joyed their due weight in the administration of the government, and their due share in the distribution of its patronage, there would have been no democratic insurrection, and no materials indeed for such a catastrophe as ensued. That movement, like all great national movements, was produced by a sense of injustice and oppression; and though its immediate consequences were far more disastrous than the evils by which it had been provoked, it should never be forgotten, that those evils were the necessary and lamented causes of the whole. The same principle, indeed, of the necessary connection of oppression and insecurity, may be traced through all the horrors of the revolutionary period. What, after all, was it but their tyranny that supplanted Marat and Robespierre, and overthrew the tremendous power of the wretches for whom they made way? Or, to come to its last and most conspicuous application, does any one imagine, that if Bonaparte had been a just, mild, and equitable sovereign, under whom the people enjoyed equal rights and impartial protection, he would ever have been hurled from his throne, or the Bourbons invited to replace him? He, too, fell ultimately a victim to his tyranny:-and his fall, and their restoration on the terms that have been stated, concur to show, that there is but one condition by which, in an enlightened age, the loyalty of nations can be secured-the condition of their being treated with kindness; and but one bulwark by which thrones can now be protected-the attachment and conscious interest of a free and intelligent people. This is the lesson which the French revolution reads aloud to mankind; and which, in its origin, in its progress, and in its termination, it tends equally to impress. It shows also, no doubt, the dangers of popular insurrection, and the dreadful excesses into which a people will be hurried, who rush at once from a condition of servitude to one of unbounded licentiousness. But the state of servitude leads necessarily to resistance and insurrection, when the measure of wrong and of intelligence is full; and though the history before us holds out most awful warnings as to the reluctance and the precautions with which resistance should be attempted, it is so far from showing that it either can or ought to be repressed, that it is the very moral of the whole tragedy, and of each of its separate acts, that resistance is as inevitably the effect, as it is immediately the cure and the punishment of oppression. The crimes and excesses with which the revolution may be attended, will be more or less violent in proportion to the severity of the preceding tyranny, and the degree of ignorance and degradation in which it has kept the body of the people. The rebellion of West India slaves is more atrocious than the insurrection of a Parisian populace; and that again far more fierce and sanguinary than the movements of an English revolution. But in all cases, the radical guilt is in the tyranny which compels the resistance; and they who are the authors of the misery and the degradation, are also

responsible for the acts of passion and debasement to which they naturally lead. If the natural course of a stream be obstructed, the pent up waters will, to a certainty, sooner or later bear down the bulwarks by which they are confined. The devastation which may ensue, however, is not to be ascribed to the weakness of those bulwarks, but to the fundamental folly of their erection. The stronger they had been made, the more dreadful, and not the less certain, would have been the ultimate eruption; and the only practical les son to be learned from the catastrophe is, that the great agents and elementary energies of nature are never dangerous but when they are repressed; and that the only way to guide and disarm them, is to provide a safe and ample channel for their natural operation. The laws of the physical world, however, are not more absolute than those of the moral; nor is the principle of the rebound of elastic bodies more strictly demonstrated than the reaction of rebellion and tyranny.

If there ever was a time, however, when it might be permitted to doubt of this principle, it certainly is not the time when the tyranny of Napoleon has just overthrown the mightiest empire that pride and ambition ever erected on the ruins of justice and freedom. Protected as he was by the vast military sys tem he had drawn up before him, and still more, perhaps, by the dread of that chaotic and devouring gulf of Revolution which still yawned behind him, and threatened to swal low up all who might drive him from his place, he was yet unable to maintain a dominion which stood openly arrayed against the rights and liberties of mankind. But if tyranny and oppression, and the abuse of imperial power have cast down the throne of Bonaparte, guarded as it was with force and terror, and all that art could devise to embar rass, or glory furnish to dazzle and over-awe, what tyrannical throne can be expected to stand hereafter? or what contrivances can secure an oppressive sovereign from the vengeance of an insurgent people? Looking only to the extent of his resources, and the skill and vigour of his arrangements, no sovereign on the Continent seemed half so firm in his place as Bonaparte did but two years ago. There was the canker of tyranny, however, in the full-blown flower of his greatness. With all the external signs of power and prosperity, he was weak, because he was unjust -he was insecure, because he was oppressive

and his state was assailed from without, and deserted from within, for no other reason than that his ambitious and injurious proceedings had alienated the affections of his people, and alarmed the fears of his neighbours.

