Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Principal events in Bolingbroke's life
- Further reading
- Note on texts
- A Dissertation upon Parties (1733–34)
- LETTER I
- LETTER II
- LETTER III
- LETTER IV
- LETTER V
- LETTER VI
- LETTER VII
- LETTER VIII
- LETTER IX
- LETTER X
- LETTER XI
- LETTER XII
- LETTER XIII
- LETTER XIV
- LETTER XV
- LETTER XVI
- LETTER XVII
- LETTER XVIII
- LETTER XIX
- ‘On the Spirit of Patriotism’ (1736)
- The Idea of a Patriot King (1738)
- Biographical notes
- Index of persons
- Index of subjects
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
LETTER XIV
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Principal events in Bolingbroke's life
- Further reading
- Note on texts
- A Dissertation upon Parties (1733–34)
- LETTER I
- LETTER II
- LETTER III
- LETTER IV
- LETTER V
- LETTER VI
- LETTER VII
- LETTER VIII
- LETTER IX
- LETTER X
- LETTER XI
- LETTER XII
- LETTER XIII
- LETTER XIV
- LETTER XV
- LETTER XVI
- LETTER XVII
- LETTER XVIII
- LETTER XIX
- ‘On the Spirit of Patriotism’ (1736)
- The Idea of a Patriot King (1738)
- Biographical notes
- Index of persons
- Index of subjects
- Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought
Summary
Sir,
The defects, which I have presumed to censure in the Roman constitution of government, were avoided in some of those that were established on the breaking of that empire, by the northern nations and the Goths; for I suspect that the Goths were not properly and strictly a northern nation, any more than the Huns and the Alans, though they have been often confounded, and I believe by myself. – Let us cast our eyes on Spain and France.
We cannot arrive, as far as my scanty knowledge informs me, at any particular and authentic account of the scheme of that government which the western Goths established, when, driven out of Gaul by the Franks, they drove the Vandals and the Alans out of Spain; nor distinguish very accurately between such institutions as were parts of the original Gothic plan, and such as were introduced into the several kingdoms that formed themselves on the reconquest of the country by the Spaniards from the Arabs and Moors. The original of the Cortes particularly is quite in the dark, as we are assured by a very industrious enquirer and judicious writer. Thus much, however, we may assert, that the Gothic kings were at first elective, and always limited, even after they became hereditary; and that the Cortes, whenever it was established, was an assembly, that may be more truly compared to a British Parliament than the assembly of the states of France could ever pretend to be.
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- Information
- Bolingbroke: Political Writings , pp. 132 - 142Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997