that began to utter their voices after the Reformation. But the dark cloud that soon again covered the hemisphere, and burst in thunder over Europe, rending the air and shaking the earth, arose in France with the rising ambition of Louis XIV. He exercised all the tyranny of the state, and sought to let loose again the tyranny of the church. The unnatural union of France and of England, under the reign of the reckless Charles II., against Protestant Holland, threatened, of itself, to rise into a thunder; but the clouds were dissipated by the winds of heaven.

"The combined fleets, with an army on board, approached the coast of Holland. In a manner almost miraculous, they were carried out to sea, and afterwards prevented from landing their forces by violent storms. Those who regarded this as the interference of Providence cannot justly be accused of superstition."*

The invasion of Holland, the persecution of Protestants, and the revocation of the edict of Nantz by Louis XIV., were the preludes to that general war to which the name of another thunder too appropriately pertains.

"In the ignorance of his bigotry, he revoked the edict of Nantz, treated his Protestant subjects with all the injustice and cruelty that blind fanaticism could dictate, and thereby lost to France thousands of industrious citizens, who augmented the wealth and armies of his enemies. A league was formed at Augsburg, to restrain the encroachments of France. Spain and Holland joined it, as also did Denmark, Sweden, and Savoy, and finally England, now governed by William."t

The edict of Nantz was revoked in the year 1685. The league of Augsburg was formed in 1687; and the following year was the era of the glorious, and no less glorious because bloodless, revolution; from

* Outlines of Hist. p. 379.

† Ibid. p. 383.

which period England took the lead in the cause of Protestantism.

"Louis assembled two large armies in Flanders; a third was opposed to the Spaniards in Catalonia; another entered and ravaged the Palatinate in a most barbarous and fiendish manner." "Twice during the reign of Louis XIV. was this fine country desolated by the arms of France; but the flames lighted by Jurenne, however dreadful, were only like so many torches, compared with the present frightful conflagration which filled all Europe with horror."*

The bloody war continued with varied success till 1697, when it was terminated by the peace of Ryswick. And

"scarcely had the emperor acceded to the treaty of Ryswick which re-established tranquillity in the north and west of Europe, when he received intelligence of the total defeat of the Turks, by his arms, at Zenta, in the kingdom of Hungary. Thus was general tranquillity restored once more in Europe. But the seeds of future discord were already sown in every corner of Christendom. It was but a delusive calm before a more violent storm."†

The third thunder, though all in the brief interval was calm, was rapidly succeeded by the fourth, to which the name of Marlborough is the ready index, and in the course of which the power of Louis was shattered as if by quick repeated strokes of lightning, and his ambition was prostrated in the dust, where all earthly glory must lie.

In the year 1701 "the grand Alliance" was formed against France: and, to adopt the shortest memoir of the murderous strife, "from the year 1702 to 1711, the reign of Louis XIV. was one continued series of defeats and calamities." In 1713, peace was concluded at Utrecht between France, England, Portu

*Russel's Hist. of Modern Europe, vol. ii. p. 519.
† Ibid. pp. 537, 538.

Encyclop. Brit. art. France.

gal, the United Provinces, Prussia, and Savoy; and in the following year, at Rastadt, between Germany and Spain. Charles XII., "the madman Swede," who would not otherwise have ceased from warfare, was at that very period a prisoner in the hands of the Turks. And "Europe rested from war.'

The incessant warfare and desperate battles by which Marlborough was the instrument of humbling Louis, quashed for a time the love of war; and, from 1714 to 1739, there followed, as marked in history, "a period of comparative repose." Alliances were formed for the preservation of peace, which was only partially interrupted and speedily restored. The pragmatic sanction, regulating the right of female succession to the imperial throne, and the disputed possession of Sardinia, were the chief objects of controversy, which did not immediately involve such principles or interests as to excite a general war, or to rouse another prophetic thunder throughout Europe. But, before the middle of that century, which had speedily introduced a history of blood, Europe was again in arms, and had witnessed another thunder. In 1739 war was declared by Great Britain against Spain, and in 1744 against France. The battles of Dettingen and Fontenoy are not forgotten in Britain. In 1740 the death of Charles VI., and the succession of Maria Theresa, laid Germany open to invasion. "Treaties of spoliation and division" became the pastime of the German and European princes. The wars of Frederick the Great began. Britons, Prussians, Dutch, Austrians, Bohemians, Bavarians, Silesians, Hanoverians, Sardinians, Spaniards, and Italians, all mingled in the warfare. And no calm was interposed till the year 1748, when peace was

* Outlines of History, p. 390.

† Ibid. p. 393, title.

concluded by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. thunder-cloud passed over Britain at the time.

A

The sixth thunder is defined by "the seven years' war," commencing in 1755 and concluding in the beginning of 1763. The battle of Minden, the siege of Quebec and the death of Wolfe, the taking of Belleisle, the capture of Guadalope, the Havannah, and Martinique, are memorials of it in Britain that come within the recollection of the aged. The Protestant countries of Prussia and Britain stood against a confederacy of Continental kingdoms. And America, as well as Europe, became the scene of contests, where Protestants and Catholics maintained their distinctive and discordant creeds, no less than in Britain and in France.

"England obtained all Canada, and the islands of St. John and Cape Breton, great part of Louisiana, her conquests on the Senegal, the island of Grenada: all her other conquests she restored. Prussia and Austria agreed to place themselves on the same footing they were on at the commencement of hostilities. Thus ended the seven years' war,-a war which had caused such an effusion of blood and treasure: it ended without being productive of any real advantage to any one of the parties. Europe now reposed from war."*.

History is not, perhaps, greatly in fault, if, in recording wars and their desolations, it sometimes omits the mention of their benefits. And though the work of warriors be often the most fruitless of labours, as some may reckon it not the least pernicious, yet diplomatists are not always forgetful to mingle the seeds of war with treaties of peace. The interests of the greatest of Protestant and of Catholic countries were soon to be contended for anew; and the world was not long altogether ignorant how the gain of Canada by Britain might possibly be connected with the loss of America.

* Outlines of History, p. 408.

Europe did not repose long from war: nor did the last of the seven thunders make long delay in uttering its voice. The seven years' war terminated in 1763; in 1775 the North American war began; France declared war against Britain in 1778. The next season Spain followed her example; and in 1780, Holland was added to the enemies of England. The Spanish, the Dutch, and French fleets were defeated. Gibraltar was besieged in vain. But in another seven years' war, the Americans, after an arduous contest, maintained their independence; the troops of Cornwallis surrendered, as prisoners of war, to the French and Americans commanded by Washington, and in 1782 the American war was ended. If a jewel fell from the crown of Britannia, it soon glittered on the brow of the best child of her hope, her eldest daughter.* And though the benefits of war be often looked for in vain, yet the blessings of the Reformation, after which the first of the seven thunders began, may yet be seen, half a century after the conclusion of the last of them, by looking to Ameriça alone, in the striking contrast between its Northern and Southern States, and the opposite effects that have followed their respective independence. The book that was held in the angel's hand is open in the one region, and shut in the other. But lately there were only three Bibles in Lima, the capital of one of the States of South America; while in one of the States in the North three houses could scarcely be found in which a Bible is wanting.

And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven and the things that therein are, and the

* A jewel fell from the crown on the coronation of George III. It has been named America.