The history of England--says Macaulay--is a history of progress. Who would gainsay it? At the commencement of the twelfth century, a small and semi-barbarous nation, subject to a handful of foreigners, without a trace of civilisation--large masses enslaved--the Saxons still distinct from the Normans--superstition and brutality everywhere, and the law of the strong hand the supreme law of the land--such was England seven hundred years ago. Then came the bloody civil wars--brain-scorching, land-spoiling, men-consuming, sectarian wars--contests abroad and contests at home--a series of vile, hypocritical, dissolute, and narrow-minded monarchs--and at intervals bright epochs of great times in history and politics, and day was changed into night and night into day, until England attained its present position among the nations of the earth. From one decade to another there may have been periodical retrogressions, but each century gave clear and irrefragable evidence of the progress of England.
If, therefore, in the next years, France should happen again to attain those giddy heights of freedom, which she gained three times already, and which three times have vanished beneath her feet, then let not France, as she is wont to do, wax proud in the scanty shade of her newly planted trees of liberty, and let her not look down contemptuously on the cold, thickblooded, clumsy tree of liberty in England. At the end of the century the two nations may compare their charters; it will then be seen which of them has really and truly had the greatest gains. The blood of France has manured the mental soil of all the world; England should be the last to forget what her liberty has gained by the ideal conquests of France. France, on the other hand, might make the most useful study in considering the consistent carrying out of great political maxims on the British soil.
When two nations express their opinions of one another, and reproach each other with their faults, they are in the habit of paying too little attention to the circumstances which promote or obstruct the advance of freedom. In this respect, the peculiarities of the countries and their geographical position cannot be too highly estimated. Who can tell what would be the condition of Germany, if our country were secure from foreign intervention; and if, as is the case with England, the sea protected it from the violence of its enemies or the insidious advances of its political friends.