empty into his manger all the garners of Surrey. Wars are requisite, to diminish the power of your Baronage, by keeping it long and widely separate from the main body of retainers, and under the ken of a stern and steddy prince, watching the movements of all, curbing their discourses, and inuring them to regular and sharp discipline. In general they are the worthless, exalted by the weak, and dangerous from wealth ill acquired and worse expended. The whole people is a good king's household, quiet and orderly when well treated, and ever in readiness to defend him against the malice of the disappointed, the perfidy of the ungrateful, and the usurpation of the familiar. Act in such guise, most glorious Henry, that the king may say my people, and the people say our king: I then will promise you more, passing all comparison and computation, than I refused you this morning; the enjoyment of a conquest, to which all France in estimation is as a broken flagstaff. A Norman by descent and an Englishman by feeling, the humiliation of France is requisite to my sense even of quiet enjoyment. Nevertheless I cannot delude my understanding, on which is impressed this truth, namely, that the condition of a people which hath made many conquests, doth ultimately become worse than that of the con D quered. For, the conquered have no longer to endure the sufferings of weakness or the struggles of strength, and some advantages are usually holden forth to keep them peaceable and contented: but under a conquering prince the people are shadows, which lessen and lessen as he mounts in glory, until at last they become, if I may reasonably say so and unreprovedly, a thing of nothing, a shapeless form. HENRY. Faith! I could find it in my heart, sir Arnold, to clip thine eagle's claws and perch thee somewhere in the peerage. SAVAGE. Measureless is the distance between my liege and me; but I occupy the second rank among men now living, forasmuchas, under the guidance of Almighty God, the most discreet and courageous have appointed me, unworthy as I am, to be the great comprehensive symbol of the English people. Writers differ on the first Speakers of the House of Commons, for want rather of reflection than of inquiry. The Saxons had frequently such chiefs; not always. In the reign of William Rufus there was a great council of parliament at Rockingham, as may be seen in the history of Eadmerus: his words are totius régni adunatio. He reports that a certain knight came forth and stood before the people, and spoke in the name and in the behalf of all. Peter de Montfort in the reign of Henry III spoke vice totius communitatis, and consented to the banishment of Ademar de Valence, bishop of Winchester. A sir John Bushey was the first presented by the Commons to the King in full parliament. Elsynge calls him "a special minion" to Richard II. It appears that he, like all his predecessors, was chosen for one particular speech, purpose, or sitting. Sir Arnold Savage, according to Elsynge, "was the first who appears upon any record” to have been appointed to the dignity as now constituted. The business on which my dialogue is founded, may be de scribed by an extract from Rapin. “Le roi, ayant rappresentè a ce parlement le besoin qu'il avoit d'un secours extraordinaire, les Communes allèrent en corps lui presenter une Adresse, dans laquelle elles lui remontroient que, sans fouler son peuple, il pouvoit subvenir a ses besoins. Elles exposoient que le clergè possedoit la troisieme partie des biens du royaume, et que, ne rendant au roi aucun service personel, il etoit juste qu'il contribuât de ses richesses aux besoins pressans de l'Etat. L'archevêque de Canterbury..disoit que leur demande n'avoit pour fondement que l'irreligion et l'avarice." The reformers, we see, were atheists in those days, as in ours and to strip off what is superfluous is to expose the body politic to decay. Henry IV was among the most politic of our princes. He and his successor may be compared with Philip and Alexander : but the two great Macedonian princes had not such difficulties to surmount as the two great English. Epaminondas alone, of all the Greeks, atchieved a victory so arduous as that of Agincourt. That of Poictiers was greater. To subdue the Athenians, or the Asiatics, and to subdue the French are widely different things. Henry V broke down their valour, and subverted the fundamental laws of their monarchy, as is proved by the sixth article in the treaty of Troyes. "Après la mort du roi Charles, la couronne de France, avec toutes ses dependences, appartiendra au roi d'Angleterre, et à ses heritiers."... A female then might eventually inherit it. The monkish historians, and, more than these, Shakespear have given a glorious character of Henry IV. The fact is, Henry permitted any irregularity at home, and suffered any affront from his rival kings, rather than hazard the permanency of his power. He rose by the people; he stood by the clergy. He suffered even the isle of Wight to be invaded by the French, without a declaration of war against them. We should be slow in our censure of princes. Kingship is a profession which has produced both the most illustrious and the most contemptible of the human race. That sovran is worthy of no slight respect, who rises in moral dignity to the level of his subjects; so manifold and so great are the impedi ments. |