With this previous indication of the unrivalled responsibility pressing upon aristocracies, it is our purpose to dwell a little upon those accidents of advantage arising out of constitution, and those differences of quality, experimentally made known to us in a thousand trials, which sum and express the peculiarities of the British nobility and gentry.

This first point, as to the constitution of our aristocracy, the basis on which it reposes cannot be better introduced than by a literary fact open to all the world, but never yet read in its true meaning.  When it became advisable, after the violent death of Charles I., that some public exposure should be applied to the past disputes between the Throne and the Parliament, and some account given of the royal policy—­the first question arose naturally upon the selection of a writer having the proper qualifications.  Two of these qualifications were found in a French scholar of distinction, Monsieur de Saumaise, better known by his Latinized name of Salmasius.  He was undoubtedly a scholar of prodigious attainments:  and the first or unconditional qualification for such a task, of great ability and extensive information, could not be denied to him.  Here was a subject fitted to fix attention upon any writer, and on the other hand, a writer brilliantly qualified to fix attention upon any subject.  Unhappily, a third indispensable condition, viz.—­that the writer should personally know England—­was entirely overlooked.  Salmasius had a fluent command of Latin; and, supported by a learned theme, he generally left a dazzling impression even upon those who hated his person, or disputed his conclusions.  But, coming into collision with politics, personal as well as speculative, and with questions of real life, fitted to call for other accomplishments than those of a recluse scholar, it seemed probable that this great classical critic would be found pedantic and scurrilous; and upon the affairs of so peculiar a people, it was certain that he would be found ignorant and self-contradicting.  Even Englishmen have seldom thoroughly understood the feud of the great Parliamentary war:  the very word “rebellion,” so often applied to it, involves the error of presuming that in its principles the war was unconstitutional, and in its objects was finally defeated.  Whereas the subsequent Revolution of 1688-9 was but a resumption of the very same principles and indispensable purposes under more advantageous auspices—­was but a re-affirmation of the principle votes from 1642 to 1645.  The one capital point of a responsibility, virtual though not formal, lodged in the crown, and secured through a responsible ministry—­this great principle, which Charles I. once conceded in the case of Lord Strafford, but ever afterwards to his dying day repented and abjured, was at length for ever established, and almost by acclamation.  In a case so novel, however, to Englishmen, and as yet so unsettled, could it be looked for that a foreigner