HISTORY OF MODERN EUROPE. A CHAPTER XLII. T this epoch we pause a moment to cast a glance on some of the characteristics of the period extending from the Peace of Westphalia to the first French Revolution. The wars which sprung out of the Reformation were closed by the Thirty Years' War-a crime too gigantic to be repeated. So long a strife, if it did not extinguish, at least mitigated religious animosity; above all, Rome saw that she had no longer the power to excite and nourish it. The results, both of the war and the peace, must have convinced the most sanguine Pope that no reasonable expectation could any longer be entertained of subjugating the Protestants by force. Nearly all Europe had been engaged in the struggle, and the cause of Rome had been vanquished. Nay, the Papal Court had been even foiled in the more congenial field of negotiation and diplomacy. The influence exercised by the Papal Nuncios at the Congress of Münster had been quite insignificant. A peace entirely adverse to the Pope's views had been concluded, against which, instead of those terrible anathemas which had once made Europe tremble, Innocent X. had contented himself with launching a feeble protest, which nobody, not even the Catholic Princes, regarded. The Peace of Westphalia may, therefore, be considered as inaugurating a new era, whose character was essentially political. It is true that the religious element is not altogether eliminated in the intercourse of nations. The Catholic and the Protestant Powers have still, in some degree, different interests, and still more different views and sentiments; and in the great struggle, for instance, between Louis XIV. and William III., the former monarch may in some measure be regarded as the representative of the Papacy, the 4 AGE OF LOUIS XIV. [CHAP. XLII. latter of the Reformation. Yet in these contests political interests were altogether so predominant that what little of religion seems mixed up with them was only subservient to them, and a means rather than an end. These changes were not without their effect on the intellectual condition of Europe. The same causes which produced the Reformation had set all the elements of thought in motion, had given rise to bold and original geniuses and great discoveries. The human mind seemed all at once to burst its shackles, and to march forth to new conquests. It was the age which showed the way. Columbus discovered a new hemisphere, Copernicus a new system of the universe, Bacon a new method of all sciences. Boldness and originality also characterized literature, and the age of the Reformation produced Shakspeare and Rabelais. The following period, of which we are here to treat, employed itself in working on the materials which the previous era had provided, and in setting them in order. It was the age of criticism and analysis. Intellectual efforts, if no longer so daring, were more correct. Science made less gigantic, but surer steps; literature, if less original, no longer offended by glaring blemishes at the side of inimitable beauties. The spirit of the age was best exhibited in France. French modes of thinking, French literature, French taste, French manners, became the standard of all Europe, and caused the period to be called the AGE OF LOUIS XIV. Its influence survived the reign of that Monarch, and gave a moral weight to France, even after her political preponderance had declined. When we talk of the "Age of Pericles," the "Age of Augustus," the "Age of Louis XIV.", we naturally imply that the persons from whom those periods took their names exercised a considerable influence on the spirit by which they were characterized. In reality, however, this influence extended no further than to give a conventional tone and fashion. The intellectual condition which prevailed from about the middle of the seventeenth century till towards the close of the eighteenth was the natural result of the period which preceded it; and it might, perhaps, not be difficult to show that the same was the case with the two celebrated eras of Athens and Rome. It would be absurd to suppose that the patronage of the great can call works of genius into existence. Such patronage, however, especially where there is no great general public to whom the authors of works of art and literature may address themselves, is capable of giving such works their form and |