178 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Sept. 8. 1855. 



fore they would attempt his restoration lie should 

 turn Protestant; might not Bolingbroke be ex- 

 cused for saying that under Harley's ministry 

 there was no design to place the crown on the 

 head of the Pretender, — that is, on the head of 

 a Catholic, — the prince being a pretender only 

 while, and because, a Catholic ; the design being to 

 " proclaim" and put the crown on the head of " the 

 next Protestant successor." Might he not consider 

 that in thus acting he was proving his " inviolable 

 attachment " to the principle of " the Revolution 

 Settlement ? " The argument, I admitted at 

 starting, might be thought somewhat over-refined ; 

 but I repeat that in those times it was by such 

 refinements and over-refinements that men quieted 

 their consciences, and kept their heads on their 

 shoulders. At any rate, the more special the ar- 

 gument, the more individual, and the more it 

 helps us to fix on the writer. Swift's argument 

 on the subject, though it may at a hasty glance 

 read something like it, is essentially different. 

 He says : 



" In one part of The Conduct of the Allies, ^c, among 

 other remarks upon this treaty, I make it a question, 

 whether it were right in point of policy or prudence to 

 call in a foreign power to be guarantee to our succession ; 

 because by that means we put it out of the power of our 

 oivn legislature to alter the succession, how much soever the 

 necessity of the kingdom may require it ? To comply with 

 the cautions of some people, I explained mj' meaning in 

 the following editions. I was assured that my L — d 

 Ch — f J — ce affirmed that passage was treason ; one of my 

 answerers, I think, decides as favourably ; and I am told 

 that paragraph was read very lately during a debate, with 

 a comment in very injurious terms, which, perhaps, might 

 have been spared. That the legislature should have 

 power to change the succession, whenever the necessities 

 of the kingdom require, is so very useful towards pre- 

 serving our religion and liberty, that I know not how to 

 recant. The worst of this opinion is, that at first sight 

 it appears to be Whiggish; but the distinction is thus: 

 the Whigs are for changing the succession when they 

 think fit, though the entire legislature do not consent ; I 

 think it ought never to be done but upon great necessity, 

 and that with the sanction of the whole legislature. Do 

 these gentlemen of revolution principles think it impossible 

 that we should ever have occasion again to change our 

 succession.' And if such an accident should fall out, 

 must we have no remedy, 'till the Seven Provinces will 

 give their consent ? " 



This is plain enough. It may have been a 

 hazardous assertion in those times, — treason, as 

 my Lord Chief Justice affirmed ; but it is simply 

 the assertion of an abstract right in the legislature 

 to alter, amend, or repeal an act of parliament. 

 This brings me to the Remarks, ^c, Vindicated, 

 the writer of which seems to hint that the 

 order of succession contemplated in the Act of 

 Settlement might, under circumstances, be altered 

 without a repeal of the act ; and it is the pecu- 

 liarity of this argument, over and above the style 

 of the pamphlet — a peculiarity which would re- 

 concile Bolingbroke's then conduct with his after 

 assertions — that leads me to infer the possibility 



No. 306] ^ 



that he was the writer. Of course, the opinions 

 to which I refer are only incidentally introduced, 

 delicately touched on, logical inferences, but not, 

 I think, intended to be passed over as mere bye- 

 play. We soon get a glimmering of the argu- 

 ment. Thus, — 



"The first thing which you lay down is, that the Pro- 

 testant succession is of 'the greatest consequence to 

 Britain, wherein I can't do otherwise than agree with 

 you ; observing, by the way, that the arguments by which 

 you prove this position, if there was need of any, don't prove 

 that the Princess Sophia, or the Elector of Hanover, must 

 of necessity be that Protestant Prince ; for if there shoud 

 be any other Protestant Prince of the royal blood, he migh 

 {_sofar, 1 mean, as your argument goes) claim a title to the 

 succession." — P. 5. 



Again, pp. 26, 27. : 



"The force of this objection, if I rightly imderstood 

 those who made it, was not such as you represent it, that 

 a defensive alliance in general wou'd lessen the inde- 

 pendency of our crown, but that the nature of this, in 

 particular, was such, having pinn'd down the queen and 

 parliament to the settlement made in the Hanover family, 

 so that we were, quoad that particular, become absolutely 

 dependent on their good-will and pleasure. I can't for- 

 bear observing here, that this family [the Hanover 

 family] by this treaty is provided for in general terms, 

 and without any liniitations ; and that about the Pro- 

 testant religion (for which j'ou wou'd be thought so 

 much concern'd), in the articles in which the succession 

 is stipulated, not one word is mention'd; so that the 

 Princess Sophia, her heirs, successors, and descendants 

 (whatever religion any of 'em hereafter may be), are in 

 all events to have the crown of Britain. And I think, 

 Sir, that the addition of two words (being Protestants), 

 which addition our act of parliament makes, wou'd have 

 prevented the suspicions which some ill-natur'd persons, 

 may entertain, and have left us free of those necessities, 

 which future times may on that account create." 



Has not the argument here, so needlessly ad- 

 duced, as to the exclusion of a Catholic in the 

 Hanover line of succession, a bearing on, and 

 illustration of, the question whether Protestants 

 of the Stuart line might not succeed in preference 

 even to the Princess Sophia or her heirs ? Then 

 follows the general abstract proposition about 

 altering, amending, or explaining. 



This question is not, 1 think, without interest, 

 historical and literary ; perhaps interest of a 

 higher character, as helping to show the moral 

 bewilderment of those ticklish times. S. B. W. 



KING Alfred's " orosius." 



Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of the historian 

 Orosius claims especial attention, as it not only 

 contains many new illustrative clauses, sentences, 

 and paragraphs of his own, but the king has here 

 given a most interesting essay of his own com- 

 posing, on the position and state of European 

 nations, between his own age and that of Orosius, 



