Sir Thomas More.—­The blood of the Plantagenets, as your friends the Spaniards would say, was a strong blood.  That temper of mind which (in some of his predecessors) thought so little of fratricide might perhaps have involved him in the guilt of a parricidal war, if his father had not been fortunate enough to escape such an affliction by a timely death.  We might otherwise be allowed to wish that the life of Henry VII. had been prolonged to a good old age.  For if ever there was a prince who could so have directed the Reformation as to have averted the evils wherewith that tremendous event was accompanied, and yet to have secured its advantages, he was the man.  Cool, wary, far-sighted, rapacious, politic, and religious, or superstitious if you will (for his religion had its root rather in fear than in hope), he was peculiarly adapted for such a crisis both by his good and evil qualities.  For the sake of increasing his treasures and his power, he would have promoted the Reformation; but his cautious temper, his sagacity, and his fear of Divine justice would have taught him where to stop.

Montesinos.—­A generation of politic sovereigns succeeded to the race of warlike ones, just in that age of society when policy became of more importance in their station than military talents.  Ferdinand of Spain, Joam II. whom the Portuguese called the perfect prince, Louis XI. and Henry VII. were all of this class.  Their individual characters were sufficiently distinct; but the circumstances of their situation stamped them with a marked resemblance, and they were of a metal to take and retain the strong, sharp impress of the age.

Sir Thomas More.—­The age required such characters; and it is worthy of notice how surely in the order of providence such men as are wanted are raised up.  One generation of these princes sufficed.  In Spain, indeed, there was an exception; for Ferdinand had two successors who pursued the same course of conduct.  In the other kingdoms the character ceased with the necessity for it.  Crimes enough were committed by succeeding sovereigns, but they were no longer the acts of systematic and reflecting policy.  This, too, is worthy of remark, that the sovereigns whom you have named, and who scrupled at no means for securing themselves on the throne, for enlarging their dominions and consolidating their power, were each severally made to feel the vanity of human ambition, being punished either in or by the children who were to reap the advantage of their crimes.  “Verily there is a God that judgeth the earth!”

Montesinos.—­An excellent friend of mine, one of the wisest, best, and happiest men whom I have ever known, delights in this manner to trace the moral order of Providence through the revolutions of the world; and in his historical writings keeps it in view as the pole-star of his course.  I wish he were present, that he might have the satisfaction of hearing his favourite opinion confirmed by one from the dead.