disposition to reduce the concession to the lowest measure that could pass upon simplicity and credulity for Reform. Further, they know that rights are to be extorted-that there is no example of rights obtained but by wringing them from the reluctant hands of injustice-and the higher they advance their just demands, and the more resolutely they urge them, the greater is the probability of gaining a sufficient portion of them, or of winning a power that may command more.

We hope to see strong petitions from every part of the country requiring Ballot, and demanding a constituency co-extensive with property and education. By property we do not mean wealth. Every man who possesses or earns a hundred a-year has a property that gives him the closest interest in good government, and if a pecuniary qualification be, as we hope it will, at no distant time, adopted, it should be reduced in amount at stated intervals; as thus-one hundred per annum at the period of enactment, 907. six years afterwards, 801. six years after that, and so descending as improvement is advancing among the industrious classes.

PAUL LOUIS COURIER.

It is difficult to convey an idea of the character of Paul Louis Courier's writings, which have obtained the highest celebrity in France. They so curiously combine various difficult excellencies, that by no particular example can we give a notion of their character and merits. They have the perspicuity and analytical power of Cobbett; the wit of Swift without its grossness; the ease of Addison; with the point and polish of Junius. These are rather terms of praise than of description, we are aware; and every one acquainted with the writings will agre how easy it is to feel and how difficult to specify their peculiar perfection. One faculty of Courier's mind may be broadly distinguished,-a piercing perception which allowed him to be the dupe of none of the stately impostures of the world. Such clear-sighted views are for mankind's benefit, not for the individual's happiness; and in regarding their effect, we are tempted to exclaim with the poet―

"Ill fares the mortal man too much who knows."

The old fable of Acteon would indeed seem to signify the fate of those who see the nakedness of

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great mysteries, they are aspersed, turned from pursuers into prey, and torn to pieces by their own hounds.

In the early life of Paul Louis Courier, we remark that, being wise beyond his generation, he was too wise for success, or for content. In advanced life, indeed, he obtained popularity and fame as a political writer, but with them came persecution; and assassination closed a life to be admired rather than envied. This estimate is formed on our own inferences, and in opposition to the assertions of Courier himself, who is at some pains to impress his friends with an opinion of his happiness-always a suspicious anxiety. In one place he writes thus, and the sentiment is of melancholy interest now that its truth is exemplified by the writer's fate:

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"I am happy, no man living is more so, or any perhaps so content: I do not envy even the peasants I have seen in Switzerland; for I have

advantage over them of knowing my happiness. "Do not say, wait the end; saving the respect due "to the ancients, nothing is more false than that "rule. The evil of to-morrow shall never deprive me of the good of to-day."

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In study Courier found his pleasures, and even when engaged in the toils of an active military life, he made himself the most accomplished Greek scholar of his nation. Books constituted his hap

piness; and the world seems necessarily to have been for him one scene of discontent. He saw, in too much truth for peace, its cheats, injustice, and oppression. A single sentence eloquently indicates his thoughts on this vast subject, and the object of his labours :

:

"Ah! if my tongue could speak that which my ❝ mind sees, if I had the power to show to others the "truth that strikes my eyes, to turn their view "from the false grandeurs they pursue to the con

templation of liberty, all would love, all desire it. "Men would learn that they gain nothing by des"potism, that there is no tyrant above obedience, "no master who may not be slave, and dismissing "the fatal lust of sway, their desire would be to enjoy life, leaving others to enjoy it also."

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Consistent with Courier's love of liberty and independence, was his contempt of the proneness of men to servility, and prostration to gew-gaw idols. With bitterness he remarks,

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"By an instinct of nature, we are valets born;

men are mean and abject; some insolent by the "baseness of all; abhorring justice, right, and equity; "each wishing to be not master but favoured slave. "Were there but three men in the world, one would

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pay court to another and call him Lord, and those "two united would force the third to work for them."

Here we have described in all simplicity the scheme of an admirable constitution. Master, Sycophant, Slave. But in progress of time the

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"my Homer; and to recover it would give the only shirt that remains to me. It was my "society, my sole companion, in the bivouac and "the watch. My comrades laugh. I should like "them to lose their last pack of cards, to see the "face they would put on it."

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A year afterwards he says to a Correspondent,― "Think not I have lost all my time; I have applied myself to useful studies, and I know some things not to be learned in books."

He was indeed always in progress of improvement, and exercising a powerful judgment on the actions and characters of men, as well as applying his abilities to advancement in learning.

At this moment we shall confine ourselves to the indications of Courier's character, which appear in his familiar letters-a most delightful collection: on another opportunity, we propose giving some specimens of those publications which have obtained for him a place in public reputation among the best writers of France.

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What a pleasant picture is this of Emperormanufacture, Napoleon-making, dated May 1804!— "This morning, D'Anthouard assembled us (the regiment) and told us what he was about, "but honestly, without preamble or peroration "An Emperor, or the Republic-which is most to 66 your taste? as they say, roast or boiled, broth or soup, which do you like? His harangue finished

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