GREAT, n. s. [from the adjective]. The whole; the gross; the whole in a lump.

To let out thy harvest by great or by day,
Let this by experience lead thee the way:
By great will deceive thee with lingering it out,
By day will dispatch.
Tusser's Husbandry.

It were behoveful, for the strength of the navy, that no ships should be builded by the great; for by daily experience they are found to be weak and imperfect. Raleigh's Essays. He did at length so many slain forget, And lost the tale, and took them by the great.

Dryden. Carpenters build an house by the great, and are agreed for the sum of money.

Moron's Mechanical Exercises.

I set aside one day in a week for lovers, and interpret by the great for any gentlewoman who is turned of sixty.

Addison.

Magnanimously; generously; bravely.
Where are these bold intrepid sons of war,
That greatly turn their backs upon the foe,
And to their general send a brave defiance?

GREATNESS, n. s. From great.
Largeness of quantity and number.
Comparative quantity.

Addison.

id.

Greatbellied women

That had not half a week to go, like rams

In the old time of war, would shake the press.

Shakspeare. A greatbellied woman, walking through the city in the day-time, had her child struck out of her womb, Wilkins. and carried half a furlong from her.

GREATEN, v. a. From great. To aggrandize; to enlarge; to magnify. A word little used.

After they sought to greaten themselves in Italy itself, using strangers for the commanders of their armies, the Turks by degrees beat them out of all their Raleigh. goodly countries.

A favourite's business is to please his king, a mi Kenyon. nister's to greaten and exalt him. GREATHEAʼRTED. adj. Great and heart. Highspirited; undejected.

The carl, as greathearted as he, declared that he neither cared for his friendship, nor feared his hatred.

Clarendon.

Milton.

Yet London, empress of the northern clime, By an high fate thou greatly didst expire.

Dryden.

So many

Shakspeare.

As will to greatness dedicate themselves. I beg your greatness not to give the law In other realms; but beaten, to withdraw.

Id.

Dryden.

Id.

Swelling pride; affected state.

Bacon.

Milton.

Grandeur; state; magnificence. Greatness with Timon dwells in such a draught, As brings all Brobdignag before your thought.

GREAT BRITAIN. In the article BRITAIN we shall be found to have introduced a general description of this important island, and to have traced its history from the remotest ages with which we are acquainted, to the period of the establishment of the Saxon kingdom of England, under Egbert. The article ENGLAND pursues the history of that country until the kingdoms of England and Scotland were united under the dominion of one sovereign, James I., and furnishes also the general statistical details, a statement of the rise and progress of the manufactures, present commerce, government, income, &c. of Great Britain. We have undertaken in the present article to complete the history of Great Britain, and to add a few statistical and mis

Pope.

cellaneous details necessary for completing our picture of the existing state of the empire. PART I.

HISTORY OF GREAT BRITAIN.

1. Of the reigns of the House of Stuart to the death of Charles I.-Queen Elizabeth, as we have stated, had expressly recognised the claim of her 'cousin of Scotland' to succeed to the throne; and few sovereigns ever assumed the regal authority with more general approbation, or greater hopes of a peaceable and happy reign. These hopes, however, were soon blasted; and the history of this monarch's reign consists of little more than a detail of his disputes with parliament. A minute account of these we cannot

here enter upon; it would afford but little gratification or instruction to our readers; but it is of importance to know their origin, as they were the primary causes of those events which were soon so conspicuous in the history of Great Britain, and which resulted in our ever memorable Revolution.

