or no literary or ecclesiastical activity, although there are, now and then, small flashes of anticipation of what is coming : the reign of Henry VIII would not in any respect have been what it was, if he had not had a predecessor like Henry VII ; but, such as it was, it gathers up and concentrates in itself all the interest that would properly belong to that of his father. I have said enough about the political importance of the reign, and perhaps in the last lecture more than enough about personal incidents and characteristics. T o the last, however, Henry VII remains somewhat of an enigma to us. Was he a great king ? If it be enough to constitute a great king, to have reigned twenty-four years without a single important war, and to have united in apparent peace a ] number of dynastic forces that had been struggling for a century; to have found England weak and poor, and divided against herself and isolated in Europe, drenched in blood and impotent in internal government; and to have left her rich, and at peace with herself, and growing in contentment, and well administered; having a place in the councils of Europe second to none, courted on every side and able to make her weight felt perceptibly in the balance ; to leave a full treasury and an uncontested title to his successor, and a reputation stained by nothing that in the eyes of his contemporaries bore the guilt of crime.; then the reign of Henry VII was a great reign, and perhaps Henry VII himself was a great king. If we look rather on the moral of the reign we may somewhat modify our opinion. We look in vain for anything that would constitute him a hero or a benefactor. We find no great fault except his avarice, but even that cannot be regarded as the vulgar appetite for hoarding : and avarice, in a king who keeps within the letter of the law and the constitution, is perhaps really, and certainly in a land which had