cious cosmetics. vile enough to purchase from misery, that which the heart alone can bestow, and receive from famished lips the tender embraces of love! Alas! can there exist men LETTER XIV. Enough of war the wounded earth has known; Tamerlane. Edinburgh, April 9, 1819. THE public papers will inform you of the atrocious attempt made in the French House of Peers, to change the election law and shake the security of national property. The upshot of success in that scheme, would be another bloody struggle between those pestiferous wretches, the Ultras, and the liberaux, terminating infallibly in the victory of the latter, who are implicated with every thing that is young, stable and prosperous in France. Should such a struggle take place, and Bonaparte happen to die in the course of it, young Napoleon might be whistled over from Austria and placed on the throne, in the twinkling of an eye. The conduct of Louis in this dilemma has shown great wisdom; indeed much more than even his admirers suspected him of. He saw the necessity of thwarting the efforts of a de tested faction, whose proceedings have been alike hostile to his own interests and those of the nation. He had recourse, for a good purpose, to the same expedient resorted to by queen Anne, for a very bad one: you recollect that she created, in one day, 30 peers, in order to obtain a majority in the House of Lords. The creation of 59 new members of the Chambre des Pairs, was the easiest and most effectual method by which the designs of the Ultras could be defeated; and the effect of this wise measure on all France, has proved how well it was relished. The existing institutions of that country have all grown out of the Revolution and Louis has had the good sense to perceive, that, as the restoration of the ancient regime, even if it were desirable, (which most I certainly it is not,) is impracticable,—it was necessary that he should put himself at the head of the new order of things, and that he should attach to himself those whose interests are identified with the existing system. One cannot behold without pleasure the spirit of liberty which gains ground in France, and which all the struggles of its enemies will never suppress. Louis has found himself obliged to submit to the temper of the age, and the people of France, under their election law, bid defiance to corruption, and have obtained a national blessing, the effect of which has struck the grand supporters of errors and prejudices with an apprehension bordering on despair. The election of La Fayette has been a terrible blow for the Ultras! The Marquis is attached to those glorious principles which guided him to America, and through the vicissitudes of the French Revolution; which animated him in the field, illustrated him in the senate, consoled him in the horrid dungeon of Olmutz, and now crown him with the suffrages of his countrymen, and with the respect and veneration of all that are not hostile to the cause of liberty, or friendly to that of kingly or ministerial despotism. The state of most of the other European governments is very wretched when compared to that of France. When we look to Spain, we behold a people melting away beneath the tyranny of a wretched usurper, who, incapable of conducting the affairs of men, employs himself in the ideotic occupation of embroidering petticoats for the Virgin Mary! Now that the patriotic flame has burst forth in every part of South America, it is impossible that the utmost efforts of Old Spain should be able to retard the complete emancipation of the American continent. The spirit of independence is too widely spread, and has struck too firm a root in the minds, and is too much interwoven with the habits of the people, to be stifled by such a nauseous creature as Ferdinand. In this country, a great part of the budget is absorbed by the ministers of war and of the marine department; and England, which has possessions in every part of the world, is obliged to make Asia the bloody theatre of war and desolation, now that Europe is pacified. This government cannot be satisfied without perpetual warfare; the peace of mankind appears to throw England out of her natural element, and the hope of exciting misery and desolation in other countries, appears to rouse up all her wicked energies and destructive passions: not that the mass of the people receive any good from the mischief which they cause to their fellow-creatures! What an extension of agriculture even to the tops of their mountains, (says Dr. Franklin;) what rivers rendered navigable, or joined by canals; what bridges, aqueducts, new roads, and other public works, edifices and improvements, rendering England a complete Paradise, might not have been obtained by spending those millions in doing good, which in the last war have been spent in doing mischief! In bringing misery into thousands of families, and destroying the lives of so many thousands of working people, who might have performed the useful labour! Scotland is considered as the brightest jewel on the crown of the British monarch, and its flourishing condition is contrasted with the unhappy state into which oppression has sunk a sister kingdom. Let any man draw a parallel between Scotland, as to loyalty, tranquillity and security, and the same country under Charles and James II.; and then let him ask himself in what condition it would have been at this moment, if the same odious means had been resorted to to establish episcopacy and to uphold it in the "Land o' Cakes," as have been made use of to force protestantism on Ireland? Instead of a pattern of loyalty, it would have been a nest of sedition and discontent, and instead of being a nursery of soldiers and sailors, it would require more soldiers to dragoon it into duty, than it now supplies. I very often employ a leisure evening in perusing the reviews, magazines and newspapers at Stewart's reading room. I receive most pleasure and instruction from that admirable work, the Edinburgh Review, and from a weekly journal called the Scotsman, which is one of the best conducted papers I ever met with. You know that the Edinburgh Reviewers are decided whigs of the Fox school; they are moderate reformers, but are hostile to the views of the radicals. They think that the scale preponderates too much on the side of government, and they want to throw a little on that of the people. They write very eloquently in favour of Borough Reform, &c. and as eloquently against Universal Suffrage, or a system of unmixed popular elections. Their avowed enmity to our glorious country, makes their pretensions to a love of freedom, look rather suspicious;* but I always attribute their * Chatham, Fox and all the distinguished Whigs of the last fifty years, were avowed friends of the Americans; so much so, as to make it, for the present day, (says Mr. Walsh, in his Appeal,)" not only a perversion of natural feeling, but a political apostacy, to treat of their character and concerns, except upon a system of the utmost liberality and indulgence."-Again, "the Reviewers have canted about the tender forbearance due on both |