[Transcriber's note: This production is based onhttps://archive.org/details/historyoforigino00guiz/page/n9.The lecture subheadings (page headers) are shown in italics.The publisher has included a lengthy list of other bookson the front and back fly leafs. These have gathered atthe end of this file. Several of these pages are obscuredby library inserts for circulation control.]
London:
Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden.
1852.
{iv}
Printed By Harrison And Son,
London Gazette Office, St. Martin's Lane;
And
Orchard Street, Westminster.
In 1820, at the time when the various faculties of theAcadémie de Paris and the Collège de France wererecommencing their courses of lectures, several persons combinedto establish a Journal des Cours Publiques, in which theyreproduced, from their notes, the lectures which they hadattended. The course which I delivered, at this period, on thehistory of Representative Government, occupies a place in thiscollection. I did not revise the analyses of my lectures whichwere published. They were brief and incomplete, and frequentlyincorrect and confused. I have been requested to authorize areprint of them. I could not consent to this without bestowingupon these analyses, at the present day, that labour of revisionto which they were not subjected at the time of theirpublication. The two volumes which I now publish are the resultof this labour, which has been more protracted, and has involvedmore considerable alterations than I at first anticipated. Inorder to accomplish it, I have frequently had recourse to myEssaies sur l'Histoire de France, in which I embodied, in1823, some of my researches on the same subject. This course oflectures on the origin of Representative Government is now asexact and complete as if my lectures in 1820-1822 had beencollected and revised with the same care as I bestowed, in1827-1830, on the publication of my courses on the GeneralHistory of Civilization in Europe, and on the History ofCivilization in France.
When, in the year 1820, I devoted my energies to this course ofinstruction, I was taking leave of public life, after having,during six years, taken an active part in the work ofestablishing representative government in our own land. Thepolitical ideas and friends with whom I had been associated were,at that period, removed from the head of affairs. I connectedmyself with their reverses, without abandoning our common hopesand efforts. We had faith in our institutions. Whether theyentailed upon us good or evil fortune, we were equally devoted tothem. I was unwilling to cease to serve their cause. Iendeavoured to explain the origin and principles ofrepresentative government, as I had attempted to practise it.
How shall I speak, at the present day, of bad fortune andreverse, in reference to 1820? What shall we