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POLITICAL CONSEQUENCESthe more complicated and firmer the mutual connexion ofthe states. In a systemof this kind, the most powerful istaught, that the oppression or annihilation of a weaker state,but one which it finds a useful ally,is far from being. amatter of indifference; and thus states of the second, oreven of the third order, become elevated to a degree ofpolitical importance which they could not otherwise attain ;and which is the security upon which their very existencedepends.Mere selfishness must thus yield to policy and;since the most giftedmen of our own times have recognisedthe necessity of restoring,as far as possible, the shatterededifice which the storms of the revolution shook to the earth,the author who treats of it can hardly venture to doubt thatit is the only one worthy of an enlightened age.The Reformation, for a considerable time, exercised theprincipal influence upon the workings of this system, although it cannot be said to have been the original cause ofits existence. The idea of a balance of power was spreadover Europe, with other political notions, by the Italians,among whose states perfectly independent as they wereup to the end of the fifteenth itcentury had been planted,watched over, and brought to maturity, and then again suffered to decay and become useless but the;almost incredible vacillation, which the general policy of the first fifteenyears of the sixteenth century shows to have prevailed, is anevidence that the science was as yet without sure foundations, and that the main principles of the practical politicsof Europe were still undermined. The history of no otherera presents such a web of projects and counter-projects, ofalliances and counter-alliances; but it is not improbable thatthis very abundance was a token that the want of more secure principles was felt, while these were the only remedieswhich could be applied ;and thus the political system ofthat day may be likened to an unwieldy mass, whose centreof gravity has not yet been ascertained. The sudden rise ofthe house of Eapsburg, by the union of the imperial throneand the most important Austrian possessions with theSpanish monarchy, put an end to this vacillation. Thecharacter which France was destined to support in the general scheme of European politics, was now at once determined ; the rivalry of Francis I and Charles V. laid the