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upon his wavering and unskilful movements | him; and one of them took that opportunity of in

before his defeat, and on some ambiguous words in the letter which he afterwards wrote to King James; but the natural tenderness of his disposition enables him to interest us in the description of his after sufferings. The following extract, we think, is quite characteristic of the author.

In the mean while, the Queen Dowager, who seems to have behaved with a uniformity of kindness towards her husband's son that does her great nonour, urgently pressed the King to admit his nephew to an audience. Importuned therefore by entreaties, and instigated by the curiosity which Monmouth's mysterious expressions, and Sheldon's story had excited, he consented, though with a fixed determination to show no mercy. James was not of the number of those, in whom the want of an extensive understanding is compensated by a delicacy of sentiment, or by those right feelings which are often found to be better guides for the conduct, than the most accurate reasoning. His nature did not revolt, his blood did not run cold, at the thoughts of beholding the son of a brother whom he had loved, embracing his knees, petitioning, and petitioning in vain, for life!—of interchanging words and looks with a nephew on whom he was inexorably determined, within forty-eight hours, to inflict an ignominious death.

forming him, that their controversial altercations were not yet at an end; and that upon the scaffold, he would again be pressed for more explicit and satisfactory declarations of repentance. When arrived at the bar, which had been put up for the purpose of keeping out the multitude, Monmouth descended from the carriage, and mounted the scaffold with a firm step, attended by his spiritual assistants. The sheriffs and executioners were already there. The concourse of spectators was innumerable, and, if we are to credit traditional accounts, never was the general compassion more affectingly expressed. The tears, sighs, and groans, which the first sight of this heart-rending spectacle produced, were soon succeeded by an universal and awful silence; a respectful attention, and affectionate anxiety, to hear every syllable that should pass the lips of the sufferer. The Duke began by saying he should speak little; he came to die; and he should die a Protestant of the Church of England. Here he was interrupted by the assistants, and told, that if he was of the Church of England, he must acknowledge the doctrine of Non-resistance to be true. In vain did he reply, that, if he acknowledged the doctrine of the church in general, it included all: they insisted he should own that doctrine particularly with respect to his case, and urged much more concerning their favourite point; upon which, however, they obtained nothing but a repetition, in substance, of former answers.

pp. 265, 266.

"In Macpherson's extract from King James' Memoirs, it is confessed that the King ought not to have seen, if he was not disposed to pardon the After making a public profession of his atculprit; but whether the observation is made by the tachment to his beloved Lady Harriet Wentexiled prince himself, or by him who gives the ex-worth, and his persuasion that their connection tract, is in this, as in many other passages of those Memoirs, difficult to determine. Surely, if the King had made this reflection before Monmouth's execution, must have occurred to that monarch, that if he had inadvertently done that which he ought not to have done without an intention to pardon, the only remedy was to correct that part of his Conduct which was still in his power; and since he could not recall the interview, to grant the pardon." pp. 258, 259.

Being sentenced to die in two days, he made a humble application to the King for some little respite; but met with a positive and stern refusal. The most remarkable thing in the history of his last hours, is the persecution which he suffered from the bishops who had been sent to comfort him. Those reverend persons, it appears, spent the greater part of the time in urging him to profess the orthodox doctrines of passive obedience and non-resistance; without which, they said, he could not be an upright member of the church, nor attain to a proper state of repentance! It must never be forgotten, indeed, as Mr. Fox has remarked, if we would understand the history of this period, "that the orthodox members of the church regarded monarchy, not as a human, but as a divine institution; and passive obedience and non-resistance, not as political measures, but as articles of religion."

The following account of the dying scene of this misguided and unhappy youth, is very striking and pathetic; though a certain tone of sarcasm towards the reverend assistants does not, to our feelings, harmonize entirely with the more tender traits of the picture.

