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i5o L E T T E R VI.

As to France ; this sera of the entire sali of theSpanifh povver is likewise that froni vvhich wemay reckon that France grew as formidable, aswe hâve íeen her, to her neighbours, in povverand pretensions. Henry the foutth meditated gréâtdesigns, and prepared to act a gréât part in Europe ,in the very beginning of this period, when Ra-VAILLAC stabbed him. His designs died with him,and are rather gueffed at than known; for furelythose which his historian Perefixe and the com-piler of Sully’s memorialS ascribe to him, of aChristian commonwealth, divided into sifteen states,and of a fenate to décidé ail diiïerences, and tomaintain this nevv constitution of Europe , are toc»chimerical to hâve been reallyhis: but his généraidesign of abasing the houfe of Austria , and estab-liíhing the fuperior povver in that of Bourbon,was taken up, about twenty years aster his death,by Richelieu, and was puríued by him and byMazarin with fo much ability and fuccefs, thatit was eífected entirely by the treaties of Westphalia and by the Pyrenean treaty: that is, at the and ofthe second of those periods I hâve prefumed topropose to your lordíliip.

When the third, in which we now are, willend, and vvhat circumstances will mark the endof it, 1 knovv nos. but this 1 know, that thegréât events and révolutions, which hâve happerned in the course of it, interest us still more nearlythan those of the two précédent periods. I intend-ed to hâve drawn up an elenchus or fummary ofthe three, but I doubted, on further refìection,