The moral, then, of the grand drama which has occupied the scene of civilised Europe for upwards of twenty years, is, we think, at last sufficiently unfolded;-and strange indeed and deplorable it certainly were, if all that labour should have been without fruit, and all that suffering in vain. Something, surely, for our own guidance, and for that of our posteri ty, we ought at last to learn, from so painful

and so costly an experiment. We have lived ages in these twenty years; and have seen condensed, into the period of one short life, the experience of eventful centuries. All the moral and all the political elements that engender or diversify great revolutions, have been set in action, and made to produce their full effect before us; and all the results of misgovernment, in all its forms and in all its extremes, have been exhibited, on the grandest scale, in our view. Whatever quiescent indolence or empiric rashness, individual ambition or popular fury, unrectified enthusiasm or brutal profligacy, could do to disorder the counsels and embroil the affairs of a mighty nation, has been tried, without fear and without moderation. We have witnessed the full operation of every sort of guilt, and of every sort of energy-the errors of strength and the errors of weakness-and the mingling or contrasting effects of terror and vanity, and wild speculations and antiquated prejudices, on the whole population of Europe. There has been an excitement and a conflict to which there is nothing parallel in the history of any past generation; and it may be said, perhaps without any great extravagance, that during the few years that have elapsed since the breaking out of the French revolution, men have thought and acted, and sinned and suffered, more than in all the ages that have passed since their creation. In that short period, every thing has been questioned, every thing has been suggested-and every thing has been tried. There is scarcely any conceivable combination of circumstances under which men have not been obliged to act, and to anticipate and to suffer the consequences of their acting. The most insane imaginations -the most fantastic theories-the most horrible abominations, have all been reduced to practice, and taken seriously upon trial. Nothing is now left, it would appear, to be projected or attempted in government. We have ascertained experimentally the consequences of all extremes; and exhausted, in the real history of twenty-five years, all the problems that can be supplied by the whole science of politics. Something must have been learned from this great condensation of experience;-some leading propositions, either positive or negative, must have been established in the course of it:-And although we perhaps are as yet too near the tumult and agitation of the catastrophe, to be able to judge with precision of their positive value and amount, we can hardly be mistaken as to their general tendency and import. The clearest and most indisputable result is, that the prodigious advances made by the body of the people, throughout the better parts of Europe, in wealth, consideration, and intelligence, had rendered the ancient institutions and exclusions of the old continental governments altogether unsuitable to their actual condition; that public opinion had tacitly acquired a commanding and uncontrollable power in every enlightened community; and that, to render its operation in any degree safe, or consistent with any regular plan of administration, it

was absolutely necessary to contrive some means for bringing it to act directly on the machine of government, and for bringing it regularly and openly to bear on the public counsels of the country. This was not necessary while the bulk of the people were poor, abject, and brutish,-and the nobles alone had either education, property, or acquaintance with affairs; and it was during that period that the institutions were adopted, which were maintained too long for the peace and credit of the world. Public opinion overthrew those in France; and the shock was felt in every feudal monarchy in Europe. But this sudden extrication of a noble and beneficent principle, produced, at first, far greater evils than those which had proceeded from its repression. "Th' extravagant and erring spirit" was not yet enshrined in any fitting organisation; and, acting without balance or control, threw the whole mass of society into wilder and more terrible disorder than had ever been experienced before its disclosure. It was then tried to compress it again into inactivity by violence and intimidation: But it could not be so over-masterednor laid to rest, by all the powerful conjurations of the reign of terror; and, after a long and painful struggle under the pressure of a military despotism, it has again broken loose, and pointed at last to the natural and appropriate remedy, of embodying it in a free Representative Constitution, through the medita tion of which it may diffuse life and vigour through every member of society.

The true theory of that great revolution therefore is, that it was produced by the repression or practical disregard of public opinion, and that the evils with which it was attended, were occasioned by the want of any institution to control and regulate the application of that opinion to the actual management of affairs-And the grand moral that may be gathered from the whole eventful history, seems therefore to be, that in an enlightened period of society, no government can be either prosperous or secure, which does not provide for expressing and giving effect to the general sense of the community.

This, it must be owned, is a lesson worth buying at some cost:-and, looking back on the enormous price we have paid for it, it is no slight gratification to perceive, that it seems not only to have been emphatically taught, but effectually learned. In every corner of Europe, principles of moderation and liberality are at last not only professed, but, to some extent, acted upon; and doctrines equally favourable to the liberty of individuals, and the independence of nations, are univer sally promulgated, in quarters where some little jealousy of their influence might have been both expected and excused. If any one doubts of the progress which the principles of liberty have made since the beginning of the French revolution, and of the efficacy of that lesson which its events have impressed on every court of the Continent, let him compare the conduct of the Allies at this moment, with that which they held in 1790--let him