"At ten o'clock on the 15th. Monmouth proceeded, in a carriage of the Lieutenant of the Tower, to Tower Hill, the place destined for his execution. Two bishops were in the carriage with

was innocent in the sight of God, he made reference to a paper he had signed in the morning, confessing the illegitimacy of his birth, and declaring that the title of King had been forced on him by his followers, much against his own inclination.

"The bishop, however, said, that there was nothing in that paper about resistance; nor, though Monmouth, quite worn out with their importunities, said to one of them in a most affecting manner, I am to die!-pray my lord!-I refer to my paper,' would these men think it consistent with their duty to desist. There were only a few words they desired on one point. The substance of these applications on one hand, and answers on the other, was repeated, over and over again, in a manner that could not be believed, if the facts were not at tested by the signature of the persons principally concerned. If the Duke, in declaring his sorrow for what had passed, used the word invasion, give it the true name,' said they, and call it rebellion.' What name you please,' replied the mild-tempered Monmouth! He was sure he was going to everlast ing happiness, and considered the serenity of his mind, in his present circumstances, as a certain carnest of the favour of his Creator. His repentance, he said, must be true, for he had no fear of from natural courage,' was the unfeeling and stupid dying; he should die like a lamb! Much may come reply of one of the assistants. Monmouth, with that modesty inseparable from true bravery, denied that he was in general less fearful than other men, maintaining that his present courage was owing to past transgressions, of all which generally he rehis consciousness that God had forgiven him his pented, with all his soul.

"At last the reverend assistants consented to join with him in prayer; but no sooner were they risen from their kneeling posture, than they returned to their charge. Not satisfied with what had passed, they exhorted him to a true and thorough repentance. Would he not pray for the King? and send a dutiful message to his majesty, to recommend the duchess and his children? As you

please;' was the reply, 'I pray for him and for all variety of words and phrases rather more inen.' He now spoke to the executioner, desiring homely and familiar than should find place that he might have no cap over his eyes, and began in a grave composition. Thus, it is said in undressing. One would have thought that in this

last sad ceremony, the poor prisoner might have P. 12, that "the King made no point of adherbeen unmolested, and that the divines would have ing to his concessions." In p. 20, we hear been satisfied, that prayer was the only part of their of men, "swearing away the lives" of their function for which their duty now called upon them. accomplices; and are afterwards told of "the They judged differently; and one of them had the style of thinking" of the country-of "the cryfortitude to request the Duke, even in this stage of the business, that he would address himself to the ing injustice" of certain proceedings-and of soldiers then present, to tell them he stood a sad persons who were "fond of ill-treating and example of rebellion, and entreat the people to insulting" other persons. These, we think, be loyal and obedient to the King. I have said I are phrases too colloquial for regular history, will make no speeches,' repeated Monmouth, in a and which the author has probably been intone more peremptory than he had before been duced to admit into this composition, from his provoked to; I will make no speeches! I come to die. My lord, ten words will be enough, long familiarity with spoken, rather than with said the persevering divine; to which the Duke written language. What is merely lively and made no answer, but turning to the executioner, natural in a speech, however, will often apexpressed a hope that he would do his work better pear low and vapid in writing. The following now than in the case of Lord Russell. He then is a still more striking illustration. In speakfelt the axe, which he apprehended was not sharp ing of the Oxford Decree, which declared the enough, but being assured that it was of proper sharpness and weight, he laid down his head. In doctrine of an original contract, the lawfulness the mean time, many fervent ejaculations were of changing the succession, &c. to be impious used by the reverend assistants, who, it must be as well as seditious, and leading to atheism as observed, even in these moments of horror, showed well as rebellion, Mr. Fox is pleased to obthemselves not unnindful of the points upon which serve-"If Much Ado about Nothing had they had been disputing; praying God to accept his been published in those days, the town-clerk's imperfect and general repentance. declaration, that receiving a thousand ducats for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully, was "flat burglary," might be supposed to be a satire upon this decree; yet Shakespeare, well as he knew human nature, not only as to its general course, but in all its eccentric deviations, could never dream that, in the person of Dogberry, Verges, and their followers, he was representing the vice-chancellors and doctors of our learned University." It would require all the credit of a well-established speaker, to have passed this compari son, with any success, upon the House of Commons; but even the high name of Mr. Fox, we believe, will be insufficient to conceal its impropriety in a serious passage of a history, written in imitation of Lavy and Thucydides.

