Note 33 — DIALOGUE VI. ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT. SIR JOHN MAYNARD, MR. SOMERS, BISHOP BURNET.
Reading edition
This appears even from Mr. Hume’s own account of the feudal times; incomparably the best part of his History of England. And it is to be presumed that, if so ingenuous a writer had begun his work at the right end, he would have been led, by the evidence of so palpable a truth, to express himself more favourably, indeed more consistently, of the English constitution. But having, by some odd chance, written the history of the Stuarts first, and afterwards of the Tudors, (in both which he found it for his purpose to adopt the notion of a despotic independent spirit in the English monarchy), he chuses in the last part of his work, which contains the history of England from Julius Cæsar to Henry VII. to abide by his former fancy; on this pretence, that, in the administration of the feudal government, the liberty of the subject was incomplete and partial; often precarious and uncertain: a way, in which the learned historian might prove, that no nation under heaven ever was, or ever will be, possessed of a FREE CONSTITUTION.
By the FREE CONSTITUTION of the English monarchy, every advocate of liberty, that understands himself, I suppose, means, that limited plan of policy, by which the supreme legislative power (including in this general term the power of levying money) is lodged, not in the prince singly, but jointly in the prince and people; whether the popular part of the constitution be denominated the king’s or kingdom’s great council, as it was in the proper feudal times; or the parliament, as it came to be called afterwards; or, lastly, the two houses of parliament, as the style has now been for several ages.
To tell us, that this constitution has been different at different times, because the regal or popular influence has at different times been more or less predominant, is only playing with a word, and confounding constitution with administration. According to this way of speaking, we have not only had three or four34, but possibly three or four score, different constitutions. So long as that great distribution of the supreme authority took place (and it has constantly and invariably taken place, whatever other changes there might be, from the Norman establishment down to our times) the nation was always enabled, at least authorized, to regulate all subordinate, or, if you will, supereminent claims and pretensions. This it effectually did at the Revolution, and, by so doing, has not created a new plan of policy, but perfected the old one. The great MASTER-WHEEL of the English constitution is still the same; only freed from those checks and restraints, by which, under the specious name of prerogatives, time and opportunity had taught our kings to obstruct and embarrass its free and regular movements.
On the whole, it is to be lamented that Mr. Hume’s too zealous concern for the honour of the house of Stuart, operating uniformly through all the volumes of his history, has brought disgrace on a work, which, in the main, is agreeably written, and is indeed the most readable general account of the English affairs, that has yet been given to the public.