In the semi-barbarous ages, which preceded this period, the human mind, enervated by superstition and obscured by ignorance, seems to have resigned all pretensions to liberty, either religious or civil. Unlimited and uncontrolled despotism prevailed every where; and though in England some gleams of better principles of government, and of the dawn of better times appeared, the many examples of arbitrary power exerted by her sovereigns, queen Elizabeth her self not excepted, show that the English were very far from being a free people. An incontestable proof of this, and an evidence how little restraint the people could then lay upon the authority of the sovereign, is, that the proceedings of parliament were accounted, even by the members, of so little consequence, that they did not keep any records of them. It was not till the year 1607, four years after the accession of James, that parliamentary journals began to be regularly compiled, on the motion of Sir Edwin Sandys. Neither were the sessions of parliament regular, and little attention was paid to the choice or continuance of the members. In the reign of Elizabeth, and her predecessors, the sessions did not continue above the twelfth part so long as the vacations. It was then usual, after a parliament had been prolonged beyond one session, for the chancellor to exert a discretionary power of issuing new writs to supply the place of any members whom he judged incapable of attending; and, so late as the 23rd of Elizabeth, the commons, of their own accord, without the smallest court influence, and contrary to some former votes of their own, confirmed the chancellor's power in this respect. Nor did they farther assert their privileges, than to vote, that during the sitting of parliament there do not, at any time, any writ go out for the choosing or returning any member without the warrant of the house.'

Towards the end of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century, a great, but gradual mental revolution took place throughout all Europe. Arts and sciences beginning to flourish, commerce and navigation were greatly extended, and learning of all kinds began to diffuse itself. By more enlarged views, the love of freedom began, in Britain especially, to take place in the breasts of most people of education; and this was greatly promoted by an acquaintance with the ancient Greek and Latin historians. A patriotic spirit arose, and a desire of circumscribing the excessive prerogatives and arbitrary proceedings of the crown rapidly spread throughout the nation. Nor was this desire unreasonable, or ill-founded. During the last years of queen Elizabeth's reign, the commerce, navigation, and number of seamen in England, had sensibly decayed. A remonstrance from the Trinity House in 1602 says, that since 1588, the number of seamen and shipping had decreased about a third part. Every species of domestic industry was

fettered by monopolists; all foreign trade, except that to France, was brought by exclusive companies into the hands of a few rapacious engrossers; and all prospect of future improvement in commerce was sacrificed to a little temporary advantage of the sovereign. These companies, arbitrarily erected, had carried their privileges so far, that almost all the trade of England centered in London; the customs of that port alone amounting to £110,000 a-year, while those of all the rest of the kingdom were only £17,000 And this trade of London was confined to about 200 citizens, who were easily enabled, by combining among themselves, to fix whatever price they pleased both on the exports and imports of the nation. The country was also burdened with wardships and purveyances. The latter arose from an old prerogative of the crown, by which the officers of the household were empowered to take, without consent of the owners, provisions for the king's family, and carts and horses for the removal of his baggage, upon paying a stated price for them. The king had also a power of sending any person, without his consent, on whatever message he pleased; and thus he could easily force any individual to pay him whatever money he chose, rather than be sent out of the country on a disagreeable errand. Money extorted from individuals, by this or any other method, was called a benevolence. The rising spirit of patriotism, which claimed a redress of these grievances, the severe government of Elizabeth had confined within very narrow bounds: but when James succeeded, being a foreign prince, less dreaded and less beloved, symptoms of a more free and independent spirit immediately appeared. Happily James neither perceived the alteration, nor had sufficient capacity to check its early advances. He had established in his own mind a speculative system of absolute government, which few of his subjects, and none but traitors and rebels, he thought, would make any scruple to admit; and cousidered himself as entitled to equal prerogatives with other European sovereigns. In his person he imagined all legal power to be centered by an hereditary and a divine right; nay, so fully was he persuaded that he was the absolute proprietor of his subjects, that in his speech to the parliament in 1621, he told them, that he wished them to have said, that, their privileges were derived from the grace and permission of him and his ancestors.' And when the same parliament protested that the liberties, franchises, privileges, and jurisdictions of parliament, are the ancient and undoubted birth-right and inheritance of the subjects of England,' he was so enraged, that, sending for the journals of the commons, he, with his own hand, before the council, tore out this protest, and ordered his reasons to be inserted in the council book. Such were the opposite dispositions of the prince and parliament, at the commencement of the Scottish line; dispositions just beginning to exist and to appear in parliament, but thoroughly established, and openly avowed on the part of the king, throughout his whole reign. The consequence was, that during this reign the prerogatives of the crown were violently and openly attacked; chiefly on the grounds of money and religion. The king's high