The executioner now struck the blow; but so feebly or unskillfully, that Monmouth, being but slightly wounded, lifted up his head, and looked him in the face as if to upbraid him; but said nothing. The two following strokes were as ineffectual as the first, and the headsman, in a fit of horror, declared he could not finish his work. The sheriffs threatened him; he was forced again to make a further trial; and in two more strokes separated the head from the body."-pp. 267-269.

With the character of Monmouth, the second chapter of the history closes; and nothing seems to have been written for the third, but a few detached observations, occupying but two pages. The Appendix is rather longer than was necessary. The greater part of the diplomacy which it contains, had been previously published by Macpherson and Dalrymple; and the other articles are of little importance.

Occupied, indeed, as we conceive all the We have now only to add a few words as readers of Mr. Fox ought to be with the sento the style and taste of composition which timents and the facts which he lays before belongs to this work. We cannot say that them, we should scarcely have thought of we vehemently admire it. It is a diffuse, noticing those verbal blemishes at all, had and somewhat heavy style,-clear and man- we not read so much in the preface, of the ly, indeed, for the most part, but sometimes fastidious diligence with which the diction deficient in force, and almost always in vi- of this work was purified, and its style elabovacity. In its general structure, it resembles rated by the author. To this praise we canthe style of the age of which it treats, more not say we think it entitled; but, to praise of than the balanced periods of the succeeding a far higher description, its claim, we think, century-though the diction is scrupulously purified from the long and Latin words which defaced the compositions of Milton and Harrington. In his antipathy to every thing that might be supposed to look like pedantry or affected loftiness, it appears to us, indeed, that the illustrious author has sometimes fallen into an opposite error, and admitted a

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is indisputable. Independent of its singular value as a memorial of the virtues and talents of the great statesman whose name it bears, we have no hesitation in saying, that it is written more truly in the spirit of constitu tional freedom, and of temperate and practical patriotism, than any history of which the public is yet in possession.

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(April, 1805.)

Mémoires d'un Temoin de la Révolution; ou Journal des faits qui se sont passé sous ses yeux, et qui ont preparé et fixé la Constitution Française. Ouvrage Posthume de JEAN SYLVAIN BAILLY, Premier Président de l'Assemblée Nationale Constituant, Premier Maire de Paris, et Membre des Trois Académies. 8vo. 3 tomes. Paris: 1804.*

AMONG the many evils which the French Revolution has inflicted on mankind, the most deplorable, perhaps, both in point of extent and of probable duration, consists in the injury which it has done to the cause of rational freedom, and the discredit in which it has involved the principles of political philosophy. The warnings which may be derived from the misfortunes of that country, and the lessons which may still be read in the tragical consequences of her temerity, are memorable, no doubt, and important: But they are such as are presented to us by the history of every period of the world; and the emotions by which they have been impressed, are in this case too violent to let their import and application be properly distinguished. From the miscarriage of a scheme of frantic innovation, we have conceived an unreasonable and undiscriminating dread of all alteration or reform. The bad success of an attempt to make government perfect, has reconciled us to imperfections that might easily be removed; and the miserable consequences of treating every thing as prejudice and injustice, which could not be reconciled to a system of fantastic equality, has given strength to prejudices, and sanction to abuses, which were gradually wearing away before the progress of reason and philosophy. The French Revolution, in short, has thrown us back half a century in the course of political improvement; and driven many among us to cling once more, with superstitious terror, to those idols from which we had been nearly reclaimed by the lessons of a milder philosophy. When we look round on the wreck and ruin which the whirlwind has scattered over the prospect before us, we tremble at the rising gale, and shrink even from the wholesome air that stirs the fig-leaf on our porch. Terrified and disgusted with the brawls and midnight murders which proceed from intoxication, we are almost inclined to deny ourselves the pleasures of a generous hospitality; and scarcely venture to diffuse the comforts of light or of warmth in our dwellings, when we turn our eyes on the devastation which the flames have committed around us.

