Compositions the most despicable, both for style and matter, have been extolled, and propagated, and read; as if they had equalled the most celebrated remains of antiquity.[*] * Such as Rapin Thoyras, Locke, Sidney, Hoadley, etc.
And forgetting that a regard to liberty, though a laudable passion, ought commonly to be subordinate to a reverence for established government, the prevailing faction has celebrated only the partisans of the former, who pursued as their object the perfection of civil society, and has extolled them at the expense of their antagonists, who maintained those maxims that are essential to its very existence.

But extremes of all kinds are to be avoided; and though no one will ever please either faction by moderate opinions, it is there we are most likely to meet with truth and certainty.
We shall subjoin to this general view of the English government some account of the state of the finances, arms trade, manners, arts, between the restoration and revolution.
The revenue of Charles II., as settled by the long parliament, was put upon a very bad footing.

It was too small, if they intended to make him independent in the common course of his administration: it was too large, and settled during too long a period, if they resolved to keep him in entire dependence.

The great debts of the republic, which were thrown upon that prince; the necessity of supplying the naval and military stores, which were entirely exhausted;[*] that of repairing and furnishing his palaces: all these causes involved the king in great difficulties immediately after his restoration; and the parliament was not sufficiently liberal in supplying him.

Perhaps, too, he had contracted some debts abroad; and his bounty to the distressed cavaliers, though it did not correspond either to their services or expectations, could not fail, in some degree, to exhaust his treasury.
The extraordinary sums granted the king during the first years did not suffice for these extraordinary expenses; and the excise and customs, the only constant revenue, amounted not to nine hundred thousand pounds a year, and fell much short of the ordinary burdens of government.