LETTER VI.

150

As to France ; this sera of the entire fall of theSpanifh power is likewife that from which wemay reckon that France grew as formidable, aswe have feen her, to her neighbours, in powerand pretenfions. HkNRY the fourth meditated greattlefigns, and prepared to act a great part in Europe ,in the very beginning of this period, when Ra-VAIjlLAC ftabbed him. His defigns died with him,and are rather gueffed at than known ; for finelythofe which his hiftorian Perefixe and the com-piler of Sully’s memorials afcribe to him, of aChriftian commonwealth, divided into fifteen ftates,and of a fenate to decide all differences, and tomaintain this new conflitution of Europe , are toochimerical to have been really his : but his generaldefign of abafing the houfc of Auftria, and eftab-lifhing the fuperior power in that of Bourbon,was taken up, about twenty years after his death,by Richelieu, and was purfued by him and byJVIazarin with fo much ability and fuccefs, thatit was affedted entirely by the treaties of Weftphaliaand by the Pyrenean treaty: that is, at the end ofthe fecond of thofe periods I have prefumed topropofe to your lordfliip.

When the third , in which we now are, willend , and what circumftances will mark the endof it, I know not : but this I know, that thegreat events and revolutions, which have happen-ed in the courfe of it, hue re ft us ftill more nearlythan thofe of the two precedent periods. 1 intend-ed to have drawn up an elenchus or fummary ofthe three, but I doubted, on further reflection,