The same circumstances which have thus led us to confound what is salutary with what is pernicious in our establishments, have also perverted our judgments as to the

*I have been tempted to let this be reprinted though sensible enough of vices in the style) to show at how early a period those views of the character of the French Revolution, and its first effects on other countries, were adopted-which have not since received much modification.

characters of those who were connected with those memorable occurrences. The tide of popular favour, which ran at one time with a dangerous and headlong violence to the side of innovation and political experiment, has now set, perhaps too strongly, in an opposite direction; and the same misguiding passions that placed factious and selfish men on a level with patriots and heroes, has now ranked the blameless and the enlightened in the herd of murderers and madmen.

There are two classes of men, in particular, to whom it appears to us that the Revolution has thus done injustice; and who have been made to share in some measure the infamy of its most detestable agents, in consequence of venial errors, and in spite of extraordinary merits. There are none indeed who made a figure in its more advanced stages, that may not be left, without any great breach of charity, to the vengeance of public opinion: and both the descriptions of persons to whom we have alluded only existed, accordingly, at the period of its commencement. These were the philosophers or speculative men who inculcated a love of liberty and a desire of reform by their writings and conversation; and the virtuous and moderate, who attempted to act upon these principles at the outset of the Revolution, and countenanced or suggested those measures by which the ancient frame of the government was eventually dissolved. To confound either of these classes of men with the monsters by whom they were succeeded, it would be necessary to forget that they were in reality their most strenuous op ponents-and their earliest victims! If they were instrumental in conjuring up the tem pest, we may at least presume that their cooperation was granted in ignorance, since they were the first to fall before it; and can scarcely be supposed to have either foreseen or intended those consequences in which their own ruin was so inevitably involved. That they are chargeable with imprudence and with presumption, may be affirmed, perhaps, without fear of contradiction; though, with regard to many of them, it would be no easy task, perhaps, to point out by what conduct they could have avoided such an imputation; and this charge, it is manifest, ought at any rate to be kept carefully separate from that of guilt or atrocity. Benevolent inten tions, though alloyed by vanity, and misguided by ignorance, can never become the objects of the highest moral reprobation; and enthusiasm itself, though it does the work of the demons, ought still to be distinguished from treachery or malice. The knightly adven

turer, who broke the chains of the galleyslaves, purely that they might enjoy their deliverance from bondage, will always be regarded with other feelings than the robber who freed them to recruit the ranks of his banditti.