notions of the royal perogative made him imagine he had a right to whatever sums he pleased to demand; and his profusion dissipated in a short time the scanty supplies he could extort from the parliament. With regard to religion, the nation was at this time greatly divided between the rival claims of episcopalianism and puritanism. Though the severities of Elizabeth had almost totally suppressed the Papists, it had been otherwise with the Puritans. So much had they increased, by the very means which had diminished the number of Catholics, that no fewer than 750 clergymen of that persuasion signed an address to James on his accession. They hoped that the new king, having received his education in Scotland, and having always professed an attachment to the church established there, would at least abate the rigor of the laws enacted against them, and perhaps advance them to equal favor with their rivals. But in this they were mistaken. He had observed in their Scottish brethren a great inclination towards republicanism, and a zealous attachment to civil liberty. In the capacities both of monarch and theologian, he had experienced the little complaisance they were disposed to show him. They controlled his commands; disputed his tenets; and to his face, before the whole people, censured his conduct and behaviour. Though he had been obliged, therefore, while in Scotland, to court their favor, he treasured up on that account the stronger resentment against their principles, and was now determined to resist them with the whole weight of his authority. Hence he not only rejected their petition, but throughout his whole reign refused to relax in the least the severity of the laws against Protestant nonconformists.

The same feelings which occasioned in James such an aversion to the Puritans, prompted him to favor even the Papists, as being greater friends to despotism. In his youth he had been suspected of a bias towards the religion of the latter; when he ascended the throne of England, it is certain he often endeavoured to procure some mitigation of the laws against them. But in this he was constantly opposed by the parliament; and, indeed, the strong inclination shown by James to establish episcopacy in every corner of his dominions, tended much to alienate from him the minds of many of his subjects, especially in Scotland. In May, 1617, the king set out for that country expressly with the design of establishing episcopacy there. He did not, however, design to abolish presbytery entirely. He only proposed at first to establish the royal authority above the ecclesiastical, and to introduce some ceremonies into the public worship, such as kneeling at the sacrament, private communion, and baptism, confirmation, the observance of Christmas, &c. But he as little knew his own countrymen, on these points, as the English every advance towards episcopacy gave the greatest discontent, and these trivial ceremonies were at once rejected as if they involved mortal sins. We cannot on the whole wonder that James should have been desirons of subjugating the rebellious and turbulent spirit of the Scottish clergy; and, on the other hand, considering the extreme weakness of this monarch's understand

:

ing, and that he imagined himself able to manage not only furious religionists, but even the most powerful foreign nations, with no other weapon than mere argumentation, we can as little wonder at his want of success.-In short, so far was James from being able to establish his royal authority above the ecclesiastical, that he found himself unable to introduce a single ceremony. He returned therefore with the mortification, not only of seeing his schemes entirely baffled with regard to Scotland, but of having disgusted even the few of that nation over whom religious prejudice did not prevail; and who, regarding the ceremonies so much insisted on by the king as trivial and insignificant, considered the national honor sacrificed in this attempt at a servile imitation of the worship practised in England. Equally bad success attended James when he attempted some opposition to the puritanical innovations in the latter country. He had observed, in his progress through the kingdom, that a Judaical observance of the Sunday gained ground; and that the people were thus debarred from recreations which contributed, as he thought, to their health and amusement. He now, therefore, issued a proclamation to allow, after divine ser vice, all kinds of lawful games and exercises.' But this his subjects considered as an effort to introduce the utmost profaneness. In 1620 a bill was brought in by the commons for the more strict observance of the Sunday or 'sabbath,' and when one Shepherd opposed this bill, objecting to the appellation sabbath as puritanical, he was expelled the house by the suggestion of Mr. Pym. Such was the situation of religious affairs during this reign.

