ESSAYS HISTORICAL AND LITERARY. 195

who coniidered them as a€ts of the molt exalted heroifm.

During the whole of that reign, and for many years afterwards, no fymptoms appeared of any conliderable change in the public fyfiem ofthinké ing. V/hcn the Duke of Orleans, Regent of France, was urged to correct fome of the more

flagrant abufes in the Hate, he replied, “ I am l

ready for reformation, but the age I live in is

Q9

not. And it was about the middle of the cen- tury that the dawn of a new and more enlight- ened mra was firPt difcernible in the oppoiition of divers of the Parliaments to the arbitrary man-- dates of the monarch. The times, however, were unfavorable to the fuccefs of their efforts; which were not, perhaps, directed by the diEtates of found policy, fo much as by the impulfe of paflion and refentment. And, before the con- clufion ofthe reign of the late King, every pro- fpeEt of amelioration of the confiitution or a re- form in the Ptate feemed totally blaiied, by not merely the fufpenfion or banifhment, but the ab- folute annihilation of the Parliament of Paris, in confequence of reiterated aEis of difobedience to the royal authority; and the fubfiitution of a new court wholly dependent upon the crown. ‘

At the accellion of the prefent fovereign, how- ever, who was anxious to acquire the confidence‘

and aFfeEtion of his people, which his predeceflor O 2 had