San

tion to the schemes of the sourt, the clergy and the nobility, appears to us to have been as impolitic with a view to their ultimate success, as it was suspicious perhaps as to their immediate motives. The parade which they made of their popularity; the support We have examined in a former article the which they submitted to receive from the extent of the participation which can be fairly menaces and acclamations of the mob; the inputed to the philosophers, in the crimes and joy which they testified at the desertion of miseries of the Revolution, and endeavoured the royal armies; and the anomalous milito ascertain in how far they may be said to tary force, of which they patronized the forhave made themselves responsible for its mation in the city of Paris, were so many consequences, or to have deserved censure for preparations for actual hostility, and led altheir exertions: And, acquitting the greater most inevitably to that appeal to force, by part of any mischievous intention, we found which all prospect of establishing an equitareason, upon that occasion, to conclude, that ble government was finally cut off. there was nothing in the conduct of the ma-guine as the patriots of that assembly unjority which should expose them to blame, or doubtedly were, they might still have redeprive them of the credit which they would | membered the most obvious and important have certainly enjoyed, but for consequences which they could not foresee. For those who, with intentions equally blameless, attempted to carry into execution the projects which had been suggested by the others, and actually engaged in measures which could not fail to terminate in important changes, it will not be easy, we are afraid, to make so satisfactory an apology. What is written may be corrected; but what is done cannot be recalled; a rash and injudicious publication naturally calls forth an host of answers; and where the subject of discussion is such as excites a very powerful interest, the cause of truth is not .always least effectually served by her opponents. But the errors of cabinets and of legislatures have other consequences and other confutations. They are answered by insurrections, and confuted by conspiracies. A paradox which might have been maintained by an author, without any other loss than that of a little leisure, and ink and paper, can only be supported by a minister at the expense of the lives and the liberties of a nation. It is evident, therefore, that the precipitation of a legislator can never admit of the same excuse with that of a speculative inquirer; that the same confidence in his opinions, which justifies the former in maintaining them to the world, will never justify the other in suspending the happiness of his country on the issue of their truth; and that he, in particular, subjects himself to a tremendous responsibility, who voluntarily takes upon himself the new-modelling of an ancient constitution'.

The

lesson in the whole volume of history, That the nation which has recourse to arms for the settlement of its internal affairs, necessarily falls under the iron yoke of a military government in the end; and that nothing but the most evident necessity can justify the lovers of freedom in forcing it from the hands of their governors. In France, there certainly was no such necessity. The whole weight and strength of the nation was bent upon political improvement and reform.— There was no possibility of their being ultimately resisted; and the only danger that was to be apprehended was, that their progress would be too rapid. After the StatesGeneral were once fairly granted, indeed, it appears to us that the victory of the friends to liberty was certain. They could not have gone too slow afterwards; they could not have been satisfied with too little. great object, then, should have been to exclude the agency of force, and to leave no pretext for an appeal to violence. Nothing could have stood against the force of reason, which ought to have given way; and from a monarch of the character of Louis XIV. there was no reason to apprehend any at tempt to regain, by violence, what he had yielded from principles of philanthropy and conviction. The Third Estate would have grown into power, instead of usurping it; and would have gradually compressed the other orders into their proper dimensions, instead of displacing them by a violence that could never be forgiven. Even if the Orders had deliberated separately, (as it apWe are very much inclined to do justice pears to us they ought clearly to have done,) to the virtuous and enlightened men who the commons were sure of an ultimate preabounded in the Constituent Assembly of ponderance, and the government of a perFrance. We believe that the motives of manent and incalculable amelioration. Conmany of them were pure, and their patriot-vened in a legislative assembly, and engrossism unaffected: their talents are still more indisputable: But we cannot acquit them of blameable presumption and inexcusable imprudence. There are three points, it appears to us, in particular, in which they were bound to have foreseen the consequences of their proceedings.

ing almost entirely the respect and affections of the nation, they would have enjoyed the unlimited liberty of political discussion, and gradually impressed on the government the character of their peculiar principles. By the restoration of the legislative function to the commons of the kingdom, the system I. the first place, the spirit of exasperation, was rendered complete, and required only to defiance, and intimidation, with which from be put into action in order to assume all those the beginning they carried on their opposi-improvements which necessarily resulted from.

the increased wealth and intelligence of its | and to expose even those which were salutary representatives.

