1828.] 
from that moment all will sensibly and ra- 
pidly decline; and then will begin to be 
felt the full pressure of the debt, for the 
quarters’ revenues, before declining, will on 
each return sink lower and lower. Disorder 
and discouragement must, consequently, 
pervade every department of the govern- 
ment, and desperate measures must follow. 
The church lands—the funds will be the 
obvious resources—public credit perish— 
Consols drop to 40, 20, or 10, nothing— 
and every branch of the service in arrear. 
Our ships will be rotting in our ports, for 
_ want of money to repair them ; and we shall 
fall an unresisting victim to the grasping Rus- 
sian, and our own want of timely exertion. 
—Oh dear!—But come, let us pluck up 
our spirits—it is not yet too late—the 
gloomy prophet tells us, England and France 
united can carry the world, and surely check 
the Russian. This union, we fear, is but 
a frail dependence ; but for our parts, we 
have no very paralyzing fears about the un- 
interrupted progress of Russia to universal 
dominion. Work will probably be soon 
cut out at home for the Emperor—his do- 
minions will be divided—Constantine will 
have a crown—and family quarrels will en- 
sue. In the long run we shall be probably 
pretty much where we were—if the Turks 
be expelled from Europe, they will be re- 
placed by others of more activity and more 
wants—wants which they will be long be- 
fore they can themselves supply—and in the 
meanwhile must depend for that supply on 
our manufactories. 
The Clarendon Correspondence. 2 vols. 
4to; 1828.—These are two very consider- 
able volumes, filled with original materials 
of information, relative mainly to one of the 
most interesting periods of our history—that 
of James the Second, and the memorable 
revolution of 1688. They consist wholly 
of the correspondence and diaries of two of 
the Chancellor Clarendon’s sons, Henry and 
Lawrence—the first inheriting his father’s 
title, and the other ennobled by that of Earl 
of Rochester. Both of them played dis- 
tinguished parts on the theatre of public 
life. On the restoration—at which period 
the eldest was but twenty years of age—they 
were both, by the chancellor’s overwhelm- 
ing influence, introduced into Parliament ; 
and did, and might well look forward to the 
most brilliant career. The final disgrace— 
we mean of course nothing but the dis- 
missal and exile—of the chancellor, seemed 
likely to check the course of the young 
aspirants for distinction ; but they had been 
thoroughly impressed with the necessity and 
the virtue of prudence, and Lawrence, in 
particular, lost no ground at all—he was 
uninterruptedly in good odour at court, and 
constantly employed at home or abroad. 
The elder brother—notwithstanding his 
office of chamberlain -to the queen—for a 
time gave in to a pretty active resistance to 
the measures of the court—opposing espe- 
Domestic and Foreign. 
41! 
cially Buckingham and Arlington — the 
more influential ministers, and his father’s 
chief and personal enemies. Through the 
whole of this opposition, however, he kept 
on terms of intimacy and service with the 
Duke of York, who had married his sister; 
and on the attempt of the country party to 
exclude him from the succession, was emi- 
nently useful in supporting the cause of his 
relative and patron. Towards the end of 
the reign—though odious to Charles—by 
James’s influence, he was introduced to the 
council, and on the duke’s own accession, 
received the privy seal, and, in the course 
of a twelyemonth, was appointed to the 
lieutenancy of Ireland. 
The younger brother, Lawrence, was em- 
ployed diplomatically, first, on an embassy 
of compliments to the French King on the 
birth of the Dauphin—next to Sobieski in 
his camp—and finally in Holland, with the 
Prince of Orange, to negociate a peace. 
He was thus actively and confidentially en- 
gaged till 1679, when he became a lord of 
the treasury, and on the resignation of Lord 
Essex, first lord, and was only prevented 
from going to Ireland by the death of the 
king. James, on his accession, preferred 
his services at home—the treasury com- 
mission was dissolved, and Rochester was 
named lord treasurer. 
The two brothers were thus at the top of 
the tree; and had they been as ready to 
promote the king’s views on the question of 
religion, as they undoubtedly were in poli- 
tical matters, might have remained the 
reigning favourites. But they had im- 
bibed their father’s attachment to the 
Church of England, and all its hierarchy, 
and were themselves too intimately con- 
nected with the prelates, and influential 
clergy, to fall in with the king’s views. 
Their devotion to Protestantism was un- 
shakeable—— we need not doubt the sin- 
cerity of it. Rochester, in particular, 
resisted more than one closetting with the 
king; and even Giffard, the Catholic Bishop 
of Madura, and then the intrusive presi- 
dent of Magdalen, laboured in his conver- 
sion in vain. They were both finally dis- 
missed—not in anger—for both of them 
were handsomely pensioned; but both of 
them, in spite of their lofty tory senti- 
ments, actually joined William on his in- 
vasion. Both of them, however, in the 
Convention, were advocates for a regency, 
and of course lost William's favour. Cla- 
tendon kept up a correspondence with the 
exiled king, and more than once was 
thrown into the Tower on suspicion of plot- 
ting with the enemies of the new goyern- 
ment; but finally, yet still under a sort of 
surveillance, he was suffered to withdraw to 
his own country residence, where he lived 
in perfect retirement till his death in 1709. 
Rochester — always the more prudent 
man—which seems to express the more 
accommodating man—was, in 1692, so far 
3G 2 
