heated by difpute into intemperate zeal and enthufiafm. Those who at ́first acted from principles of patriotifm, were infenfibly warmed into partisans; and king William foon found himself at the head ⚫ of a faction. As he had been bred a calvinift, and always expreffed an abhorrence of spiritual perfecution, the prefbyterians, and other proteftant diffenters, confidered him as their peculiar protector, and entered into his interests with the most zealous ⚫ fervour and affiduity. For the fame reasons, the friends of the church became jealous of his proceedings, and employed all 'their influence, first in oppofing his elevation to the throne, and ⚫ afterwards in thwarting his measures. Their party was efpoufed by all the friends of the lineal fucceffion; by the roman catholics; by those who were perfonally attached to the late king, and by fuch as were difgufted by the conduct and perfonal de'portment of William fince his arrival in England. They ob⚫ served that, contrary to his declaration, he had plainly aspired to the crown; and treated his father-in-law with infolence and rigour; that his army contained a number of foreign papifts, ' almoft equal to that of the English roman catholics whom James ⚫ had employed: that the reports fo induftriously circulated about ⚫ the birth of the prince of Wales, the treaty with France for ⚫ enflaving England, and the murder of the earl of Effex; reports • countenanced by the prince of Orange, now appeared to be ⚫ without foundation: that the Dutch troops remained in London, while the English forces were diftributed in remote quarters: ⚫ that the prince declared the first should be kept about his person, ⚫ and the latter fent to Ireland: that the two houses, out of complaifance to William, had denied their late fovereign the justice of being heard in his own defence; and, that the Dutch had lately interfered with the trade of London, which was already fenfibly diminished. These were the fources of difcontent, fwelled up by the refentment of fome noblemen, and other indi̟⚫viduals, disappointed in their hopes of profit and preferment.'

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As the character of king William has greatly fuffered in confequence of the maffacre at Glencoe in Scotland, we fhall infert the hiftorian's account of that barbarous tranfaction, that the reader may judge how far it is to be imputed to the cruelty of that monarch.

As the highlanders were not yet totally reduced, the earl of • Braidalbin undertook to bring them over, by diftributing fums of money among their chiefs; and fifteen thousand pounds were ⚫ remitted from England for this purpofe. The clans being informed

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