to misapprehension and miscarriage. From Of this fair chance of amelioration, the a scheme of reformation so impetuous, and nation was disappointed, chiefly, we are in- an impatience so puerile, nothing permanent clined to think, by the needless asperity and or judicious could be reasonably expected. injudicious menaces of the popular party. In legislating for their country, they seem to They relied openly upon the strength of their have forgotten that they were operating on a adherents among the populace. If they did living and sentient substance, and not on an not actually encourage them to threats and to inert and passive mass, which they might acts of violence, they availed themselves at model and compound according to their pleasleast of those which were committed, to in-ure or their fancy. Human society, however, timidate and depress their opponents; for it is not like a piece of mechanism which may is indisputably certain, that the unconditional be safely taken to pieces, and put together by compliance of the court with all the demands the hands of an ordinary artist. It is the of the Constituent Assembly, was the result work of Nature, and not of man; and has either of actual force, or the dread of its im- received, from the hands of its Author, an mediate application. This was the inaus- organization that cannot be destroyed withpicious commencement of the sins and the out danger to its existence, and certain propsufferings of the Revolution. Their progress erties and powers that cannot be altered or and termination were natural and necessary. suspended by those who may have been enThe multitude, once allowed to overawe the trusted with its management. By studying old government with threats, soon subjected those properties, and directing those powers, the new government to the same degradation; it may be modified and altered to a very conand, once permitted to act in arms, came siderable extent. But they must be allowed speedily to dictate to those who were assem- to develope themselves by their internal enbled to deliberate. As soon as an appeal was ergy, and to familiarize themselves with their made to force, the decision came to be with new channel of exertion. A child cannot be those by whom force could at all times be stretched out by engines to the stature of a commanded. Reason and philosophy were man; or a man compelled, in a morning, to discarded; and mere terror and brute vio- excel in all the exercises of an athlete. Those lence, in the various forms of proscriptions, into whose hands the destinies of a great insurrections, massacres, and military execu nation are committed, should bestow on its tions, harassed and distracted the misguided reformation at least as much patient observnation, till, by a natural consummation, they ance and as much tender precaution as are fell under the despotic sceptre of a military displayed by a skilful gardener in his treatusurper. These consequences, we conceive, ment of a sickly plant. He props up the were obvious, and might have been easily for- branches that are weak or overloaded, and seen. Nearly half a century had elapsed gradually prunes and reduces those that are since they were pointed out in those memo- too luxuriant: he cuts away what is absolutely rable words of the most profound and philo- rotten and distempered: he stirs the earth sophical of historians. "By recent, as well about the root, and sprinkles it with water, as by ancient example, it was become evi- and waits for the coming spring! He trains dent, that illegal violence, with whatever the young branches to the right hand or to the pretences it may be covered, and whatever left; and leads it, by a gradual and spontaobject it may pursue, must inevitably end at neous progress, to expand or exalt itself, sealast in the arbitrary and despotic government son after season, in the direction which he of a single person."* had previously determined: and thus, in the course of a few summers, he brings it, without injury or compulsion, into that form and proportion which could not with safety have been imposed upon it in a shorter time. The reformers of France applied no such gentle solicitations, and would not wait for the effects of any such preparatory measures, or voluntary developments. They forcibly broke its lofty boughs asunder, and endeavoured tr straighten its crooked joints by violence: they tortured it into symmetry in vain, and shed its life-blood on the earth, in the middle of its scattered branches.

The second inexcusable blunder, of which the Constituent Assembly was guilty, was one equally obvious, and has been more frequently noticed. It was the extreme restlessness and precipitation with which they proceeded to accomplish, in a few weeks, the legislative labours of a century. Their constitution was struck out at a heat; and their measures of reform proposed and adopted like toasts at an election dinner. Within less than six months from the period of their first convocation, they declared the illegality of all the subsisting taxes; they abolished the old constitution of the States-General; they settled the limits of the Royal prerogative, their own inviolability, and the responsibility of ministers. Before they put any one of their projects to the test of experiment, they had adopted such an enormous multitude, as entirely to innovate the condition of the country,

Hume's History, chapter ix. at the end. The whole passage is deserving of the most profound

iceditation.

The third great danger, against which we think it was the duty of the intelligent and virtuous part of the Deputies to have provided, was that which arose from the sudden transference of power to the hands of men who had previously no natural or individual influence in the community. This was an evil indeed, which arose necessarily, in some degree, from the defects of the old government, and from the novelty of the situation in which

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