The first thing of political consequence, which transpired in it, was a conspiracy formed in the year of the king's accession to displace him, and bestow the kingdom on Arabella Stuart. Sir Walter Raleigh was said to have been concerned in this mysterious affair; for which he was tried, condemned without sufficient proof, and, after suffering thirteen years imprisonment in the tower, was executed out of complaisance to the Spaniards. Lord Gardenstone remarks, that James I. butchered Sir Walter without the form of a trial,' and censures Mr. Hume for attempting to vindicate James. See RALEIGH. In 1605 was discovered the famous gun-powder plot, the anniversary of which discovery has ever since been celebrated. Its origin is thus stated:-On the accession of James great expectations had been formed by the Catholics, that he would prove favorable to their religion; but, their hopes, as well as those of the Puritans, were disappointed. James expressed his intention of executing strictly the laws againt them, and of persevering in all the rigorous measures of queen Elizabeth. A plan of revenge was now, therefore, thought of by Robert Catesby, a gentleman of good parts, and of an ancient family. He communicated his mind to Percy, a descendant of the house of Northumberland, when the latter proposed to assassinate the king: but this seemed to Catesby a very inadequate object. He told Percy, that the king would be succeeded by his children, who would also inherit his maxims of government, and urged that if even the whole royal family

were destroyed, the parliament, nobility, and gentry, who were infected with the same heresy, would raise another protestant prince to the throne. To serve any good purpose they must he insisted destroy, at one blow, the king, the royal family, the lords and commons; and bury all their enemies in a common ruin. This terrible scheme being approved of, it was resolved to effect it by springing a mine under both houses of parliament. Thomas Winter was sent over to Flanders in quest of Fawkes, an officer in the Spanish service. All the conspirators were bound to secrecy by the most solemn oaths, accompanied with the sacrament; and, so completely had superstition effaced every principle of humanity from their minds, that not one of them seems to have entertained the smallest compunction for the cruel massacre they intended. Some indeed were startled at the thoughts of destroying a number of Catho lics, who must necessarily be present as spectators, or attendants on the king. But Tesmond a Jesuit, and Garnet superior of that order in England, are said to have removed these scruples, by showing that the interests of religion required in this case the sacrifice of the innocent with the guilty. This was in the spring and summer of 1604; when the conspirators hired a house in Percy's name, adjoining to that in which the parliament was to assemble. Towards the end of that year they began to pierce the wall of the house, in order to get in below that where the parliament was to sit; but found, while in the midst of their task, that a magazine of coals had been kept in a vault immediately under the house; and that the coals were then selling off, after which the vault would be let. It was therefore hired by Percy; thirty-six barrels of powder lodged in it; the whole covered up with faggots and billets; the doors of the cellar boldly flung open; and every body admitted as if it contained nothing dangerous. Being now, as they thought, assured of success, the conspirators began to plan the remaining part of their enterprise. The king, the queen, and prince Henry, were expected to be present at the opening of the parliament and the duke of Albany it was resolved that Percy should seize or murder. The princess Elizabeth, likewise a child, was kept at lord Harrington's house in Warwickshire; and some others of the conspirators engaged to as semble their friends on pretence of a hunting match, when they were to seize that princess, and immediately proclaim her queen. The day so long wished for at last approached; the dreadful scheme, though communicated to more than twenty persons, had been religiously kept for nearly a year and a half; and nothing could be foreseen which could possibly prevent its success. Ten days before the meeting of parliament, however, lord Monteagle, a Catholic, son to lord Morley, received the following letter, which had been delivered to his servant by an unknown hand: My lord, out of the love I bear to some of your friends, I have a care for your preservation. Therefore I would advise you, as you tender your life, to devise some excuse to shift off your attendance on this parliament. For God and man have determined to punish the wicked

