whose patriotic effusions were directed against the effectual extirpation of "All Scouts, Mercuries, Posts, Spies, and the like." In 1662 the " In 1662 the "Kingdom's Intelligencer" was commenced in London. Among other novelties it took notice of the proceedings in parliament. Then came, the year after, Sir Roger L'Estrange's "Intelligencer," already noticed. This was followed by the "London Gazette," first called the "Oxford Gazette," having been issued at Oxford where the court was then sitting. This was published in 1665; and in three years after, the number of newspapers had increased to seventy.

L'Estrange was appointed licenser of the press; and issued a "proclamation for suppressing the printing and publishing unlicensed news-books and pamphlets of news, because it has become a common practice for evil-disposed persons to vend to his majesty's people all the idle and malicious reports that they could collect or invent, contrary to law; the continuance whereof would, in a short time, endanger the peace of the kingdom; the same manifestly tending thereto, as has been declared by all his majesty's subjects unanimously."

Newspaper speculations went on increasing; but great difficulty was often felt in filling them, small as they then comparatively were, with materials. The "Rising Sun" was published in Cornhill, on a sheet of fine paper, half of which was blank, that the purchaser, if he liked, might write his own private affairs on it, or the current news of the day. In some other papers the blank part was filled up with quotations from the bible. There was no daily paper till after the commencement of the eighteenth century.

There are several parodies to be found among the political writings of a satirical cast. Some of these are both witty and amusing. Marvel's parody on the speeches of Charles II., is one of the best of the kind. It is too long to be given in full; but we shall quote a few paragraphs to show the style of the author.

"My lords and gentlemen,-I told you at our last meeting, the winter was the fittest time for business, and truly I thought so, till my lord treasurer, assured me the spring was the best season for salads and subsidies. I hope, therefore, that April will not prove so unnatural a month as not to afford some kind showers on my parched exchequer, which gapes for want of them. I can bear my straits with patience; but my lord treasurer does protest to me, that the revenue, as it now stands, will not serve him and me too. One of us must pinch for it, if you do not help me. I must speak freely to you; I am in bad circumstances; for besides my harlots in service, my reformado concubines lie heavy upon me. I have a passable good estate, I confess; but, God's-fish, I have great charge upon it. *** The nation hates you already for giving me so much, and I will hate you, too, if you do not give me more. ** I have converted my natural sons from popery; and I may say, without vanity, it was my own work, so much the more peculiarly mine than the begetting them. They are all fine children, God bless 'em, and so like me in their understandings.

I

desire you to believe me as you have found me; and I do solemnly promise you, that whatsoever you give me shall be specially managed with the same conduct, trust, sincerity, and prudence, that I have ever practised, since my happy restoration."

There were a few political catechisms published before the year 1700. We have found the following somewhat amusing. "A Political Catechism, concerning the Government of this Land," 1643; "Catechism an nexed to Henry Parker's Portraiture of the Kings of England;" "A Satyricall Catechisme betwixte a Newter and a Roundhead," 1648; "The Soldier's Catechisme, composed for the Parliamentary Army," 1684; and the "Rebel's Catechism" by Peter Heylin.

During the period of the Revolution, and to the year 1700, caricature was not much cultivated in England. Those caricatures, for example, upon Cromwell, and his friends, were of Dutch origin, and executed by Dutch artists. Even those which were extensively circulated in this country a few years after, and which referred to the South Sea Bubble, were from Holland.

We are told, however, by Warton, in his "Life of Pope," that, in the reign of Mary, when England was groaning under the Spanish yoke, the queen's person and government were held up to perpetual ridicule by prints or pictures "representing her majesty naked, meagre, withered, and wrinkled, with every aggravated circumstance of deformity that could disgrace the female figure, seated in a regal chair; a crown on her head, surrounded by M.R. and A. in capitals, accompanied by small letters; Maria Regina Anglica! A number of Spaniards were sucking her to skin and bone, and a specification was added of the money, rings, jewels, and other presents with which she had secretly gratified her husband Philip." There are likewise caricatures in the reigns of Elizabeth and Charles I.*

CHAPTER III.

POLITICAL LITERATURE OF FRANCE, FROM THE YEAR 1400, TILL 1700.

AT an early period of the reform movement in Germany, the political and religious opinions of the French people became influenced, to a considerable extent, by the doctrines of the new creed. But the reform notions which found their way here, were, as in most other countries, more of a religious than a political cast. Still they had a visible reflex effect upon the general ideas of government and law. No small portion of the social and political corruptions of France, at this time, rested upon a religious basis; and when the church began to be stripped of its infallibility, those institutions, unfriendly to liberty and human improvement, naturally felt the shock and became subject to discussions and suggestions of amendment and change. The kings of France were certainly, in the abstract, independent of the Roman see; but in the administration of governmental affairs, both general and municipal, arbitrary rule and priestly domination, prevailed to an unwholesome and ruinous extent.

It is requisite to premise that a knowledge of the external history of the political and civil institutions of France is indispensable to a proper appreciation of its political literature. Unless we have a general idea of

the form of government, the fiscal regulations, the municipal institutions, the religious tenets, and the ecclesiastical regime of the country, it would be impossible to recognise the progress of its political philosophy, and to estimate the value and importance of those successive changes of public opinion which the course of time developes. To guide the judgment we must always be looking from the present to the past. We must compare the opinions and sentiments of one period with those of another, and mark the successive steps of theoretical and practical legislation. It is quite obvious, for example, that English readers and thinkers will often be at fault in estimating the importance of French political treatises, from the sheer want of that portion of knowledge, which, as natives of our own country, we imbibe without almost any labour; but which cannot be obtained on the same easy terms, on foreign topics of speculation and practice. A foreign government is like a foreign language, which can seldom or never be mastered in all its comprehensive fulness, by one who has to learn it only from books or scholastic assistance. It must, therefore, be to the general principles of polity, that we, as strangers, must direct attention. These are the grand land-marks of all scientific knowledge; and it is by steadily keeping them before the mind that real progress is made from one generation to another in that most vital of all sciences -the science of congregated humanity.

It is a curious topic of speculation to contrast the nature and character of British expositions of political science with those of France in corresponding eras of history. Separated only by a narrow strait of twenty miles, how different is the development of general