Note 331 — Chapter XVI · ON THE STATE OF THE CONSTITUTION IN THE REIGNS OF ANNE, GEORGE I., AND GEORGE II.

Somerville has a separate dissertation on the danger of the protestant succession, intended to prove that it was in no danger at all, except through the violence of the whigs in exasperating the queen. It is true that Lockhart's Commentaries were not published at this time; but he had Macpherson before him, and the Memoirs of Berwick, and even gave credit to the authenticity of Mesnager, which I do not. But this sensible, and on the whole impartial writer, had contracted an excessive prejudice against the whigs of that period as a party, though he seems to adopt their principles. His dissertation is a laboured attempt to explain away the most evident facts, and to deny what no one of either party at that time would probably have in private denied.