ing in our sight, and partly at our expense, as an occasion for exercising our own party animosities, or seeking illustrations for our peculiar theories of government, we are still as diametrically opposed, and as keen in our hostilities, as ever. The controversy with us being in a great measure speculative, would lose its interest and attraction, if anything like a compromise were admitted; and we choose, therefore, to shut our eyes to the great and visible approximation into which time, and experience, and necessity have forced the actual combatants. We verily believe, that, except in the imaginations of English politicians, there no longer exist in the world any such aristocrats and democrats as actually divided all Europe in the early days of the French revolution. In this country, however, we still speak and feel as if they existed; and the champions of aristocracy in particular, continue, with very few exceptions, both to maintain pretensions that their principals have long ago abandoned, and to impute to their adversaries, crimes and absurdities with which they have long ceased to be chargeable. To them, therefore, no other alternative has yet presented itself but the absolute triumph of one or other of two opposite and irreconcileable extremes. Whatever is taken from the sovereign, they consider as being necessarily given to crazy republicans; and very naturally dislike all limitations of the royal power, because they are unable to distinguish them from usurpations by the avowed enemies of all subordination. That the real state of things has long been extremely different, men of reflection might have concluded from the known principles of human nature, and men of information must have learned from sources of undoubted authority: But no small proportion of our zealous politicians belong to neither of those classes; and we ought not, perhaps, to wonder, if they are slow in admitting truths which a predominating party has so long thought it for its interest to misrepresent or disguise. The time, however, seems almost come, when conviction must be forced even upon their reluctant understandings,—and by the sort of evidence best suited to their capacity. They would probably be little moved by the best arguments that could be addressed to them, and might distrust the testimony of ordinary observers; but they cannot well refuse to yield to the opinions of the great Sovereigns of the Continent, and must even give faith to their professions, when they find them confirmed at all points by their actions. If the establishment of a limited monarchy in France would be dangerous to sovereign authority in all the adjoining regions, it is not easy to conceive that it should have met with the cordial approbation of the Emperors of Austria and Russia, and the King of Prussia, in the day of their most brilliant success; or that that moment of triumph on the part of the old princes of Europe should have been selected as the period when the thrones of France, and Spain, and Holland, were to be surrounded with permanent limitations,-imposed with their cordial assent, and we might almost say, by their

hands. Compared with acts so unequivocal. all declarations may justly be regarded as insignificant; but there are declarations also to the same purpose;-made freely and deliberately on occasions of unparalleled importance, and for no other intelligible purpose but solemnly to announce to mankind the generous principle on which those mighty actions had been performed.

But while these authorities and these considerations may be expected, in due time, to overcome that pardonable dislike to continental liberty which arises from ignorance or natural prejudices, we will confess that we by no means reckon on the total disappearance of this illiberal jealousy. There is, and we fear there will always be, among us, a set of persons who conceive it to be for their interest to decry every thing that is favourable to liberty, and who are guided only by a regard to their interest. In a government constituted like ours, the Court must almost always be more or less jealous, and perhaps justly, of the encroachment of popular principles, and disposed to show favour to those who would diminish the influence and authority of such principles. Without intending or wishing to render the British crown altogether arbitrary, it still seems to them to be in favour of its constitutional privileges, that arbitrary monarchies should, to a certain extent, be defended; and an artful apology for tyranny is gratefully received as an argument à fortiori in support of a vigorous preroga tive. The leaders of the party, therefore, lean that way; and their baser followers rush clamorously along it—to the very brink of servile sedition, and treason against the constitution.

Such men no arguments will silence, and no authorities convert. It is their profession to discredit and oppose all that tends to promote the freedom of mankind; and in that vocation they will infallibly labour, so long as it yields them a profit. At the present moment, too, we have no doubt, that their zeal is quickened by their alarm; since, independ ent of the general damage which the cause of arbitrary government must sustain from the events of which we have been speaking, their immediate consequences in this country are likely to be eminently favourable to the interests of regulated liberty and temperate reform. Next to the actual cessation of bloodshed and suffering, indeed, we consider this to be the greatest domestic benefit that we are likely to reap from the peace, and the circumstance, in our new situation, which calls the loudest for our congratulation. We are perfectly aware, that it is a subject of regret to many patriotic individuals, that the brilliant successes at which we all rejoice, should have occurred ander an administration which has not manife ed any extraordinary dislike to abuses, nor y very cordial attachment to the rights and berties of the people; and we know, tha. it has been an opinion pretty cur rent, both with them and their antagonists, that those successes will fix them so firmly in power, that they will be enabled, if they should be so inclined, to deal more largely in abuses,