A Plan for a

3°4

Let. 9.

at Naples , and La Cueva at Venice. The dif-tra&ions of France , as well as the ftate-policyof the Queen mother, feduced by Rome , andamufed by Spain ; the defpicable charader of ourJames the firft, the rafhnefs of the eledor Palatine,the bad intelligence of the princes and dates of the1 league in Germany , the mercenary temper of John George of Saxony , and the great qualities ofMaximilian of Bavaria , raifed Ferdinand thefecond to the Imperial throne; when, the malesof the elder branch of the Auftrian family inGermany being extinguilhed at the death of Mat-thias, nothing was more definable, nor perhapsmore pradicable, than to throw the empire intoanother houfe. Germany ran the fame rifk asItaly had done : Ferdinand feemed more likely,even than Charles the fifth had been, to becomeabfolute mafter; and, if France had not furnifhedthe greated minider, and the North the greatedcaptain, of that age, in the fame point of time,"Vienna and Madrid would have given the law tothe weftern world.

As the Auftrian fcale funk, that of Bourbonrofe. The true date of the rife of that power,which has made the kings of France fo confiderablein Europe , goes up as high as Charles thefeventh , and Lewis the eleventh. The weaknefsof our HeinRY the fixth , the loofe conduct ofEdward the fourth, and perhaps the overfightsof Henry the feventh, helped very much to knitthat monarchy together, as well as to enlarge it.Advantage might have been taken of the divifions

which