ness of the times. And think not slightly of this advertisement; but retire yourself into the country, where you may expect the event in safety. For, though there be no appearance of any stir, yet I say, they will receive a terrible blow this parliament; and yet they shall not see who hurts them. This counsel is not to be contemued, because it may do you good, and can do you no harm; for the danger is over as soon as you have burned this letter. And I hope God will give you the grace to make use of it, to whose holy protection I commend you.' Though Monteagle imagined this letter to be only designed to frighten him, he carried it to lord Salisbury, secretary of state; who laid it before the king. James regarded it in a more serious light. He at once concluded that a design was entertained of blowing up the parliament house with gunpowder, and it was thought advisable to search the vaults below. This, however, was wisely delayed till the day before the meeting of parliament; when the lord chamberlain, observing the great piles of wood and faggots which lay in the vault under the upper house, resolved to make a further search. About midnight, Sir Thomas Knevit, a justice of peace, arrived with proper attendants; and, finding Fawkes arrived at the door of the vault, he immediately seized him, and, turning over the fag'gots, discovered the gunpowder. Matches and every thing necessary for setting fire to the train were also taken on the person of Fawkes, who, now in despair, expressed the utmost regret, that he had lost the opportunity of firing the powder at once, and of sweetening his own death by that of his enemies. For two or three days he manifested the same obstinacy, but, being confined in the tower, and the rack shown to him, his courage failed, and he made a full discovery of the conspirators. Catesby, Percy, and others of them, however, on hearing that Fawkes was arrested, hurried into Warwickshire; where Sir Everard Digby, imagining that the confederates had succeeded, was already in arms to seize the princess Elizabeth. But the country people raised by the sheriffs soon surrounded the conspirators and their attendants to the number of about eighty; and, though they resolved to sell their lives as dearly as possible, some of their powder took fire, and disabled them from defending themselves. The people then rushed in upon them. Percy and Catesby were killed with one shot. Digby, Rookwood, Winter, and others, being taken prisoners, were tried, confessed their guilt, and died, together with Garnet, by the hands of the common executioner. The lords Stourton and Mordaunt, two Catholics, were fined, in the sums of £4000, and £10,000 respectively, by the star-chamber; their absence from parliament having occasioned a suspicion of their being acquainted with the conspiracy: and the earl of Northumberland detained several years a prisoner in the tower; because, among other grounds of suspicion, he had admitted Percy into the number of gentlemen pensioners, without his taking the requisite oaths. He also was condemned to pay a fine of £30,000.

In 1612 James appears in his mest advantageous point of view, namely, as a legislator of

Ireland In this work he proceeded by a steady, regular, and well-concerted plan. He began with abolishing the ancient Irish customs, which supplied the place of laws, and which were exceedingly barbarous and absurd. By the Brehon laws every crime, however enorinous, was punished, not with death, but by a fine. Murder itself was compensated in this way. Every one had a value affixed to him, called his eric; and whoever was able to pay this, might kill him when he pleased. To the slight offences of oppression, extortion, &c., no penalty was affixed, nor could any redress for them be obtained. By the custom of Gavelkind, upon the death of any person, his land was divided among all the males of the sept or family, both legitimate and illegitimate; and after partition was made, if any of the sept died, his portion was not shared out among his sons, but the chieftain at his discretion made a new partition of the lands. As no man, by this custom, enjoyed a fixed property in land; to build, cultivate, or improve, was considered as lost labor. Their chieftains were established by election, or rather by force. Their authority was absolute; and, notwithstanding certain lands were assigned to the office, its chief profit resulted from exaction and assessments, for which there was no fixed law. After abolishing these customs, and substituting English laws in their place, James took the natives under his protection, declared them free citizens, and proceeded to govern them by a regular administration. A sufficient army was maintained, its discipline inspected, and its pay transmitted from England. When O'Doghartie raised an insurrection, a reinforcement was sent over, and the rebellion immediately extinguished. All minds being first quieted by a universal indemnity, circuits were now established, justice administered, and crimes of every kind severely punished. As the Irish had been universally engaged in a rebellion against Elizabeth, a resignation of all the separate jurisdictions formerly granted them was rigorously exacted; a resignation of private estates was even required; and, when they were restored, the proprietors received them under such conditions as might prevent future tyranny and oppression. The whole province of Ulster having fallen to the crown, by the attainder of rebels, a company was established in London for planting new colonies in that fertile country. The land being divided into shares, of which the largest did not exceed 2000 acres: tenants were brought over from England and Scotland: the Irish were removed from the hills, and settled in the open country; husbandry and the arts were taught them; and thus Ulster, from being the most wild and disorderly province in Ireland, soon became the most civilised and best cultivated.

