The very great length to which this article has already been extended makes it impossible for us to discuss, as we had meant to do, the characters and conduct of the leading English statesmen at this crisis.  But we must offer a few remarks on the spirit and tendency of the Revolution of 1688.

The editor of this volume quotes the Declaration of Right, and tells us that, by looking at it, we may “judge at a glance whether the authors of the Revolution achieved all they might and ought, in their position, to have achieved; whether the Commons of England did their duty to their constituents, their country, posterity, and universal freedom.”  We are at a loss to imagine how he can have read and transcribed the Declaration of Right, and yet have so utterly misconceived its nature.  That famous document is, as its very name imports, declaratory, and not remedial.  It was never meant to be a measure of reform.  It neither contained, nor was designed to contain, any allusion to those innovations which the authors of the Revolution considered as desirable, and which they speedily proceeded to make.  The Declaration was merely a recital of certain old and wholesome laws which had been violated by the Stuarts, and a solemn protest against the validity of any precedent which might be set up in opposition to those laws.  The words run thus:  “They do claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular the premises as their undoubted rights and liberties.”  Before a man begins to make improvements on his estate, he must know its boundaries.  Before a legislature sits down to reform a constitution, it is fit to ascertain what that constitution really is.  This is all that the Declaration was intended to do; and to quarrel with it because it did not directly introduce any beneficial changes is to quarrel with meat for not being fuel.

The principle on which the authors of the Revolution acted cannot be mistaken.  They were perfectly aware that the English institutions stood in need of reform.  But they also knew that an important point was gained if they could settle once for all, by a solemn compact, the matters which had, during several generations, been in controversy between Parliament and the Crown.  They therefore most judiciously abstained from mixing up the irritating and perplexing question of what ought to be the law with the plain question of what was the law.  As to the claims set forth in the Declaration of Right, there was little room for debate, Whigs and Tories were generally agreed as to the illegality of the dispensing power and of taxation imposed by the royal prerogative.  The articles were therefore adjusted in a very few days.  But if the Parliament had determined to revise the whole constitution, and to provide new securities against misgovernment, before proclaiming the new sovereign, months would have been lost in disputes.  The coalition which had delivered the country would have been instantly dissolved.  The Whigs would have