REFERENCES.--Macaulay's, Hume's, Hallam's, and Lingard's Histories of England. Mackintosh's Causes of the Revolution of 1688. Fox's History of the Reign of James--a beautiful fragment. Burnet's History of his Own Times. Neal's History of the Puritans. Life and Times of Richard Baxter. Southey's Life of Bunyan. Memoir of George Fox, by Marsh. Life of William Penn. Chapters on religion, science, and the condition of the people, in the Pictorial History of England. Russell's Modern Europe. Woolrych's Life of Judge Jeffreys.
We turn now from English affairs to contemplate the reign of Louis XIV.--a man who filled a very large space in the history of Europe during the seventeenth century. Indeed, his reign forms an epoch of itself, not so much from any impulse he gave to liberty or civilization, but because, for more than half a century, he was the central mover of European politics. His reign commemorates the triumph in France, of despotic principles, the complete suppression of popular interests, and almost the absorption of national interests in his own personal aggrandizement. It commemorates the ascendency of fashion, and the great refinement of material life. The camp and the court of Louis XIV. ingulphed all that is interesting in the history of France during the greater part of the seventeenth century. He reigned seventy-two years, and, in his various wars, a million of men are supposed to have fallen victims to his vain-glorious ambition. His palaces consumed the treasures which his wars spared. He was viewed as a sun of glory and power, in the light of which all other lights were dim. Philosophers, poets, prelates, generals, and statesmen, during his reign, were regarded only as his satellites. He was the central orb around which every other light revolved, and to contribute to his glory all were supposed to be born. He was, most emphatically, the state. He was France. A man, therefore, who, in the eye of contemporaries, was so grand, so rich, so powerful, and so absolute, claims a special notice. It is the province of history to record great influences, whether they come from the people, from great popular ideas, from literature and science, or from a single man. The lives of individuals are comparatively insignificant in the history of the United States; but the lives of such men as Cæsar, Cromwell, and Napoleon, furnish very great subjects for the pen of the philosophical historian, since great controlling influences emanated from them, rather than from the people whom they ruled.