This year Henry, prince of Wales, died suddenly on the 6th of November, not without strong suspicions of poison. On opening his body, however, no symptoms of poison appeared; but his death diffused a universal grief throughout the nation, as he was reckoned a prince of extraordinary accomplishments. But the marriage of the princess Elizabeth with Frederic elector palatine, which was celebrated February 14th,

1613, served to dissipate the national grief. This marriage, however, in the event, proved unhappy to the king, as well as to his son-in-law. The elector, trusting to so great an alliance, engaged in enterprises beyond his strength; and James, not being able, and perhaps not willing, to assist hin, lost entirely the affections of his people. This particularly appeared in the year 1619. At this time the states of Bohemia having taken arms against the emperor Matthias, in defence of the Protestant religion, continued their revolt against his successor Ferdinand II., and, being alarmed at his preparations against them, made an offer of their crown to the elector palatine, who, stimulated by ambition, at once accepted the offer, and marched all his forces into Bohemia. But his affairs soon drew to an unfortunate crisis. Being defeated, in the great and decisive battle of Prague, he fled with his family into Holland; and Spinola the Spanish general invested and reduced the palatinate, every new conquest of the Catholics being attended with persecutions against the Protestants. At this news the religions zeal of the English was inflamed to the highest degree. The sufferings of their Protestant brethren, in Germany, excited their sympathy and resentment; and the inactive spirit shown by James was loudly exclaimed against.

Not having been, however, cor.sulted by his son-in-law, James from the very first had denied his title of king of Bohemia, and forbad him to be prayed for in the churches under that appellation. He was also on other accounts extremely averse to come to a rupture with the king of Spain. The eldest daughter of that monarch had been indirectly offered to prince Henry and even after James, in consequence of his alliance with the Dutch, had marched 4000 men to the assistance of the Protestants, the Spanish ambassador, Gondomar, made, in 1618, an offer of the king's second daughter to prince Charles. Of this match James had entertained great hopes, not only as a means of relieving his own necessities, but of recovering the palatinate for his son-inlaw. But on the 14th November, 1621, the commons framed a remonstrance with him upon these subjects. They represented, that the enormous growth of the Austrian power threatened the liberties of Europe; that the progress of the Catholic religion in England bred the most melancholy apprehensions, lest it should again acquire an ascendancy; the indulgence of his majesty towards the professors of that religion having encouraged their insolence; and, above all, that the Spanish match elevated them so far as to hope for an entire toleration, if not a final re-establishment. They therefore entreated his majesty, that he would immediately undertake the defence of the palatinate, and maintain it by force of arms; that he would turn his sword against Spain, whose armies and treasures were the chief support of the Catholic interest in Europe; that he would enter into no negociation for the marriage of his son but with a Protestant princess; that the children of popish recusants should be taken from their parents, and committed to the care of Protestant teachers and schoolmasters; and that the fines and con